Dear parent/carer and pupil of our school,
First and foremost I hope this correspondence finds you well. You should know that whether you are a parent/carer or pupil, my thoughts and prayers have been with you through these unprecedented times that we have all been experiencing.
On Monday 15th, I updated you on the City of Edinburgh’s council position on returning to school (School Recovery as it’s commonly known) from 10th August.
In the correspondence, which applies to all secondary schools in Edinburgh, it states that in order to comply with COVID protocols, whilst ensuring appropriate health and safety, we will return on a 33% occupancy from Monday to Thursday. After careful consideration and with pupil learning, development and progression in mind, I have taken the decision to apply this to our school in the following way (see attachment page 4 and 5 ). In summary, we have divided our school into thirds, the following way
Population A S1 every Monday
Population B S2 and S3 every Tuesday
Population C S4,S5 and S6 every Wednesday
Rota of A, B or C every Thursday
No pupils every Friday
*please note there will be separate arrangements for wb 10th August as two in-service days have been planned*
In the attachment you will notice that school days have been adjusted to ensure all pupils, at all stages, get the curriculum offering they deserve under the current COVID protocols and we have been tirelessly applying risk assessments to adjust every classroom and social area of the school to ensure pupils and staff are safe upon their return.
I’m sure you will be following the news and press releases and will have questions on how long ‘blended learning’ will be in place. Although no exact timescale for this has been set, I want to assure you that I will do everything I can, within the resources I have, to ensure that ‘blended learning’ is as effortless as possible. In fact, one of our first tasks from the start of the new term will be to ensure all pupils from S2 upwards have 1-1 devices provided by the school and when the additional funding from the Scottish Government becomes available, we will invest that for our new S1. I also want to reassure you that when COVID protocols are adapted, we will endeavour to increase the amount of time pupils are in school to as much as possible to help you get back a ‘new normal’.
Finally throughout the summer we will release year group specific information e.g. Course Choice information for S5 and S6 and school wide information e.g. Hub information and you should keep abreast of information on our website, Facebook and Twitter pages to find the most up to date information. As always ,should you have any imminent questions or need to update us on your address/phone number please email us at:
On behalf of all the staff at our school, we look to forward to hearing from you and speaking with you soon. Take care.
D Young
Headteacher