Milton Primary School

Good afternoon everyone. We would have loved to have seen you all at our Easter end of service this week. Instead we’ve had lots of fun engaging with you on our classroom blogs and Google classrooms. 🌸

I’d like to say a huge thank you to all parents/carers for adapting to this unusual time, supporting your children with their online tasks. It’s also been lovely to hear how you’ve managed to enjoy some sunshine and help with chores too. Thank you also for your supportive comments about how hard all class teachers have worked to produce fun and engaging daily activities. 🐇

We hope that you all manage to enjoy your Easter break and we’ll be ready to welcome you back online afterwards. 🐣

If you need any help at all during this time, please contact the educational phone line on 0300 303 1362 in the first instance. Or contact me at Suzanne.callander@highland.gov.uk and I’ll try my best to help. 🐥

I’ll leave you all with a poem to show you that your Milton friends are always here.

🌟🌈🌟🌈🌟🌈🌟🌈🌟🌈🌟🌈🌟🌈

Mrs. Callander

Highland Council will be providing e-vouchers to families to support access to free school meals from week commencing 30 March 2020. 

This innovative and easy-to-use service will ensure over 4,000 school children will continue to receive support for school meals while schools are closed. For the majority of pupils, this will be delivered digitally through e-vouchers for food in local supermarkets.

Enabling choice will provide flexibility and also help to reduce waste, as food can be purchased according to need or preference in the household. Some restrictions do apply as the e-vouchers cannot be used to purchase age restricted products such as tobacco, alcohol, lottery tickets and fuel.

The impact of Coronavirus has caused many vulnerable families additional hardship and this process will ensure that the most vulnerable children can get food.

Highland Council continues to investigate other ways of providing food across the Highlands for vulnerable groups within the rapidly changing environment. This includes working closely with High Life Highland, Eden Court and our many partners including the Third Sector. Further information will be provided in due course. 

Cllr John Finlayson, Chair of the Education Committee, said: “The provision of school meals is a priority service that we are committed to delivering including during when schools are closed in the current times. I applaud the Highland Council staff who are working hard to implement this service as quickly as possible and for e-vouchers to be issued next week”.

A helpline number has been set up for anyone who is struggling and needing urgent help during this crisis. The single line number – 0300 303 1362 – will connect callers to relevant Council specialist teams and will operate Monday to Friday from 8am to 6pm. All calls are free. 

If families with early level children would like a daily idea for learning through play at home, you can subscribe to bumps2bairns.com

Today’s lesson shows how to use mirrors for exploring feelings, points of view, who we are, science & how the world works. From Highland’s ELC team. Follow @JamesEdPsych for more ideas.

The Highland Council Twitter Page

We’re hearing reports that families may be receiving text messages from criminals pretending to be from @HighlandCouncil or @scotgov . They are asking for bank details to provide money for free school meals. This is a #SCAM. Do not give out personal details.

There will be information released tomorrow about a FSM voucher scheme.

The Highland Council has launched a free helpline to give assistance and to collect details of individuals and community groups looking to provide volunteering support during Covid19. The number will be live from 2pm today (Wednesday 25 March)

The single line number – 0300 303 1362 – will connect callers to relevant Council specialist teams and will operate Monday to Friday from 8am to 6pm. All calls are free. 

Callers will be able to get advice on benefits and personal support, education and social care and there will also be advice for businesses who may need help with financial support. Helpline staff will also be signposting callers to other organisations that can provide help and assistance as well as gathering offers from individuals or community groups wishing to volunteer. 

The service is operated by council staff and Eden Court volunteers who will be home based. Staffing levels will be kept under review to respond to the demand. 

Chief Executive Donna Manson said: “I want to thank everyone involved for all their hard work for getting this helpline up and running in such a short time. As well as Highland Council employees volunteering we are also very grateful for the assistance of Eden Court staff. The Helpline is now in place to help those most in need of assistance, so we are requesting that anyone who can continue to use our on-line forms and resources do so as much as possible.” 

