Minutes
RATHO PRIMARY SCHOOL PARENT COUNCIL
Minutes of meeting on Monday 30th January 2012 at
7pm
Present: Bobby Smith
(“BS”), Ms Denise Penrose, Ruth Gillan (“RG”), Christine
Paterson, Helen MacGregor (“HM”), Neil Langhorn (“NL”),
Louise Lloyd (“LL”), Mrs Sarah Hall, Mrs Claire McGlynn (“CM”),
Councillor Alastair Paisley (“AP”) & Derrick Bruce of
Education Scotland.
Apologies: Annette
Wilson (“AW”), Graham Muir, Angie Muir, Councillor Ricky
Henderson & Councillor Ronald Cairns.
1. Minutes of last meeting
We
talked about action points arising from these as follows:
Winter weather
preparations: Our plans have not really been relevant so far but
the winter is not over yet!
Janitorial
support: The Council decision is that janitorial support is to
stay in-house ie not be outsourced. More detail on this is awaited,
however.
Miss Souza:
She is staying at Fox Covert Primary School for the meantime,
pending arrival of a new head teacher there. Ms Penrose therefore
does not have a date for her return to Ratho at the moment.
2. Councillors’ report
Discussion
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Action points
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Councillor Paisley
advised that he was happy to take any questions.
He is dealing with Mrs
McGlynn as regards a request from Ratho Action Group for our
village to have Christmas lights. Apparently other villages of a
similar size have some.
Councillor Paisley
noted that within Ratho there are current planning applications
for both the Bridge Inn car park and for eco-housing & a care
home at the old cement works on Baird Road. There was some
discussion about the capacity of the doctor’s surgery if the
village continues to expand and other possible sites for this were
mentioned.
Councillor Paisley was
asked if there was anything he could do as regards assisting in
upgrading the football pitch so that Gus the janitor can run his
football club there. At the moment the pitch is very muddy &
a quantity of sand is needed to improve the surface. BS is
working on this and will keep Councillor Paisley informed about
efforts to source this, perhaps from Cala?
[Councillor Paisley left.]
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AP/CM
AP/BS
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3. Derrick Bruce: Restorative
Approaches
Derrick Bruce is a
Positive Behaviour Officer at Education Scotland. He gave a
presentation about his role.
He works to support
schools within 4 local authority areas, including City of Edinburgh
Council.
He has already worked
with all staff at Ratho for one day (including Sandra Clelland &
Gus), training them on Restorative Approaches. He is coming back to
do more training in May.
Restorative Approaches
are based on the ideas that relationships are fundamental; that those
most directly involved should sort out issues, and that each person
should take responsibility for their own behaviour. In practice it
means getting children who are involved in a dispute to discuss and
verbalise their problem and then to try and sort it out with each
other. This is done in a safe place, with a supportive adult
present. A key principle however is that the adults remain in
overall charge.
The general evidence is
that Restorative Approaches lead to various improvements, including a
reduction in exclusions from schools.
Another positive approach
in school is the modelling of good behaviour and that is something
which the staff seeks to do.
4. School report (Ms Penrose)
Ms Penrose spoke about
various points:
Staffing: Ms
Penrose is pleased to report that she has received authorisation to
advertise for a new permanent member of staff, to replace one of the
temporary members of staff. The position is currently being
advertised. RG has done the recruitment training and will sit in on
interviews.
IT Refresh: From
August this year, computer systems in schools will be refreshed.
Currently we have one managed network from BT, which is secure. From
August there will be two: a secure network as above plus a wireless
network, which will not be secure. The school will be able to run
any device on it. The vision of City of Edinburgh Council is that in
future every child will have their own IT device in school.
HM asked how this is to
be afforded? Ms Penrose agreed it will be a challenge.
In future therefore the
school might want to put aside part of its budget to buy appropriate
devices – and this need not be from BT. The school will have to
consider this carefully and would consult with staff & parents.
BS offered to input his
expertise.
NL asked why the policy
on this is not to be consistent across Edinburgh. Ms Penrose
explained that this is because every school is different with its own
unique requirements.
