Earlston Parent Council

EARLSTON HIGH SCHOOL PARENT COUNCIL CORE GROUP Minutes of Meeting held on Wednesday 28 March 2012 7pm Earlston High School Present Sheelagh Aird, Joanne Connington, Fiona Donaldson, Catharine Fletcher, Angie Henney, Melanie Lawrie, Michelle Strong, Ruth Magowan, Siobhan McDermott, Linsey McGillivray (Clerk), Lynne Milligan, Carol Reid, Dean Sewell, Darren Todd, Kate Warner 1. Apologies for absence Caroline Keefe, Fiona McQueen, Sarah Leslie, Isla McQuarrie, Louise Ogilvie, Avril Tobin 2. Minutes The Minutes of the Meeting held on 16th February, 2012 were approved. 3. Matters Arising Re: 33 period week – it was always said that the financial side of things would dictate the decision of the 33 period week and it appears this is the case see below.

4. 33 Period Week Fiona attended a meeting of Borders secondary schools Parents Councils on 01 March. Jackie Swanston and Ken Gray presented an update on alignment of timetables. The 9 secondary heads had met and decided the preferred option would be to have a 33 period week with early closing on a Friday – the cost of this would be £500k per annum. The second preferred option would be to stick to the status quo with individual schools to look at building local partnerships and aligning timetables where appropriate. This information was presented to Glenn Rodger (Director of Education) and led to a report being delivered to the Executive Council meeting on the 6 March with the recommendation that the council does not proceed with a standard school week across the Borders 9 secondary schools. Following this meeting, a letter has since gone out to parents informing them of the decision.

5. Head Teacher’s Report This time of year is usually a quieter time with much emphasis being placed on examination preparation and next steps. S2 course choice process – 93% of 2nd years said they wanted choice. They will have a narrower number of subjects next session to follow for the next two years. Senior school – 285 pupils are returning to senior school. There are less positions available, less apprenticeships and college is significantly reducing candidates in the coming year. The difficulty with this large number of pupils returning to school is that it puts a huge pressure on the course choice procedure and what can be offered. Course choice sheets reflect what the school can staff. We can change things on the way if we can. Placing requests – there were 36 placing requests and 30 for those going from P7 to S1 and 6 for the other year groups. All the placing requests have been granted. They received their letters on Monday. S1 Awards – Celebrating success awards are issued in bronze, silver and gold levels. 11 pupils did not gain an award and they will be given support and guidance for improvement. MUN weekend – this was held at George Watsons College. Earlston High School were representing Israel and out of 600 delegates EHS received two awards: best newcomer and best novice. Rugby U15 trip to St. Andrews – the rugby team have had a very successful year and Mr Chang Leng organised a day out for the team at St. Andrews, they were hosted by Madras and they spent some time on the beach Football – the football team have also done well but were defeated at the semi final stage. The other team won on penalties. They should be very proud of their season. Hockey – Mrs Lawrence is delighted with the performance this season. There has been great participation and achievement. Netball - this group is run by parents and have had a very successful season. The U15A team played the U15B team in the semi final of the plate section the Border League. The A team were victorious and have also progressed to the quarter finals of the S2 Silver Section of the Scottish Schools Cup. This year our U13 squad made the final of the Border League Tournament which was a wonderful achievement given that they only started playing as a team in September 2011. Special thanks to all those involved in extra-curricular sport and the time they commit to this. There is no legal requirement for staff to give up their time after school, at lunch time or the weekend, it is purely voluntary. I know they are looking forward to the summer term. Charity fund raiser – the Charity and Sports Committee held a 12 hour football extravaganza. All credit to them as participation was not as strong as was hoped due to students having weekend jobs etc. Next year this fund raiser should take place during a school day so that PE students and staff can participate throughout the day. Dance Festival and Borders Festival – another success this year with a nice selection of dance performances. Special thanks to EHS senior students for picking up the junior students who were representing EHS at the Borders Festival. Olympic Torch Bearers – there are 3 torch bearers from EHS – Josh Snaith who will run a leg at Peebles, Calum Airlie who will run a leg at Gordon and Martha Todd who will run a leg at Berwick. Free Wheelin app – This has now been launched and is live. The pupils appeared in the Daily Record, they were also interviewed on Real Radio and at the end of the game the boys are acknowledged along with Mr Woodcock. Sports Relief Fun Run – well done to the six years that organised this and thanks to all that participated. Mary’s Meals – There was a television programmed showing pupils at a school in Malawi receiving back packs of “Mary’s Meals”. The learning support group are arranging for 50 back packs from EHS to go to Mary’s Meals and these will contain t- shirts, stationery, little games, toiletries etc. Respect Group – this is made up of staff members at the moment but it is hoped to roll out to pupils. The group is looking at ways at instilling in young people a greater respect for themselves, others and the wider community. We are starting to identify what the issues are and how we can solve some of the issues. We are looking at ways of empowering our senior students to have more responsibility and play an active role in the school etc. Hair Razing – 6th year students had their hair closely cut by the hairdresser on Tuesday: this raised money for charity and drew a large crowd.

