Dear students

So the week is coming to an end and I hope we all use the weekend to gather strength for the next week and stay safe.

We have a great challenge ahead of us which is to enable you to continue your studies in very difficult circumstances that we only got to know last winter (COVID).  We are able to provide quite a lot of the classes online but some subjects are hard to teach in another manner than with the students in our buildings.

If things don’t change significantly over the weekend, this is the plan for next week:

• All academic classes will be taught online (Teams)
• Special education classes will mainly be taught online (Teams)
• Part of the vocational classes will be taught online (Teams)
• Part of the vocational classes will be taught inhouse

Today and over the weekend the teachers who will be teaching in house next week will provide their students with information about that through Inna.  You therefore need to pay good attention to Inna and your e-mail over the weekend.  If you are uncertain about something on Monday morning I ask you to contact your skólastjóri.  It is also very important that you contact your skólastjóri if you can not attend classes in our buildings due to an underlying illness.

This being said, things can change quickly and we will be following information from the Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management closely over the weekend.

For those who come to our school buildings next week, the following applies:

• Do not come to our school buildings if you have any symptoms of COVID or suspect you have been in contact with a COVID infected person
• Students are to go straight to their classroom upon arrival
• Students stay in their classroom throughout the class
• Students only consume food in the classroom
• Students leave the buildings after class
• Mask use is mandatory in our school buildings – masks are provided at the entrances
• Everyone needs to sanitize their hands upon arrival in a school building and again when arriving in a new classroom, needs to sanitize their work station before and after a lesson and sanitize their hands upon departure from the classroom
• If a student needs to be in-house between lessons, he/she must go to the office of the building they are in and get information on what study facility they can use

To students who will be studying completely online next week: If you have any articles at school that you need, such as books in your lockers, you can come and get them, our school buildings will be open according to normal schedule.

During the past three days we have had to do a complete review on how we implement the on-site classes in order to meet a change in regulation for universities and upper secondary schools that requires a 2 meter distance between persons and that any student belong to a group of a maximum of 30 students (no mixing between groups allowed).  This means that in some cases a group of 14 has to be divided into two and in some (but few) cases the timetable has to be changed.  Students will be provided with good information from their teachers where this applies.  All this is done in order to carry out the on-site instruction in the safest possible manner.

Dear students, these times are trying.  Together we will do our best to ensure that learning can take place in the best way given the circumstances.

Be kind to each other and we will get through this together.

Have good and safe weekend!

Hildur principal