GLOW: Mrs Hall
gave a presentation about Glow. She explained that class teachers can
set up a Glow Group for class learning. Children can log in &
discuss their learning, both at school and from home. Of course we
must remember that not all children have access to the internet out
of school.
Also available on Glow is
information about the school, a school calendar & weblinks.
Mrs Hall showed us a Glow
page called Edinburgh Schools in Union. The idea is to link various
schools lying along the Union Canal. Each can upload & share
information about their own local area.
It was agreed that
navigating Glow can be a bit tricky until you are used to it.
Other interesting points
about Glow:
P5/6 did an online
meeting with Fox Covert using a webcam. They discussed their
rainforest topic.
P2 has its own Glow
Group.
2 teachers have done
Glow training.
Children are
encouraged to use Glow as a search engine. Parents can also
encourage that at home, as Glow is entirely safe for children to
use.
There are plans to
upgrade Glow.
School headcount: the
nursery is now full. Over 20 children have registered to enter P1 in
August this year. There is however still plenty of space in the
school itself.
5. PC Accounts
Accounts prepared by AW
were tabled.
At the moment there is a
credit of £2.95 in the general account. AW has applied for a clerk
payment of £240.
6. AOCB
Discussion
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Action points
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HM confirmed that
the Spring Fair usually takes place the day before Mothers’
Day. This year that means the Fair is on Saturday 17 March. BS
suggested that the school could also have a Christmas Fair: he
thought this might be a good opportunity to raise extra funds. Of
course we do have the Book Night in early November which is
useful for generating credit to restock the school library.
Recorders are to
be taught in school from after the February break.
Lollipop service:
Carol who normally covers the Baird Road crossing will be absent
from work for some months. The situation was risk-assessed with
Council people: as the Baird Road crossing is a blind corner it
was judged to be more dangerous than the School Wynd crossing.
Lorraine has therefore been moved to the Baird Road crossing. Ms
Penrose is chasing the Council for supply cover but there is a
shortage of suitable supply staff and to give us a lollipop
person would basically mean taking someone from another school.
She also explained that she has checked and there is no right to
have lollipop people; it is just a service which the Council may
choose to provide.
The next Parents’
Consultations will be 10 & 11 May. Our next scheduled
meeting is not until 30 April, which is very close to that date,
so we should have an interim meeting before then to discuss any
plans to promote the PC on the evening of 10 May.
Crackers at
school Christmas lunch: Ms Penrose asked that if the PC decides
to provide these again this year, we give clear instructions on
who they are to be given to etc. Also please note that last year
the hats were too small!
School dinner
plates & trays: cleanliness has been raised as an issue and
this will be looked into. As the school kitchen is largely
mothballed, the plates and trays have to be handwashed.
Ms Penrose noted
that the school website is being worked on and so is currently
not online. HM noted that the school is no longer using
ParentMail. She quite likes having a paper copy of the weekly
note at the moment!
Mrs McGlynn
advised that the school is now working towards its second
eco-flag.
The orchard is
doing well. More trees are due soon from the Woodland Trust.
It was agreed
that we should try to get the agenda for future meetings agreed
further in advance. Ms Penrose asked that we aim to have it with
her one week before the meeting. BS suggested that we could use
the PC website to create a rolling agenda section to which PC
members could contribute as and when points come up; then it
would just be a case of pulling out points already raised at the
relevant time. CP is to speak to AW re this.
LL had various questions about the nursery.
Ms Penrose is speaking to the Early Years team about increasing
the number of places temporarily. There are strict Council
guidelines on when letters offering places can be sent out. From
now on parents will be given a choice of a morning or afternoon
place and the school will try to accommodate their request.
There will not be the previous practice of having 3 year olds
attend in the afternoon; 4 year olds in the morning. The rule
about nursery places is that there is a guarantee of a place for
each 3 year old child, but not of a particular session or school.
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CP
DP
CM
CP/AW
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7. Date and time of next meeting
AGM: Monday 30
April 2012 at 7pm.