Forthcoming events Easter Concert – this will be held tomorrow night and will showcase compositions, inventions and new numbers by examination students. Church Services – Pupils will attend services at church on Friday. Study leave – we return on 16th April into third year exams. 4th years go on exam leave on 24th April and 5th and 6th years will go on exam leave on 2nd May.

Other Matters School improvement planning – parents will be requested about improvements that we can make at EHS – either from a parents perspective or relating to a young persons enjoyment and success at school. We aim to ask young people, parents and staff and to engage with partner agencies to see what we can do to implement improvements. Parents Evenings timings – At present Parents Evenings take place from 6.30pm to 8.30pm but last week at 3rd Year Parents Evening it was noted that some did not leave until nearly 10pm. Having spoken to other schools, EHS has the latest start time for these evenings. Many of our staff travel long distances (e.g. Edinburgh and Berwick-upon-Tweed) to work at EHS and it is suggested that we change the Parents Evenings to take place from 6.00pm to 8pm. This is a half hour earlier start time but it is suggested that a Group Call go to parents on the day to remind them of this. An executive decision was taken to go ahead with this change to the start time and the percentage of people attending will be taken note of- if it is remarkably different to the present take up figures then this will be addressed. Parents and teachers should be reminded of the duration time of the visit slots. The tick sheets outside the doors work well.

6. Presentation – current I.T. Jill McDonald gave a presentation on the current I.T. at EHS and recent developments. The school currently has 4 servers Desktop provision: 6 classrooms with 20 desktops. Teachers also have provision in 2 technology rooms and these can be booked by all. There are 15 desktops in the library and 15 desktops in the Maths Open area. S6 can also get the key and use computers in the I.T. room. Desk tops are well served. Other Departments – Expression, music and arts have 19 machines. (10 in music and 9 in art) Each teacher has a pc on their desk (about 60 pcs), the teacher also operates a data projector. Some departments also have a pc in their base – there are 10 bases with a desk top pc. A lot of investment has already been made by the school. It was hoped that EHS would save for the new school but it was needed for I.T. refreshment whilst at the old school. At the new school SBC aims to provide one machine per 5 pupils in the refresh but the school itself has already bought many p.c.’s e.g. in the library. On top of desktop provision we have a number of lap tops. We have a trolley (special compartment which holds the lap tops and has technical provision to charge up all at once) with 20 lap tops in Art, a trolley of 10 laptops in Science, there are 12 laptops in English and 12 minibooks. Recent purchases include: a trolley with 20 lap tops for Science, a trolley (which can take 30 lap tops) and 20 lap tops for humanities ( a further ten can be bought in future), 10 pcs and 7 smart boards (we now have 20 in total) which provide interactive for staff and pupils. In the refresh all pcs were replaced before the move to the new building so we are last in line for the next refresh. The next refresh will aim to provide one pc for every 5 pupils. The pcs are robust with a hard screen and a keyboard that can be moved to clean. The price of each has come down by about £100 and the lap tops have come down by £250/£300. As part of the refresh programme we will get the latest models. Although it is not part of the project at the moment, we will soon be considering Apple Macs and I Touches. Being later in the refreshment means that EHS may offered different products at reasonable prices. After summer it is hoped that children can bring in their own devices to work on. They will not be able to link in to their school folders but they will be able to use WiFi. SBC have worked hard on this and also to put security in place. Firewall will be set up. SBC have bought software which allows teachers access to You Tube in a controlled way. SBC should be applauded for listening to young people who suggested that they would like to bring in their own devices. There was concern over the use of Ipads and posture of the users. Ipads will not however, be used for long periods of time, the school will not be buying many of these and they are considered to be supplementary. Printers – colour cartridges are expensive and Jill keeps a close eye on spending and replacement cartridges. Printers work departmentally and most should be kept B&W with central printers being colour. Desktops with touch screens were looked at for the Science lab but they were not considered cost effective at present.

