Sent on Behalf of Gerard McLaughlin

KEY WORKERS

All North Lanarkshire schools will be open on Monday for the children of the following categories of key workers
It is essential, to stop the spread of transmission of coronavirus, that people who can work from home do work from home. This is not business as usual and it is vital that this support being offered is only accessed by those who absolutely require it to enable NHS and other critical services to function.

If you're a key worker who requires support, please take your child to your normal school on Monday. We will review these arrangements over the coming week and it is likely we will fully close some schools but we will inform you of this and the alternative provision we will put in place.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should any child who has symptoms of coronavirus, or who lives in a household where someone has symptoms, present at school. The whole family must follow the self-isolation advice.
Key worker categories:

Category 1

Includes:
·       Health and care workers directly supporting COVID-19 response and associated staff
·     Workers supporting life-threatening emergency work as well as critical primary and community care provision
·       Staff of energy suppliers
·      Staff, including teachers and early years workers, providing childcare and learning for other key workers and staff who support school buildings

Category 2

Please note that the first presumption is that staff who can work from home will work from home

·       All other health and care workers including home support staff and care home staff
·       Emergency services staff, including police, fire and rescue, prison officers
·       Military personnel
·       Social workers

Those supporting critical national infrastructure including:

·       Staff keeping air, water, road and rail passenger transport operating
·       Oil, gas, electricity and water and sewerage workers
·       Logistics staff including drivers and transport workers
·       Food and other necessary goods staff including food production, processing, distribution, sale, delivery as well as those essential to the provision of hygienic and veterinary medicines
·       Staff in essential financial service provision including: banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure; IT and data infrastructure; postal services; civil nuclear, chemicals and telecommunications; payment providers; waste disposal.
·       Journalists and broadcasters

Category 3

Other council and associated staff in the following categories. Please note that the first presumption is that staff who can work from home will work from home
·       Strategic-level management and support staff
·       Waste services staff
·       Fleet services staff
·       Cemeteries staff
·       Property repairs and maintenance staff including frontline workers of Mears and Saltire
·       Roads and lighting maintenance staff including staff of Amey
·       Facility support services including cleaning, catering, school crossing patrollers and janitorial staff
·       Human resources staff including payroll and employee service centre
·       IT staff
·       Communications staff
·       Finance staff including welfare, revenue and benefits staff and municipal bank staff
·       Registration staff
·       Essential legal services
·       Psychological services staff

SCHOOL MEALS

All children who are entitled to free school meals will be able to access these meals. If you need to access this support please take your child to their usual school at the school's normal lunchtime, but only at their normal lunchtime.

Breakfast clubs will be open in those schools that normally offer them, will be open.

S4, S5 and S6 PUPILS

A normal timetable will not be operating. Only the following pupils should attend at school:

·       Children of key workers as detailed above.
·    Pupils who have already been instructed by their schools to attend at a specific time for coursework purposes.
Other S4, S5 and S6 pupils will be contacted by schools in due course to arrange completion of coursework. Schools have already informed pupils about arrangements for online learning.     

Dear Parents /Carers

Following advice from the Scottish Government to close educational establishment today, we fully recognise that from today children and young people may be at home for a long period of time and we have produced a suite of materials to support their learning – further information about materials will be sent to you in due course.

Understandably, this is an unsettling time for children, young people and their carers and many people will be feeling anxious about the current situation and the impact that it may have on the health and wellbeing of family, friends and colleagues.

For this reason we have also included information to help you reassure your child.  Many of these resources have been developed in collaboration with South Lanarkshire Council.  The attached document provides some advice and guidance.

We will continue to up-date this resource and ensure that it is widely available online.  You will be notified of these updates next week.

Thank you for your on-going support during these challenging times.

Regards
Derek Brown
Executive Director

Statement by the Chief Executive of the Scottish Qualifications Authority and Scotland’s Chief Examining Officer
Thursday 19 March 2020

This is an unprecedented situation, and the closure of schools for an extended period will affect almost every family across Scotland.  
The Scottish Qualifications Authority has recently been working through a range of scenarios in relation to the exam diet, including disruption and postponement. However, as the Deputy First Minister has outlined in Parliament today, the exam diet in 2020 cannot go ahead and I have been asked by the Deputy First Minister to develop an alternative certification model. 

That work has started, at pace, and I will say more on that as soon as I can. What I can say now is that we want to ensure that we have as much information on the achievements of learners as possible. That is why the Deputy First Minister has asked schools and colleges to continue to work with young people to ensure that any units and coursework are completed and estimated grades are provided by teachers, drawing on the available evidence gathered throughout the year, to SQA’s existing deadlines, or earlier if that is possible. For many learners, we will also have prior attainment information which will be helpful to us.

I fully appreciate that this will be an uncertain time for learners who have worked hard throughout the year and will now, with their families, be worried about what this means for them. Everyone here at SQA will do their utmost, with the support of the education system, to ensure that their hard work is rightly and fairly recognised, and allows them to proceed to further learning or work. 

We will work to ensure that learners receive their results no later than 4 August, as planned. We are considering more fully the impact this decision will have on our exceptional circumstances and post-results services. I will confirm that we will offer a free post-results service to ensure that schools and colleges continue to have a mechanism to question any result. 
​
I would strongly encourage all candidates to sign up to MySQA, our online and text service, as a direct way to receive their results.
Everyone at SQA is fully committed to delivering for Scotland’s young people at this exceptionally difficult time. 


Fiona Robertson
SQA Chief Executive and Scotland’s Chief Examining Officer