Kingussie High School

Please see, below, two letters containing advice from Deputy First Minister, Mr John Swinney, and National Clinical Director, Prof Jason Leitch, regarding the current situation regarding sending your child to school if they are showing symptoms of the common cold or similar illnesses.

Letter from Prof JasonLeitch on testing and common colds:   Coronavirus-Jason-Leitch-Letter-on-testing-and-common-colds-31-August-2020 (1)

Letter from Deputy First Minister John Swinney:   2020-DFM-Letter

We are aware that positive cases of Covid-19 can cause some local anxiety in the community. Please be reassured that our Health Protection Team is working closely with colleagues within the Highland Council to continually monitor the situation in Highland. Guidance has been provided to teachers in all our schools regarding any incidence of Covid-19 or similar symptoms within the school community.

Pupils and staff should not attend school if any symptoms develop. Please inform the school.

The key message is don’t go to school or work if you are ill

For most people, Covid-19 will be a mild illness. If you develop symptoms you should remain self-isolating at home for 10 days from the date when your symptoms appeared, even if this takes you over the 14 day period currently advised.

Anyone with symptoms will be eligible for testing and further information on testing can be found on NHS Inform. In the event that you develop symptoms, all other household members who remain well must stay at home and not leave the house for 14 days.

The most common symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19) are recent onset of:

• new continuous cough and/or
• high temperature and/or
• a loss of, or change in, normal sense of taste or smell (anosmia)

There are things you can do to help reduce the risk of you and anyone you live with getting ill with COVID-19

Do

• wash your hands with soap and water often – do this for at least 20 seconds
• use hand sanitiser gel if soap and water are not available
• wash your hands as soon as you get home
• cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve (not your hands) when you cough or sneeze
• put used tissues in the bin immediately and wash your hands afterwards

Please also follow the five rules that are highlighted in the national FACTS campaign –

• Face coverings in enclosed spaces
• Avoid crowded places indoors or outdoors
• Clean your hands regularly and remember to clean hard surfaces that you might be touching
• Two metre physical distancing remains in place – this is especially important at the school gates when dropping off or collecting your children.
• Self-isolate and book a test if you have any of the symptoms of Covid19 – a cough, a temperature, or a loss of, or change in your sense of taste or smell

There is evidence of increasing transmission across Scotland. Covid19 is still here and it is important that everyone takes responsibility and follows the national guidance to keep them and others safe. Everyone in Highland, Argyll and Bute has a role to play to keep the number of positive cases as low as possible.

Stay Safe, Be Kind, Take Care

https://www.highland.gov.uk/info/878/schools/930/back_to_school/2

Dear Parent/Carer

Well done to everyone in their results very postive picture at Kingussie High School.

However if you would like to appeal please follow the steps below.
Stay safe and take care.

Requesting an appeal: We would ask you to follow the following steps if you decide to ask us about submitting an appeal (or more than one appeal). We would ask you to submit an appeal only where, on consideration, you think that the grade awarded does not reflect the assessment information you have received throughout the year to March (when the school closed). Please do not visit the school to discuss appeals: instead follow the process described below.

Please complete the Google Form at the following address https://rb.gy/qg47he, by Wednesday 12th August stating:
Your name and the name of your son/daughter
The name of the subject or subjects for which you think an appeal may be possible.

A statement as follows “We and our son/daughter give our consent for Kingussie High School to submit an appeal to SQA on our behalf.” It is important that you and your son/daughter give consent for an appeal to go forward.
Please do not contact the school by phone at this stage about appeals, as it is likely that staff will be very busy dealing with emails about appeals. The only exception to this would be if you are unable to access email for any reason. In that case, you should call the school’s number and leave a message giving the information mentioned above.
Please then await an email reply from the school. It is difficult to predict how long it will take us to reply to you, as we do not know how many requests we will need to respond to. We will deal with emails as quickly as we possibly can, but it may be the case that you will not receive a reply until the school reopens during the week following results day.
Under no circumstances should you contact class teachers or Principal Teachers directly about appeals. It is important that requests are collated centrally in the school and we have asked class teachers and or Principal Teachers not to reply if they receive emails about appeals and not to return phone calls about appeals. This is to allow us as a Senior Management Team to be sure that we have collated all of the appeal requests as they come in.
Please note that it may not be possible for an appeal to be submitted, even though your son or daughter disagrees with the result. This would be the case, for example, if the final grade awarded was the same, or better than, the school’s estimate. Estimates sent in to SQA were based on all of the best evidence held by the school and were quality assured at departmental and whole school level. Estimates cannot now be changed. If the final result matches the estimate there is no further evidence on which to base an appeal. However, if the rules allow, we will submit an appeal so long as you have given your consent as described above.
When we reply to your request we will let you know if we are able to submit an appeal. If you are requesting an appeal in more than one subject it may be the case that we can submit an appeal in one subject but not in another.
If your son or daughter is eligible for an appeal (i.e. if the final grade is lower than the estimate we submitted) and we have not heard from you, we will contact you to discuss the possibility of pursuing an appeal. You may choose to wait for the school to contact you about possible appeals, rather than send an email as described above.
Once we have decided that we can submit an appeal, the relevant evidence will be drawn up and will be sent to SQA. For Priority appeals (where a candidate needs to know the outcome quickly because of a conditional offer for college or university) we must notify SQA by Friday 14 August. After that date we will not be able to submit a Priority appeal. Evidence to support Priority appeals will be collected from school on 20 August. Candidates will hear the outcome of Priority appeals by Friday 4 September.
For non-Priority appeals, we must notify SQA by 21 August and the evidence will be collected on 27 August. SQA has not notified us yet about when candidates will hear about the outcome of non-Priority appeals. This is because it is a new system and the date will depend on the number of requests SQA receives from schools across Scotland.
We would be grateful if you could help us at what will be a very busy time by following the advice above about appeals.

You can contact the school office on 01540 661475 Monday – Friday 9-1pm during school holidays for any questions.

Stay safe and take care and see you all soon.