STAKEHOLDERS UPDATE FOR 12 JUNE 2020
As we progress through June there have been some announcements from Edinburgh Council today on the planning for August. Details in this area and other key points are below;
School Plan – Alistair Gaw, Executive Director of Children & Families
The Director has written to all Parents. This letter is on the Council website to provide Parents with some further detail on the re-opening of Schools and can be found here https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/file/27455/letter-to-mainstream-parents-and-carers
As the letter states I will keep in touch with you around finer details. We all appreciate the faster families know the details, the faster you can plan for August. For now there are some points to share with you linked to the letter;
-We are looking at ‘third’ splits. This may be, for example,…..S1/2 one day. S3/4 another day. S5/6 another day. The Thursday will then rotate. Details to follow
-Classes will be split into smaller groups of around 10 to support distancing, which remains at 2m in Scotland
-Initially S1 and S2 may be based in one room for the day, with comfort breaks. This is to limit movement. These will be called ‘Home Rooms’ in the plan
-Mr Stewart is working extremely hard behind the scenes to have as fair and equitable a plan for the S3-6 pupils where options play their part. S3-6 have to move between lessons when they have their ‘in school’ day. We will all play our part to ‘wipe down’ our work stations if someone new is due to use it
-We are working on signage, procedures, one way flow, use of exits / outside routes and other details that we will share over the next 2 weeks
These are broad principles I am sharing as themes we are considering in our planning. There will be further details to share with you over the coming days and weeks. As ever, I will keep you fully updated as and when I have more to share using our website, email contact and our Twitter feed @leithacademy .
Prefects, House Heads and Head Pupils
My Senior Team and I were delighted to see the video applications for our various leadership roles across the S6. These events present real life opportunities for our young adults to prepare, deliver and communicate key messages in a pressurised situation! We will continue to process the applications and be in touch with individuals in due course.
Evening of Celebration – Historic Awards
Like so many things, we were unable to have our fantastic annual Evening of Celebration. Though we cannot celebrate every usual award, we do have historic awards specifically linked to Leith Academy that we would like to present. Nomination forms are with staff and we will then share the messages and winners over an online platform – not the same as the real thing, but some recognition for some of our young Leithers!
P7 Transition Online Meeting for Parents
We plan to broadcast a session for P7 Parents on some of the information which may be of use. We have all had to look at transition differently and the work of our teams to build our transition page on the website has been fantastic. In addition we want to offer this presentation to all P7 Parents, likely to be week commencing 22nd June – we will keep in touch with our Primary colleagues re firmer details next week.
The picture for August is beginning to look clearer, though we have a big two weeks ahead as we consider and prepare what we need to in order to welcome our pupils back to Leith Academy as the safe, happy learning environment we all know it is.
I hope you have a nice weekend.
Mike Irving
Head Teacher
