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Dear Parents and Carers,

• I hope you are keeping well and the children are accessing their learning from home. It has undoubtably been a new experience for us all.
• A special thanks to all our teachers who are sending lessons to you for your children. We are aware there are many delivery styles, just as there are many learning styles, and you will all have your own preferred platform. When staff met together to plan how do this, ParentPay was chosen as it had parents and carers contact details already in place. Having one system helps us be consistent across the school. ParentPay also has a good back up team to ensure it continues to work. We do appreciate, this style of learning, teaching and delivery will take time to become familiar. Do give the children time to work out the learning intentions and success criteria, they are used to reflecting on them in class and this will help them take responsibility for their learning.
• After the Easter Holidays, teachers will email the following week’s learning plan on the Friday beforehand and the daily plan with learning intentions and success criteria the day before. I hope that will help you and the children plan for the week and the day ahead.

• Staff are volunteering to support schools which will be opened for children of NHS staff. During this time, as well as looking after children of essential key workers, they will continue to work with their stage partners to ensure the weekly lessons and daily updates come to you.
• Our staff and children will be based at Tynecastle High School and only key workers with no other childcare arrangements should attend.
• Free school meals: a letter explaining payments in place of complimentary school lunches, during school closure, has been emailed directly to relevant parents and careers. Please contact the school at admin@bruntsfield.edin.sch.uk if you have any problems with this.
• Translations: Due to the changes made to the NHS advice regarding COVI-19 on Monday afternoon, Doctors of the World have updated our COVID-19 translated guidance: English, Albanian, Arabic, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish are now ready at https://www.doctorsoftheworld.org.uk/coronavirus-information/

• The following languages will be completed soon: Polish, Romanian, Russian, Bulgarian, Latvian, Hungarian, Bengali, Dari, Farsi, Hindi, Kurdish Sorani, Mandarin, Pashto, Urdu, Vietnamese, Tigrinya, Amharic, Malayalam and Somali.
• We were sent information on ‘The Emerging Minds Network’ which is committed to reducing mental health problems experienced by children and young people. As part of that, they hope to promote wellbeing through sharing positive practice and information. Further information is available at emergingminds.org.uk. Please be aware, this is not a network the school have worked with, but one which  has been recommended to us.
• For latest advice on Covid19 please see https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/infections-and-poisoning/coronavirus-covid-19.
• I shall continue to update you as more information comes to us from The City of Edinburgh Council.

Look after yourselves and each other,

Kind regards,

Carol Kyle