Pupils to return to school two days a week on Arran
Pupils on Arran will attend two days of schooling a week, North Ayrshire Council has confirmed to the Banner this week.
However, other arrangements for the return of schools on Arran in August were continuing this week.
Education planners from North Ayrshire Council have been on the island measuring how many children there can be in the primaries and at Arran High School.
It is known all the island’s seven primary schools will be closed on a Wednesday to allow a midweek deep clean between the children attending on a Monday and Tuesday and those attending Thursday and Friday.
A council spokeswoman confirmed: ‘Pupils will attend school two days per week and there will be temporary adjustments to start/finish times and breaks.’ It is not known if this also applies to all pupils at Arran High School and arrangements for the early years classes are also still to be agreed.
Pupils are due to return to a ‘blended’ model of schooling from August 11 that will see learning split between home and the classroom and more information is expected next week.
There have been concerns about the impact of part-time schooling on working parents, and on children from deprived backgrounds, and it is not yet known how long the blended model will be in place.
The spokeswoman added: ‘We want to ensure a safe return to school for all our young people. We are finalising our plans and will release details very soon.’
The news came the day Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was accused of ‘dithering’ over plans to reopen the country’s schools at the Scottish parliament.
The Scottish Conservatives said the government needed to be ‘far more creative’ in finding ways of getting pupils back into school full-time. And Labour said the government must ‘pull out all the stops’ to tackle a growing ‘education emergency’.
The first minister said her government would ‘move heaven and earth’ to get schools ‘back to normal as quickly as possible’. However, she said she would not ‘act recklessly and put the lives of children, teachers and the wider community at risk’.
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