More pupils were welcomed back to schools across West Dunbartonshire today (Monday) as chiefs said they were “as ready as we can be” for their return.
Pupils in primaries four to seven had their first day in class of the year, along with students in fourth, fifth and sixth years – 12 weeks after leaving the school gates for the Christmas break.
The remaining secondary pupils will return full-time after the Easter holidays – although they will spend some time in classes before then.
Updating councillors at an education committee meeting last week, chief Laura Mason said staff were fully prepared, though admitted the situation was more of a challenge in secondary schools.
She said teachers were delighted to welcome back primary one to three children several weeks ago, explaining: “In terms of the return, I think we need to set it in the context of the fact that our schools have been open since lockdown.
“They have had key worker children, vulnerable groups and we have had early learning education centres open now for a while.
“We also have primary one to three in. We know that’s going well.
“It is anecdotal because we’re leaving the headteachers to get on with it at the moment, though we’re meeting them for advisory purposes.
“But anecdotally, the teachers are delighted to have the children and young people back, the children are delighted to be back and I daresay the parents are delighted they are back too.”
She added: “On Monday, we will be welcoming back all of our primaries. It will pretty much mean business as usual but that will include the staggered start and finish times.
“Staff will wear masks when they cannot maintain the two-metre distance.
“The other mitigations which have been in place will continue to be in terms of the hand sanitisers and timings of things that happen.
“I also understand that there are two-metre distance banners and markings painted on pavements outside some of our schools too.
“We are all as ready as we can be for them coming back and really looking forward to it.”
Commenting on the return of pupils to secondaries, she said it was more of a challenge due to the volume of students, as well as public transport.
She explained: “The secondary estate is more challenging, not just in West Dunbartonshire but across Scotland, because S4 to S6 pupils are termed as adults so we are required to have two-metre distancing in place.
“The other change in secondary is that mask wearing will be for S1 to S6.
“We still have to make sure we have a priority for senior phase students.
“We still have to make sure we had our vulnerable and key worker provision and we also have to make sure we would be seeing S1 to S3 as well in a week so already you can see the challenge of the numbers that we can get in.”
She said headteachers at the secondary schools are developing their own models to manage the numbers of pupils in at one time.
She added: “They are getting as much time as we can fit them in.”
Dumbarton councillor David McBride responded: “Secondary logistically sounds extremely difficult and I would imagine that not everything will go 100 percent smoothly on day one but good luck with that and hopefully they can get some meaningful face-to-face learning before the Easter holidays.”
