Minutes
RATHO PRIMARY SCHOOL PARENT COUNCIL
Minutes of meeting on Monday 7th
November 2011 at 7pm
Present: Bobby Smith (“BS”), Ms
Denise Penrose, Christine Paterson, Graham Muir (“GM”) , Helen
MacGregor (“HM”), Mrs Sarah Hall, Councillor Alastair Paisley,
Councillor Ricky Henderson (“RH”), Bev Anderson (Active Sports)
(“BA”) & Kate Watt (Secretary of Ratho Environment Group)
(“KW”).
Apologies: Ruth Gillan, Annette Wilson,
Neil Langhorn, Angie Muir & Councillor Ronald Cairns.
1. Councillors’ report
Councillor Paisley advised that he had
nothing vital to report. He was happy to take any questions.
As regards the winter weather
situation, concerns have been raised about more salt and better
machinery being available. Also communication with head teachers is
to be improved.
[Councillor Paisley left.]
2. Winter weather situation
The impact of the snow on Ratho last
year was discussed. Ms Penrose advised that since we were so badly
hit we are to be given a snow blower, which will be used to clear
paths. This can also be used for the community, as health &
safety training is available. We have also been given 12 shovels and
2 snow wovels. Any parents who wish to assist with a community
effort to clear paths/roads must sign a “fit to work” disclaimer.
KW advised that there is a volunteer
snow warden scheme. Being involved would require training due to the
physical nature of the activities. The South West Neighbourhood
Partnership will be co-ordinating this.
Ms Penrose advised that one issue about
opening the school in adverse weather conditions is staffing within
the school ie she needs sufficient staff available. There will be a
register of where teachers live and as happened last year, all
teachers will be asked to attend a local school if they cannot attend
their own school. We don’t know how many teachers (from other
schools) live locally.
Any decision to close the school is
made in consultation, not by Ms Penrose alone. She assured us that
the last thing she ever wants to do is to close the school.
As regards the roof issue [last year
the school stayed closed even when roads and paths had been cleared
due to a dangerous build-up of snow on the roof, over fire exits], we
have contacts now with contractors who can deal with this problem and
Ms Penrose can if necessary make calls to chase them up. So if this
is a problem again, it should be able to be dealt with much more
quickly. Primarily however it is the Council who would organise work
to clear the roof of snow, icicles etc.
In bad weather the Council works to a
priority system – emergency exits and paths first. The car park and
road into the school from the school gate are not a priority. Bus
routes are priority 1.
In order to open the school Ms Penrose
needs the requisite staff in attendance and the emergency exits to be
clear.
For this winter she has agreement from
Mr Wells to use the church hall in an emergency– but this can only
be temporary as there is not enough space for all the children and
there are no educational resources there.
In case of the school having to close
again, the teachers have prepared snow packs which can be handed out
online. Paper copies will also be available.
All children were issued with GLOW
passwords, which is another educational resource which could be used
in bad weather. Reminders of these will be sent out in the back of
homework jotters.
KW passed around a plan showing the
Council’s priority areas within Ratho for road and pavement
gritting. Any representations on this should be made to Graeme Budd
at the South West area office (graham.budd@edinburgh.gov.uk). As a
PC we could approach Mr Budd re clearing of the road and car park and
ask why that is not a priority. BS will do that. (BS also noted that
Scott Neil at the Council is involved in organising gritting.)
[Councillor Henderson arrived.]
Re communication in a snow situation,
Ms Penrose will put notification on the website. Announcements are
made on Radio Forth and the Council website. A member of staff needs
to be able physically to get into the school in order for the text
messaging service to be used.
2. School report (Ms Penrose)
Ms Penrose spoke about her improvement
priorities:
Developing and embedding teachers’
knowledge of the Curriculum for Excellence: a continuation of work
begun last year.
A new maths resource has been
purchased: Heineman Active Maths. This has lots of games and
computer programmes and requires children to discuss and justify
their activities.
A new focus in Curriculum for
Excellence will be science. This is currently being taught by Mrs
Pettit. Again the teaching of this is very interactive.
