THOUSANDS of children left schools across East Lothian at lunchtime last Friday as they headed home for an unknown length of time.

Schools across Scotland are now closed for an indefinite period due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak.

Children’s hubs have been opened by East Lothian Council in each school cluster group, initially for youngsters whose parents have been identified as key workers.

The local authority contacted eligible families on Tuesday to confirm a place at one of the hubs was available.

The scheme is expected to extend to other parents who are key workers but do not come under category one – health and social care workers supporting the NHS response to Covid-19 – from today (Friday).

A council spokesperson said: “At this stage, we have offered about 280 places across the six children’s hubs.

“We will be moving to phase two of allocation of places where we may be able to allocate additional places. This will be confirmed in due course.”

Each hub is being overseen by a leadership team including a headteacher, supported by teaching, other specialist and support staff.

At the early stages, hubs will be open from 9am until 3pm, with extended day provision being planned from next week.

Food will be provided to children at the hubs, with free school meals for all eligible children also being distributed from them.

The children’s hubs have opened at the following schools: Dunbar Primary School (John Muir Campus); St Mary’s Primary School/Haddington Primary School (infants building); Law Primary School, North Berwick; Preston Tower Primary School (infants building), Prestonpans; Sanderson’s Wynd Primary School, Tranent; and Pinkie St Peter’s Primary School, Musselburgh.

Parents had until Monday tea-time to register their child for a place in the hubs and education officials then began going through applications to identify those eligible.

Meanwhile, thousands of youngsters have logged into the Google Classroom digital app to work remotely from home, with hundreds of classes and teachers available to them.

Lesley Brown, East Lothian Council’s education chief operating officer praised the commitment of pupils and staff to working online, saying: “Incredible working is going on across all of East Lothian to support our young people’s learning.”

She added: “I’m very grateful to everyone in our school communities for their support in recent days. Although it is a challenging time for families and children will be missing their friends, we are heartened by the many stories of young people embracing remote learning with enthusiasm.

“I’d like to pay tribute to all of our education and school staff for their hard work and commitment.

“A huge amount of effort has gone into preparing resources for online learning and helping our school communities at this time.

“Our staff have responded very positively to our plans to introduce children’s hubs. This will provide continued access to learning or childcare for the children of key workers, enabling them to play a full and active part in supporting the local and national response to the coronavirus outbreak.

“We have also been working with our private and voluntary nurseries and will be providing information on our continued support for young people in S4-6 who had been due to be sitting exams. We want to enable these students to work remotely to complete coursework, with support in place from our teams so that sufficient evidence can be submitted to the SQA for certification purposes.

“As difficult a time as this is, I’m proud of the collective effort which has gone into enabling us to be in a position to support the children and young people of East Lothian.”

Meanwhile, youth football club Preston Athletic YFC has opened its clubhouse in Prestonpans for children who cannot access the internet to connect free for homework. The club invited children along 1-3pm during the week, with food and drink also being supplied to the youngsters.

The club said: “We are opening the clubhouse Monday to Friday, 1-3pm. We welcome children who do not have internet access at home to come along and use our internet free of charge to do homework; they must bring their own tablet or laptop. We will give all children a free juice and biscuit, adults can have a free hot drink.”

One of the club’s coaches has offered to produce soup and sandwiches for children who attend and Sugar Rush Creations has offered to provide all youngsters who are doing homework in the clubhouse with free popcorn.