Dear Parents,
Well done for making it through this “little term”, here’s hoping that the epic summer term will use its lengthy duration to bring us some reasons to be positive. Until then, here is our update:
- At the start of the summer term the two location bids for the school’s future location, together with the assessment criteria, will be published.
- Once these three documents are public, we plan to host a Questions and Answers section on the PA’s website to allow parents a chance to request further clarification or information about the two bids. You’ll email to us your questions, we’ll post them on our site and add the answers once we receive them.
- We plan to run a survey about the two bids and their impact on your children. It’s a short survey which should make for a straight forward interpretation of the results.
- While trucks continue to drive the wrong way past the school gates at peak times, the 4 online meetings that Bergen Gemeente held about the school’s area have now finished.
- Almost no information was forthcoming about the Gemeente’s plan for the remainder of our tenure in Bergen.
- Bergen Gemeente have invited to a physical meeting the school’s Deputy Director of Finance and Administration, together with one representative of the Parents’ Association. We hope that this meeting will bring clarification on what the Gemeente plan to do in the immediate future to boost the safety of the area around the school for pedestrians, cyclists, drivers and their passengers.
- In the mean time we would like to bring to your attention a very useful app called “Fixi” (Android Link here, Apple Link here). Fixi allows you to report issues to your local Gemeente. It could be unlawful rubbish disposal, it could be social nuisance or it could be lorries driving the wrong way past your school during drop-off/collection hours. We would urge parents to consider making use of this app, not just to raise the number of reported safety concerns around the school but also to allow you to report things in your local area too – the reports go to the Gemeente of the area that you report so you don’t need to find their contact details to raise a complaint.
- On the subject of traffic around the school, we the parents need to get our own house in order too. We make no apology for the patronising tone of this section:
- Please stop using the edge of the Churchillaan roundabout as a car park.
- Please stop the “Cagney and Lacey-style” diagonal parking when using the spaces opposite the school on Molenweidtje – it is a seriously dangerous thing to do with so many small, distracted pedestrians, so many cyclists caught up in the ambience of Molenweidtje and so many rushed drivers using this road. There are spaces on Churchilllaan: please use them,
- Please use only one space per car and please park only one car in each space – if you have a larger vehicle and are parking across the road from the school, please make sure that your car’s backside is in the same space as it’s front bumper. If you can’t fit in the space, please leave it for a smaller car to enjoy.
We hope that you will enjoy the Easter change of routine, no matter how marginal a change it may feel. So pack away those ice skates and ski suits and prepare to start paying for public parking again now that the winter season is (hopefully) behind us!
Take care,
ESB Parents’ Association
If you have any questions that you would like for PA to communicate on your behalf, please send them to us.