Health and Wellbeing: there will
be a focus on (1) PE and also (2) Sexual Health and Relationships.
In PE all sports teaching is being looked at and Ms Penrose is
considering how to improve that. Most of the Sexual Health and
Relationships development work will start in January 2012.
Learning Support: Ms Penrose wants
to make sure that this is challenging for the children, so this is
now part of the Principal Teacher role. A new policy on Learning
Support has been devised and is now available on the school website.
Personal learning planning and P7
Profiles: personalised learning means pupils learn better. Pupils
are encouraged to plan their own learning with the teachers, who
look for evidence of achievement both in and out of school.
Our school policies are out of
date. Ms Penrose has updated those on (1) Equality, Diversity and
Anti-Bullying and (2) Positive Behaviour. Next she’ll look at the
Learning and Teaching policy. NB all schools have their own policies
on these matters, to take account of individual factors within that
school.
Golden Time has been revamped so
as to focus the children on behaving well to earn Golden Time.
Specialist teaching: Ms Penrose
also discussed specialist teaching provision. She has a small budget
for this; how it is spent is up to the school.
On PE Ms Penrose feels that better
quality teaching can be had from class teachers and that some of the
budget can be well spent on organising CPD to help develop their
teaching skills on this.
On Art, it is difficult to get a
part-time teacher so this responsibility is with the class teachers.
They all work hard and help the children to produce great artwork.
Ms Penrose explained that for Primary school teachers, the
expectation is that they should be able to teach across the whole
curriculum.
On Music: the school is using the ABC
Music programme. It covers everything in the Curriculum for
Excellence and the children enjoy it. It is about music skills, not
just singing.
Mr Lamb is teaching the final few P7s
in woodwind, up to the end of the current school session. Mrs Miller
teaches violin to a few children in each year, who are selected on
the basis of their performance in a test prescribed by the Council:
they are checked on their listening abilities (picking up pitch and
rhythm) and also assessed on their likely commitment to practice.
Some money within the specialist teaching budget has been used for
learning support. Also some budget is used for CPD to enhance class
teachers’ skills.
HM made the point that it is a shame
for the children if their learning experience is narrowed due to so
much of this type of teaching coming from class teachers – although
of course the fantastic work the class teachers do is greatly
appreciated.
As regards the Principal Teacher’s
post, there are to be interviews next Wednesday. Annette Wilson is
currently the only PC person who has done recruitment training and
she will sit in on the interviews (although this is technically not
a requirement). There are some strong candidates and Ms Penrose
hopes to be able to make an appointment after these interviews. NB
others in the PC should do the recruitment training so that AW is
not the only qualified person.
In relation to the “Ratho
Through the Ages” project last session, Ms Penrose has entered the
school for a Children & Families Achievement Award. The Awards
ceremony is coming up shortly. She will take with her Ann Thomson, a
village resident who helped greatly with that project, and 2
children.
Ms Penrose also mentioned that she
is discouraging the children from using the path from the main
entrance leading around the back of the school. It is not a proper
path and becomes very slippery in winter.
3. Active Schools Update (Bev Anderson)
BA works within our cluster ie the High
School and the 2 primaries within City of Edinburgh. She promotes
health, sport and physical activities. She is keen to encourage the
whole family to be active.
What she does first is ask the children
what activities they would like to have and then she finds out what’s
available. She tries to make all activities self-financing. Her
budget is only £1,000 for the whole cluster.
She highlighted that she needs numbers
attending the sessions which she arranges in order to keep those
activities going. This can be very unpredictable eg last year Street
Dance was very popular but this year there has been a drop-off.
She aims to provide activities for 2
different age groups where possible, so that as many children as
possible have the opportunities.
GM asked about inter-school games,
which he thinks are good for children’s self-esteem. BA agreed that
she tries to get these organised where possible.
This year there has been an issue with
eg not having a football team from the start of the session, at which
point the opportunity to be in a league arises and has now been lost.
