Life @ EA
Rector’s Blog
Thursday 12 March
These are certainly strange times. Normally, at this time of the year, our major focus is on those who are about to sit their national exams, which start at the end of April for our 5ths-7ths. Given current events outside the school, however, discussions are inevitably turning to what happens should schools close across Edinburgh and, indeed, Scotland because of the Coronavirus outbreak. The School is currently following the Government’s advice and will simply adapt to the situation as needs be. Our teaching staff have been busy preparing resources to support education remotely using Firefly and making digital resources available should the school have to close. We will do our best should the UK government move their response up to the ‘Delay’ level and make the decision to close schools. As you may well have heard, we have made the decision to postpone all large school assemblies for the next few weeks, so as to limit large gatherings in a confined space and therefore, hopefully, restrict a possible pathway of infection for very large numbers, in line with recent Scottish Government protocols. Mitigating in this manner, as well as encouraging cleanliness and hand-washing, are our best approaches. We are also reviewing all our school trips, concerts and large events and will have to adapt/cancel/postpone depending on the advice that we are receiving also. As with everything we do, the safety and wellness of all members of our community are a priority. As the saying goes, normal service will be resumed soon I hope!
Amongst all of this, the school and our students never cease to amaze and impress. Jack H sang his way to some impressive victories at the Edinburgh Competition Festival, Fraser B raced his way to success in the Scottish Ski Championships and our hockey and rugby 7s teams continue to accumulate silverware in their respective competitions. It was wonderful to welcome Shawnigan Lake School from Vancouver Island to the school earlier this week and I would like to reiterate my thanks to all parents who hosted that side. They had a superb visit and it could not have happened without the generosity of our homestay parents. On Tuesday morning they joined us in assembly for a 'sing-off' of Calon Lan - there will be few schools in Scotland who have assemblies with Scottish and Canadian students doing battle with a famous Welsh hymn!! Their 37-strong touring party certainly put our 600+ in the shade! Today, in assembly (our last for a while unfortunately) we welcomed Councillor Hal Osler to the School to give us all further details of the Edinburgh’s City Plan 2030, the policies and proposals for the future development of Edinburgh. It was certainly an interesting and thought-provoking presentation. Many thanks also to those committee members who are overseeing this weekend’s Pipe Band Dinner. I am very much looking forward to a wonderful evening.
For those students facing important exams in the coming months, I would just like to recommend the Good to Go course offerings that happen over the Easter break to further prepare students for the challenges ahead. These courses are open to students across Edinburgh and are useful, focussed exam preparation opportunities. Further details are available in this News Sheet.
With best wishes
Barry Welsh
Rector