Learning Scholar : http://scholarhw.ac.uk GLOW GSCEPOD: via school website – podcasts for revision between 2 and 5 mins long Edmodo : http://edmodo.com

GSCEPOD is a revision tool which EHS is piloting free of charge for March and April. EHS is the only school in Scotland to have this opportunity and is has proved very successful so far. During March 1,213 podcasts were viewed (227hrs used). There is a link provision on the intranet for pupils to use. After April a fee will be required to use this package. It may take 12-18 months to develop a Scottish version.

Edmondo is a revision/learning tool that looks like Facebook. Some students have found GLOW difficult to negotiate. Mrs Weston uses Edmondo to access materials. It has proved popular with pupils.Mrs Milligan also uses Edmondo and its format is winning the kids over.

Scholar is accessed on the school intranet partnership section. It is particularly used for science, physics, chemistry and maths subjects from Int 1 to Higher and Advanced Higher. It has quizzes, practice nabs on units, tests, notes and study guides and is a very useful study tool. Pupils can pose questions and teachers or pupils from all over the country can respond to those questions. Teachers can also track a pupil’s use of this.

Pupils can also go on to the SQA website and print off past papers. The marking criteria is there too which is helpful to pupils to see what is expected. One of the concerns with the new system is that there are no past papers. Scottish Government has said that there may be additional in-service days to support staff through the transition to the new system and will be investing money in exemplars, guidance and building up resources.

GLOW – if you wish to look at this, please contact Jill Simmons and she will give you a guest password.

Ruth thanked Jill for a very informative presentation. It was thought to be helpful if the above information could be put in a newsletter to inform parents of developments.

7. Sub Group Report A meeting was held last week at Herges on the Loch. The Sub Group have done a power of work in fund raising for the plasma screens which are now installed. The software for the plasma screens was not quite as interactive as thought but is now on the office machine rolling programme of notices etc. Current events were debated. Four members will be leaving this summer and the group is looking at succession planning. Office bearers are needed to take on the Talent Night and various other events. A recruitment drive will take place at the P7 night. A list of email contacts will be taken and followed up on. P7 parents are given a folder which describes the role of the Parent Council, Core Group and the Sub Group and the different roles that they have. It was suggested that the Core Group should try to attend every year’s Parent Night to raise the profile. Parents usually like to stay on the committee until their child leaves school. Office bearers usually hold their positions for 2 years and the maximum number of people on the Core Group is 18 (a smaller number for the Sub Group).

8. Correspondence There was no correspondence.

9. Choice of days for next year’s PC meetings The majority of the Committee chose Wednesday as their preferred date to meet. 10. AOCB GLOW passwords: If anyone should like a password to access GLOW, please contact Gillian Simmons (email) – this will only allow ‘guest’ access and not access to schoolwork. School Uniform Policy – Skirt length: although it was stipulated that these should be to the knee it is noticed that many are wearing shorter length skirts. It is of some concern but is a significant improvement on previous lengths as most now wear thick black tights which preserve modesty. In the past EHS has listened to pupils and parents, implementing a simple straight forward and not too costly uniform request. We will continue to reinforce and inform parents of uniform requirement as it is a strong indicator of school ethos, attendance and achievement. It was suggested to hold a charity sale using the lost property items.

11. Date of next meeting Michelle Strong is requested to organise a presentation on the Respect Group. Date of next meeting is Thursday 3rd May.