• To make a payment visit https://www.highland.gov.uk/pay
• To report a problem visit https://www.highland.gov.uk/report
• To request a service visit https://www.highland.gov.uk/request

 The new helpline is just one of several proactive actions the council is taking.  Work to set up a number of Humanitarian Assistance Centres across the Highlands is underway and details are expected to be published in the next 24 hours. 

The Council is continuing to co-ordinate all offers of community group support, while the Highland’s 3^rd Sector is co-ordinating individual offers of support. There will be close joint working to maximise the valuable offers of support from community groups and individuals.

Good evening everyone,

Again, a huge thank you to everyone who has engaged with the home learning tasks set for today. Just some things to bear in mind:

• Online learning sites will be experiencing a huge increase in the number of people accessing them. Please be patient but do not worry if you are unable to access these, they can always be done at another time.
• When your child is using Sumdog to support their learning please only support them by reading the question to them. This site adjusts the questions your child is asked using their responses so it is essential it is their work only.
• Mrs Callander and I will be calling to check in with some of our families tomorrow who have been unable to access home learning. We need to keep a virtual register and continue to abide by Highland Council policy on taking registration.
• Following the Prime Minister’s announcement last night, there will be no Free School Meals for the rest of the week. The preparation and distribution of these goes against his guidelines. We apologise for any inconvenience caused but I’m sure you’ll understand the Council’s need to make this decision.

Many thanks again,

Mrs Christie.

There will be no Free School Meals available tomorrow (Tuesday 24th March). We will, of course, keep you updated with news for the rest of the week. Please ensure you spread the word for anyone who may not access this blog.

Thank you.

Good evening,

A huge thank you, and well done, to all of the children (and parents) who engaged with the home learning tasks set for today. We’ve had an encouraging response and have loved that some of you have been sharing photographs with us. We would really like to see some more so please do email them across (emails in a previous post).

If, for any reason, your child is unable to engage PLEASE get in touch with Mrs Callander as Class teachers are required to keep a daily attendance register so the children must stay in daily contact with their CTs. If for any reason you are unable to get in touch then please ask someone to do it on your behalf. Her email address is as follows: suzanne.callander@highland.gov.uk

Some points to consider from Day 1:

• P1-3, please just comment your first name on the comment replies. Miss Robinson and Ms O’Shea will know who you are by first name 😊
• Ms O’Shea’s P2/3 parents were having difficulty reaching her using her g-mail account. Please make sure you are including the apostrophe (aine.o’shea@invergordonacademy.org.uk) but if you are still unsuccessful, Ms O’Shea planned to send out an email to all parents this evening so you can just reply to her. Please check all of your email folders for this, including your junk folder.
• Not all of Primary 4/5 signed into their Google classroom today. Just a small reminder that your username is your: firstname.surname@invergordonacademy.org.uk
• Mrs Martin discussed the ‘default’ password with you last week in school. You should be asked to change this when you first sign in. However, if you have any password difficulties please direct your query to Mrs Martin: ann.martin@invergordonacademy.org.uk
• When you first log in, and click on the Primary 4/5 classroom an invitation should be waiting for you. If you are unsuccessful, please ensure you access the class blog to see your tasks for the day.
• Primary 6/7, Miss Crew has made a second classroom for discussion purposes. This will continue to be monitored by myself and Miss Crew as per the chromebook agreement. Please ensure you keep work posts to the Primary 6/7 classroom and discussions to the other one.
• Education City was experiencing a high volume of traffic today. Please be patient with the site as it tries to accommodate a larger amount of learners than previously.

Well done everyone on a successful day one. I look forward to seeing what you all get upto tomorrow.

Mrs Christie

Good morning everyone. We hope that you are all safe and well this morning. Please get in touch if you need any help.

Suzanne.callander@highland.gov.uk

We hope that you and your child enjoy engaging with the activities planned today on either the school blog or Google classrooms.

Parents collecting a FSM at Invergordon Academy today between 11am-2pm,

To ensure your safety and the safety of others, we ask that –

*one adult enters the building to collect the meal

*please stand 2 metres apart

*Milton PS meals will be located in the canteen

*please collect your meal and leave promptly

Thank you and take care.