Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you and your families are continuing to stay safe and you got the chance to take some time to relax over the Easter holiday, albeit in a very different way than normal.

The Easter Break is officially over and under normal circumstances we would have begun the new term welcoming our young people back. However, with the continuation of school closures I wanted to take this opportunity to reassure you that our key goals continue to be to engage with you and your children so that their learning can still carry on and to support the positive health and wellbeing of our students as far as is possible. Staff will continue to offer online resources to help support our pupils and these can be accessed through the school website www.st-augustines.edin.sch.uk , Twitter @stahsnews, Microsoft TEAMS, Google Classroom, pupils’ school email and other social media platforms and I would ask that you encourage your children to engage with staff and the resources that have been generated. However, if for any reason you cannot access these resources please let us know by email: Admin@st-augustines.edin.sch.uk

As a rule of thumb, you should expect your child to complete about 4 hours of work, 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon with plenty of breaks to absorb their learning.

The SQA has provided us with some information on how we will be required to submit evidence for estimate grades for our senior pupils and we are waiting to receive more information from the City of Edinburgh Council. When we have this latest information, we will share this with you.

For those students who have applied to University the latest information from the University and College Application Service (UCAS) can be found at www.ucas.com/coronavirus. This provides up to date information regarding conditional offers and offer acceptance dates.

At this point I do not know when our school community will be able to function as normal but if we can be of any assistance please do not hesitate to get in touch. Staff across the school completely understand that this is a very challenging time for our families and we will try to support you in any way we can. The Scottish Government and Education Scotland, through the National Parent Forum of Scotland (NPFS), are currently working on further advice for parents and carers to help you support your child’s learning at home and The Parentzone Scotland website https://education.gov.scot/parentzone is continuing to be updated with useful information.

Please let the young people know that all of the staff miss them and are looking forward to seeing them soon.

Take care everyone.

Michael McGee