How Falkirk Council is looking after school pupils in lockdown

Falkirk Council has seen rising numbers of families collecting a ‘grab and go’ packed lunch.
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The most recent figures shows that well over 2000 lunches were collected from the 39 venues, including the district’s primary schools.

In some areas, where take-up has been lower, the council has worked with local communities who have helped to distribute the bags.

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There are 3500 children who are entitled to free school meals and the bags are available to any pupil at a Falkirk Council secondary school.

Around 220 pupils, mostly children of key workers, have been attending education hubs that have continued to operate over holidays to allow their parents to continue to work.

These hubs are also open to vulnerable pupils and Falkirk Council says it is continuing to look at ways to reach these pupils and encourage them to attend.

Chief executive Kenneth Lawrie said: “We’ve gone back to having secondary hubs as well as primary, because we found that some of the vulnerable young people are more likely to attend secondary hubs than they would a primary one.

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“Numbers are picking up and that’s something we continue to monitor to ensure good progress is being made.”

Mr Lawrie is hopeful that proposals to improve the council’s digital education – passed with the agreement of all parties in the council’s most recent budget – will be taken forward soon.

The proposals include giving all children from P5-S6 their own iPad which they hope could level the playing field for children.

Mr Lawrie said the pandemic hass illustrated the importance of being at the leading edge of digital provision.

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Mr Lawrie said: “At the time of the budget there was an agreement that a report would be brought back to the Education, Children and Young People Executive. We’re going to re-establish political governance arrangements over the next couple of weeks so we’d anticipate bringing forward a report in the relatively near future to ensure that that work has member support and can continue.”