Abernethy Primary School Parent Council

Abernethy Primary School Parent Council 20 th January 2015 – Meeting Minutes

Present: Pete Moore, Judy Burke, Tracey Borthwick, Ross Watson, Ros Watson, Howard Edge, Feri Collins, Sylvia McFarlane, Sara Denner, Liz Smith, Fiona Eaves, Jo Mackenzie, Toni Kearton, Heather Rae, Cllr Jaci Douglas.

Apologies: Bridget Trussell, Lucka Poyner, Jane Forrest, Evril Spencer, Julia Hay, Jackie Convery, Rhona Bootle, Adele McCoughney.

Approval of minutes of previous meeting on 25 th November 2014 Nothing outstanding otherwise not on the agenda. Proposed by Liz Smith, seconded by Jo Mackenzie

Head Teachers Report – Howard Edge School role Next session, there will be 63 pupils in the school, which is safely within the three teacher limit. There will be five new pupils coming from Nursery in the summer.

Snow The Highland Council website is updated by the Dingwall office once Howard phones in. This can only be done after 7am and schools need to be re-opened by the Head Teacher before 5 pm otherwise it will appear as closed to anyone visiting the website before 7.00 am. This caused the confusion on Monday 15 December following school being closed on the Friday afternoon of 12th. This procedure is being reviewed by Highland Council after a lot of recent confusion. Sixty school’s appeared to be closed on the website when in fact they were open.

The Highland Council telephone information line should be parents first port of call as this is the only system Howard has control over.

School Improvement Plan Howard and the other teachers are working on several strands of this – Numeracy, planning, and expressive arts. Work is being done by teachers to look at how best to streamline their paperwork to allow them more time to concentrate on planning classes. Through assistance from the £250 from Parent Council, workshops will be run on arts, drama, dance and music with Deshar being involved as well. Pupils will be surveyed on their views on their interests in this field, to gauge interest in certain fields. Eco – Schools There are three aspects to the work of the Eco – school committee currently. These are litter, school grounds and energy. A recent litter collection picked up just 100 grams of litter, and monitors in the playground are doing their jobs well! Work is being done to improve the school grounds as a wildlife habitat, and is being done bearing in mind future installations, should the Parent Council’s bid for equipment be successful. P6 and P7 will be involved in a Big Schools Birdwatch in a few weeks. Pupils are being made aware of sustainable energy, and energy use, turning off lights, etc at school and home.

Religious and Moral Education (RME) Grace at lunch time has now been adapted to give a non religious form of thanks for the food to settle the pupils down and ensure they are grateful for a regular meal. RME is part of the school curriculum and the Curriculum for Excellence and must cover Christianity, as well as other world religions. Six occasions of religious observance must be fitted into the school year, which was usually done through Christian prayers or song at assemblies, and other religions covered as part of class work. The curriculum is much busier now so assemblies happen less often, giving fewer opportunities. Assemblies are now usually twice a term.

As part of the first meeting the Parents/ Carers and pupils have with Jackie Convery, Howard will ensure that all parties are aware of the option for the child to opt out of RME sessions in class and can arrange alternatives when required.

Jaci Douglas mentioned that, at a recent Education Committee meeting, it was raised that a new policy on the teaching of RME was shortly going to be out for consultation. She would come back to the Parent Council to let us know if such groups played a part in the consultation, and when that may be.

Howard said the school is following National Guidance on RME.

Nursery snack The nursery have just £313 to fund the snack between August 2014 and June 2015. This money can fund some snack, and must come through the school canteen. Emma Broadhurst has spoken to Parents/ Carers of nursery pupils and they are happy to continue to make donations each term to ensure the snack is healthy and filling. Heidi Young is kindly managing the money independently of the school, as is required. Playground Project After the consultation period in December, Sutcliffe Play Scotland has been selected as the successful tender. They have guaranteed their quote until May, giving us time to get the Awards for All and other funding in place before the costs could increase. Highland Council have given us permitted development rights, saving the Parent Council a lot of work and money going through the planning process. Ross is meeting with Voluntary Action for Badenoch and Strathspey (VaBS) on the 5th of February to seek assistance through the funding process and to speak to the right people in the right way. An application to Awards for All is in process. An application to the Berryburn Windfarm Community Fund was unsuccessful as the school falls just outwith their area.

Fundraising Two recent events, the sale of teas, etc at the school concert raised £370 and the Hogmanay event raised £1842, £660 of which is profit. Money from both of these go into the main pot for funding the annual programme of trips, leaving token for P7s and other requests as the year goes on.

Jo Mackenzie has done a huge amount of work over the last year leading the fundraising activities, and wishes to reduce her involvement slightly. A meeting will be organised in late February to review our fundraising activities, what we do when and how, how much we need to raise each year, etc and share the burden of this work amongst more people.

A request for £139.60 for P1 to P3 to take a journey by bus and steam train as part of their topic on transport was approved.

Finance Report Account balance stands at £5888, around £3000 of this is to move the dedicated playground account.

AOB Football Liz reminded us that £600 of the money in the Parent Council account has come from Awards for All for the football coaching and is resting in our account. The group will be playing in the TSB soccer 7’s tournament and will involve travel to different locations. Liz and Eric will provide transport. Sylvia suggested Parent Council could fund any refreshments for the footballers, which was agreed. Normal training resumes at 5:30pm on Mondays after the Easter holidays. Music teaching Ros asked Howard about the possibility of music tutors working with pupils in the school. Howard explained that he has tried to obtain the resources but without success. Jaci will contact Norman Baton, the relevant person in Highland Council, to enquire about a resource for the school to provide such tutors. Sylvia suggested contacting Grantown Grammar School to ask if pupils provided lessons. Howard felt that this was a topic the pupils could feed into with the survey around expressive arts.

Active Schools Liz asked that Dawn Horsburgh be invited to the next meeting to discuss possibilities for providing activities between 14:45 and 15:15. Ross will arrange.

Dates of next meetings Tuesday the 24th of March at 6pm Tuesday the 26th of May at 6pm Tuesday the 29th of September at 6pm Tuesday the 24th of November at 6pm

Fundraising meetings will be arranged in between and advertised through the Facebook page and Email from Lorna Cormack.