PARENT COUNCIL

Agenda for Parent Council Meeting Tuesday 7 February 2012 - 6.00 p.m. - Link

Minutes from the first Parent Council Meeting held on Tuesday 8th November 2011 - Link

---

Parent Council Meeting

Tuesday 7 February 2012 - 6.00 p.m.

Agenda

1. Minutes of Meeting 8 November

2. Behaviour Policy

3. Homework

4. Year 6 Leaving "Do"

5. MoD Grant

6. Staffing

7. Election of Chairperson

8. Date of Next Meeting

A Word document of this agenda can be downloaded - here.

TOP

---

Minutes from the first Parent Council Meeting

held at Innsworth Junior School

Tuesday 8th November 2011 6 - 7p.m.

11 children were represented across all year groups.
Chairing the meeting: Mr Allen Robson (Chair of Governors)
Assisted by: Mrs Jenkins, Sarah Duffy and Deborah Collis (Parent governors).

1 a) Why have a parent council?

This is a fairly new concept, suggested to give parents a broader view of school life, by having and encouraging more face to face meetings between parents and school management. There is lots of research concluding that parents who have an interest in their child's school, their child will achieve and attain better grades. The home/school partnership will hopefully improve and encourage hard to reach parents to play a more active role in their child's school.

b) Governing Body

Responsible for providing a strategic view for improvement, being a critical "friend" by providing support and direction and ensuring accountability for a good quality education. The Head Teacher is responsible for the day-to-day running of the school. The Governing body help her manage in the upper circles. Consists of 12 members that include Mrs Jenkins, 1 staff Governor (Miss Schofield), 4 parent Governors, 4 community Governors (1 of whom comes from ARRC) and 2 local authority governors.

c) How will it work?

The governors will organise and chair the first 2 parent council meetings. A chair person will then be elected to run and continue the parent council with parent representatives from each year group or each class. There will always be a governor at each meeting to discuss salient points and feed back to the governing body meetings.
If a subject is raised which cannot be discussed there will be justification why that cannot be.
Named individuals (child or adult) will never be discussed due to confidentiality.
All and any parent will be encouraged to attend each meeting so they can then feed back to other parents. Parents as a group choose this school for their children to attend. The Governing body need parents views, ideas and discussion points, to help focus on the school community as a whole.

2) Academy Status

Mr Robson explained to the floor briefly what academy status is.
Schools are financially managed by the central government which leads down to the Local Authority then down to Gloucestershire County Council. 10% of this money comes directly to the school depending on number of children.

The last government developed the concept of centres of Excellence which are outside of local authority jurisdiction (Academies). These academies set their own curriculum, hours, holiday times; they have their own terms and conditions for staff and their own business management. These academies receive more money from central government but do not receive support from the LA. These academies have to have had a good or outstanding OFSTED report. This school will not become an academy even if we receive a good to outstanding report due to then receiving as we consider we get value for money from the L.A.

Questions were asked from the floor about OFSTED:

3) Year 6 leaving Function

There were a few ideas discussed. This will become an agenda item for the next meeting.
A "friend's" representative reported that a letter had gone to parents to ask for help organising the last year 6 leaving function, to which no one replied. The Year 6 leaving function was, therefore, incorporated into the end of term disco.
All felt that the Year 6 should be able to have their own celebratory event.

4) Behaviour Policy

Mr Robson and Mrs Jenkins briefly explained the "steps" of behaviour management. It was noted that last year, a certain group proved to be difficult to discipline, which is why this is an agenda item. All agreed to review the policy at the next meeting.

5) Homework

Mrs Jenkins asked for this item to be included on the agenda.
The floor discussed the issue of homework. An idea was suggested of progressively more homework in each year group with a shorter time to complete homework. Another suggestion from the floor, for year 6 children having past SATS papers as homework and parents to mark them. It was mentioned that in Turkey, school children have 2 hours homework every day. There was an enquiry about spelling tests. Mrs Jenkins explained that spelling tests in lists do not work, as the children do not remember the word when coming to write it in a sentence. Many schools have stopped spelling tests. It was suggested to have a smaller list but to make a sentence with the learned word.
Comments were made about homework conflicting with extra curricular activities. Also that it can be difficult to motivate children to complete their homework.
A comment was also made that children who would like more homework could be given more rewards.
Mrs Jenkins discussed "quick fire". It is excellent for mental recall.
Mrs Jenkins commented that "homework" has to be manageable for pupils, parents and staff.
This will be an item for the next meeting.

6) Open Discussion

There were a few more comments about items already discussed.

7) Next meeting: 7th February 2012 6 - 7p.m.

Agenda:

A vote will be taken on a lot of these issues.

A Word document of these minutes can be downloaded - here.

TOP