Update for stakeholders
This week has seen a further shift in the First minister’s guidance we all have to follow. Once again I commend our staff and pupils who have worked together through the steps with a shared aim of trying to keep us as safe as possible.
The announcements this week have been a reminder to us that we must continue with the mitigating steps we have in place around hand hygiene, wearing a covering and keeping a 2m distance where possible.
The key points of info for this week;
Staggered times
These will remain in place for the foreseeable future. The pupils are used to these timings and it breaks the heavy flow at the start and end of the day, timings are on an earlier post https://leithacademy.uk/heads-news-28-august-2020/ .
Fogging / deep clean
Tomorrow (Saturday) the whole school will have our next monthly deep clean via the process of fogging. This is another layer provided by the Council to all schools to help combat the virus, though as mentioned earlier it is ‘on top of’ strong hand hygiene, 2m distance and coverings. All of these steps help us to do the best we can to mitigate.
Coverings
Please ensure all children arrive with a face covering. The vast majority have created a positive routine / habit but we are seeing some youngsters who are forgetting regularly; any organisational support you can give them will help us.
Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA)
The SQA have closed a nationwide consultation on what assessment may look like for the summer of 2021. We expect an update on this towards the end of September in order to help our staff and our young adults plan ahead.
Playing our part
We wrote to S5/6 Pupils and Families this week it can be found here https://leithacademy.uk/mid-week-update/ . In our update we reflected on the need for us all as young adults S1-S6 to play our part not only in school but in our wider community outside of school.
NHS FAQ’s
As we learn from positive cases across communities, NHS Lothian have updated some frequently asked questions for Parents (useful to all). These are attached for info.
Pupil absence
Our first few weeks have been committed to welcoming back youngsters and re-forming relationships in a challenging time. We are conscious that for a variety of reasons pupils may be absent from school. To this end we are working hard on keeping our Microsoft Teams and One Note platforms open and updated for classes. This should present a quick way to keep up with work / presentations / tasks that are ongoing in the class.
After 3.30pm
Given the pandemic, we are operating a more rigorous cleaning regine for this time of year. To that end we need all pupils to leave the building by 3.30pm in order to allow all surfaces to be cleaned. Ordinarily having youngsters stay back to do work would not be an issue, but at present we are not able to support this. We will keep all updated as and when this changes.
Have a nice weekend from all at Leith Academy.