However, friendly matches can still be organised and BA will try to
get the team into a cup competition.
Netball was led by Miss Souza in the
past and although other staff have led the training sessions, there
have been no actual matches. Here also the chance to join a league at
the start of term was not taken up as the children at that time were
felt not to be ready. Again BA will try to sort out friendlies.
For the Soccer Sevens to be able to
field a team: we need at least 10 boys training every week.
Rugby: this year Currie lost its Youth
Development Officer and as a result the club has not been working
with the schools. BA is approaching Forrester High School instead.
JASS (Junior Award Scheme Scotland):
this is the junior Duke of Edinburgh award scheme. This year it is
being piloted with the P6/7 class. It is done within curricular
time. BS mentioned that this was discussed at the CCWP meeting he
attended and that there is an issue with taking it up outwith
curricular time.
GM & HM mentioned a bugbear they
have with the P6 class being split: that different opportunities are
available for the P6 children in the P7 class as opposed to those in
the P5/6 composite (eg the JASS scheme) – and that when the class
is reunited as it must be next year (as a P7 class), there will be
differences in their educational experience. Ms Penrose suggested
that the opportunities which the two sets of pupils have had are
simply different, and one is not necessarily better than the other.
The cycling training which was been
held recently was praised as being very good.
BA told us that she often attends
school assemblies to talk to the children. She also attends festivals
etc.
BA is also involved in providing CPD
opportunities for staff: first at Ratho there will be gymnastics,
then hockey and dance.
To improve PE education within the
school, Ms Penrose & BA are looking at using a pack prepared by
North Ayrshire Council.
GM also asked about BA’s links with
the climbing centre. BA explained there is a new manager there and
BA has been trying meet with him/her. It was agreed that the EICA is
a great resource which should be encouraging visits from schools. RH
can make representations about this.
4. PC Accounts
At the moment there is a credit of
£47.55 in the general account.
During the summer the PC agreed to
contribute £200 to purchase games for the children – or possibly
slightly more. The children have chosen a games box and an extra
£19.85 is needed for this; all present agreed that this additional
sum could be donated from PC funds.
5. Feedback from CCwP meeting attended by BS
At this meeting BS was involved in
discussion on issues such as how PCs are organised & what is the
role of PCs?
BS said that there seems to be a great
deal of variety in PCs – from the massively organised with many
sub-committees to those which barely exist. We seem to be somewhere
in the middle.
One topic discussed at the CCwP meeting
was communication with parents (eg email/parentmail/texts) and BS
will follow up on this. He is also going to look at the Drummond
Community High School website.
Also discussed were sports provision
and janitorial cover.
Re janitorial arrangements, RH
explained that following last year’s budget there was to be a
reorganisation of janitorial cover. There is a target as regards the
savings to be made.
RH said that what is currently being
looked at are ABMs: Alternative Business Models. This means that the
janitorial work (and other work such as cleaning and catering) could
be outsourced to a private company. A decision is due at the end of
this month.
BS is in contact with the Chairs of
Dean Park and Kirknewton Primary Schools. He suggests inviting their
Chairs to come to one of our meetings. He thinks it’s important to
forge better links with these schools, and also with Balerno High
School.
As regards the role of Ratho PC, Ms
Penrose would like to see the PC being more involved in
decision-making as regards the curriculum.
6. AOCB
Ms Penrose advised that the EIS
has agreed to take strike action on Wednesday 30 November. A
decision is expected shortly from Ms Penrose’s union. More
information will follow on this.
Primary 1 enrolment week is 14 to
18 November. There are 25 in the nursery class who may possibly
start P1 here. Apparently some of the parents in the new Cala homes
are sending their children to Clifton Hall but Ms Penrose does also
have some new enrolments from these houses. The nursery will be
almost full after the January intake. The nursery room can hold 30
children.
Miss Souza is coming back to the
school in January. She was asked to stay on a little longer at her
current school as their head teacher has left and otherwise they
would have been without senior management for an extended period.
7. Date and time of next meeting
Monday 30 January 2012 at 7pm.
