Dear Parent / Carer,

Following the announcement by the First Minister yesterday about the phased reopening of schools, we know that you will have lots of questions about when and how our children and young people will return to schools across East Lothian.

In her statement, the First Minister reported that teachers and other staff will return to schools during June to prepare classrooms for the new term and a different model of learning. It was announced that schools will reopen from 11 August, however, to allow appropriate physical distancing, children would return to a blended model of part-time in-school and part-time at-home learning. I would highlight that 11 August is earlier than our planned date of 19 August for pupils to return to school after the summer holidays.

In East Lothian, our Education Service is considering the implications of this announcement and has already started to plan for the reopening of schools and early learning and childcare settings in August as outlined by the First Minister.  We are reflecting on the yesterday’s announcement and are awaiting guidance from the National Education Recovery Group next week which will help us determine and confirm more specific details of the arrangements which will be shared with you as soon as we can.

It was also announced that, where possible, there would be transition support for children going into primary 1 or moving from primary 7 to secondary school. In East Lothian, our schools already provide a range of transition opportunities and these have continued during the lockdown period with many schools providing distance creative and innovative transition activities. In the coming weeks, we will also consider those children who may benefit from further transition support.

During June and over the summer, we will continue to provide emergency childcare provision for the children of key workers and we will be in contact with parents and carers about the arrangements for this in due course.

I would like to thank all parents, carers, children and young people for their patience and understanding as we work through a very complex situation. I know this has been a difficult and uncertain time and we are committed to sharing further information with you as soon as we can.

Kind regards,

 Lesley

 Lesley R. Brown  | Chief Operating Officer (Education) – Education & Children’s Services|

P2 have had another wonderful week! Have a look at the video below at all the wonderful learning that’s taken place:

P2 Learning Video – Friday 22nd May

P2 have been so creative this week! Miss Crawford has made a wonderful video to share some of their amazing learning. You can see it here:

P2 Learning Video

A reminder that Monday 18 May  is an in-service day and that teachers will not be visible on Google Classroom until Tuesday.

VE Day commemoration

Friday 8 May marks the 75^th anniversary of VE Day. Following public consultation it was designated as an additional day’s holiday in East Lothian recognising families’ desire to commemorate this historic occasion. While the current Covid restrictions mean that gatherings or services are not possible, there are still ways to mark the occasion in a safe and socially distanced way.

The Royal British Legion has published a timetable of activities for the day itself where the nation can commemorate VE Day within the current guidelines including a 2 minute silence at 11am and a doorstep ‘Toast to the Nation’ at 3pm.

PoppyScotland’s website has some great ideas and resources if families wish to talk to their children about VE Day or undertake any learning as part of it.

For more information visit: https://www.eastlothian.gov.uk/news/article/13225/ve_day_75th_anniversary

P7 Transition Letter

Dear P7 pupil

My name is Mr Reynolds and I am the very proud Head Teacher of Ross High School.

I just wanted to write to you, to reassure you all, that we are working closely with your primary schools to ensure we have plans in place for you moving  to Ross High School when schools start up again.

I can assure you that planning for the new S1 arriving at RHS is a main priority for us.  Ross High School prides itself on being a caring community.  Our mission statement ‘Excellence for Everyone’ shows clearly that every single child is important to all of us at Ross High.  We really care about our students and their families and will work hard to make sure you all receive a warm and well-planned welcome to the school when this is possible.

In the meantime, you may be interested in obtaining some more school information and I have summarised this below

• We have lots of information on our school website www.edubuzz.org/rosshigh/ On here you will be able to see all the things to look forward to when you eventually join the Ross High school community.
• Last year Our Junior Leadership Team made a transition video which you make like to watch https://youtu.be/_zH3ANp6g_Y
• We are a school which loves to Tweet! You can follow the school account (@rosshigh) or my Head Teacher account (@MrReynoldsRHSHT) and these will give you an insight into our community.  There are many others too with each department having their own Twitter account celebrating the success of our pupils.  Don’t worry if you don’t have Twitter – lots of our tweets are automatically put on our website so you can see them there.

As I said at the beginning I am very proud to be the Head Teacher of such a great school.  I very much look forward to seeing you all in Ross in due course and getting to know each and every one of you.  Please do stay safe at this time.  It will all be over soon enough.  I am excited to the day we can meet in person.

Best wishes to you all

Mr Reynolds

Click on the link below if you would like support to access Google Classroom:

How to access Google Classroom from home

Please do not hesitate to contact us should you require more help with this.

Planning & Delivery
During this period of school closure distance learning will be communicated through google classroom and on our school website in the ‘Pupil Zone’: https://www.edubuzz.org/sandersonswynd/pupil-zone/covid-19-distance-learning/

• There will be a mixture of online and off line tasks to allow an appropriate balance of screen time for pupils.
• Teaching will be a mixture of video, google slides and web links.
• Google Meet is an option available for P2-P7 for checking in with pupils, however technology dictates that this may not always work, or be appropriate. Teachers will use this at their discretion. There is no expectation that all teachers will use Google Meet. East Lothian Council does not allow other platforms to be used for this purpose for security reasons.

Weekly
• A Task mat of activities covering Literacy, Maths/Numeracy, HWB, Expressive Arts, Social Subjects/Science. Task Mats will be available on the school website every Monday.
• Feedback on tasks submitted that week, this can be through classroom stream comments to the whole class or individual feedback to pupils on work submitted.

Daily
• An overview of how the day might look (a loose timetable) .Pupils don’t have to stick to this but it will support those who need the structure.
• Planned delivery of a numeracy/maths and literacy lesson through video of teaching OR through google slides.
• Numeracy and Maths and literacy taught in groups as usually happens in the classroom.
• Responding to questions from pupils when teachers are able to. This will not always be instant!

This is something that none of us have come up against before and we appreciate the time and effort everyone is putting in to engaging with this process to provide continuation of learning for all our pupils. We are still here to support in any way we can so please don’t hesitate to contact us!

The Royal Hospital for Sick Children have made a short film (just 2 minutes long) to explain to children why different workers need to wear PPE to stay safe, and to show that under the masks and aprons it is still the same friendly people at the hospital. We are keen for this film to be seen by as many children as possible so they know what to expect and are not as scared if they need to come to hospital.
Watch the film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vT7vpQXV2A&feature=youtu.be

Please find attached document created by the Scottish Government to provide information about ongoing distance learning for the current term.

Supporting Pupils, Parents, Teachers – Learning During Term 4

With the Easter Holidays upon us we wanted to take this opportunity to wish you a restful break. As always, we are working behind the scenes to try and offer the most consistent and appropriate learning opportunities for your child in these unprecedented times.

During the holidays there is no expectation that children will complete any assigned work, however activities will still be there for those that are keen! Teachers will not be manning the Google Classrooms during the break and will resume lessons on Tuesday 21st April.

When we return on 21st April many of our teachers will be volunteering at one of the 6 Key Worker Hubs across the Authority. If a teacher is working at a Hub for the week, they will be unable to respond to online work assignments at the same time. Work will continue to be provided for all classes and pupils can continue to post and hand in assignments. Teachers will let their own class know which week they are away from Google Classrooms when working at Hubs.

We have been discussing a consistent approach to operating online learning and we will send details of this to you after the Easter break.

Please stay safe and let us know if we can help in any way,
The Sanderson’s Wynd Staff Team

Social distancing advice for families