Reminder about arrangements during wintry weather

We make every effort to keep the school open every day. We understand that journeys may take longer and so we have a ‘soft start’ on snowy days. Children may come into the school building when they arrive but lessons will not start until 9.30am.

We use Groupcall to send texts and e-mails to all parents to keep them updated when weather conditions deteriorate.

1. Please try to walk your children to school. As you know, we have a one way system along Dunbar St and Don St and the road is narrow, old and blocked by parked cars in places. The school car park gets extremely icy in bad weather. We have limited janitorial support and our janitor’s priority is always to clear footpaths into the school grounds and across the playground between the main building, portakabin and annexe. Parents are not supposed to bring cars into the school car park. This policy is strictly enforced for everyone’s safety during periods of icy weather.
2. Please make sure that your child has indoor shoes. It is helpful to send a spare pair of socks too.
3. Please make sure that your child wears a jacket and appropriate footwear, hat and gloves. Teach him/ her to recognise and look after his/her items of clothing. Please put name labels on them.
4. Whenever possible, the children go out to play in the fresh air. Throwing snowballs is forbidden.
5. Groupcall messages are sent when we get weather warnings which suggest that we should make arrangements for children to be collected earlier than normal. On the rare occasion when this has happened, some parents did not get the message because their contact details were not up to date.

Please ensure that you contact office staff when you change your phone number. Thanks.