Latest Parent Information

Dear Parents and Carers,

Find attached a letter from Donna Manson, Chief Executive of Highland Council.

20 03 16 Schools – Coronavirus

Thank you for your co-operation and patience.

Dear Parents/Carers,

Further to the guidance from Highland Council last night, we just wish to confirm the current precautionary arrangements in place at PPS; 

1. All school trips for this term and next will be cancelled.  Further information will be sent to P7 parents regarding the cancellation of the Raasay trip.
2. Parents evenings/open afternoons cancelled until further notice.
3. Swimming lessons are cancelled until further notice.
4. Any Easter celebrations cancelled.
5. Inward visits (e.g. guest speakers or curriculum inserts) will be cancelled until further notice.
6. School lets outwith the normal school day will be cancelled until further notice.
7. Non-urgent meetings are postponed.
8. Extra-curricular activities are cancelled

The government have issued further information for vulnerable groups to avoid social situations.

Attendance remains at the discretion of parents, however, we ask you to please inform the school about absences.  For pupils not attending school, staff are not currently in a position to provide additional work and parents are asked to refer to the additional homework task grid, attached, for suggested learning activities.  Read as much as possible.

Additional Homework Tasks 2020

We will keep you up to date with the quickly changing situation and thank you again for your support at this time.

 Please get in touch with the school if you have any further questions.

Skye and Lochalsh Young Carers have advised us that the group will cease all group work and face to face contact with individual young carers with effect from today.

Support workers will continue to provide support over the telephone to all the young carers.

Thank you,

Dear Parents and Carers,

While we await further official updates from the Highland Council, we are keen to reassure you of additional steps that are being taken at school to ensure the health and safety of our school community.

• All pupils are thoroughly handwashing first thing in the morning when they come into school and also before and after each break/mealtime
• Lunchtimes have been altered to reduce the numbers of pupils in the canteen at any one time. Primary 1-4 are now eating at 12.15 and P4-7 at 12.45
• Canteen staff are now serving salad etc from the servery rather than pupils helping themselves to these items
• We will no longer be sending home shared resources; reading books, word boxes etc and are asking that these are all returned to school by Friday
• All visitors to the school have been cancelled until further notice
• No assemblies or whole school gatherings will take place until further notice
• School swimming lessons have all been cancelled until further notice

We understand how unsettling this is for all and will keep you up to date with any further information.

As always, please get in touch if you have any further questions or concerns.

News and guidance around the COVID-19 outbreak continues to change rapidly and we will pass on updates as they become available.  In the meantime, we have taken the decision to cancel extra-curricular activities and also to postpone the Daffodil Tea, Community Café and Open Morning planned for this week.

At this time school is open as usual and attendance remains the discretion of parents, however, we do still ask you to keep us informed about pupil absences.

We understand that this is an unsettling time and will do our best to keep you up to date as further information becomes available.

Guidance from HPS and the NHS

The Health Protection Scotland (HPS) guidance we circulated yesterday https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/web-resources-container/covid-19-guidance-to-educational-settings/ is a key source of advice for all schools and educational settings including early learning and childcare settings.

It is essential that the HPS guidance is disseminated to headteachers and the

managers of all childcare settings, and that you ensure that the key messages from the guidance are actively communicated to parents, carers, children and young people. 

Pupils and parents will look to their school or childcare provider for guidance on how they will respond and manage the risk of COVID-19 infections so it is important that they are directed to the HPS advice.

Tomorrow is World Book Day.  Pupils are invited to wear their pyjamas to school and to take along a favourite book.  We will be doing a whole school bedtime reading session in the gym that afternoon.

Portree Primary pupils enjoyed a visit yesterday afternoon from the ‘Armagh Rhymers’ who acted out the story of Finn McCool and the Scottish Giant.

Our Pupil Voice Committee have been busy working with our canteen staff to create Fact Sheet about our canteen.  We hope that you will find the information useful!

PPS Canteen Fact Sheet