Kemnay Academy Parent Council
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
KEMNAY ACADEMY PARENT COUNCIL Minutes of Meeting of Kemnay Academy Parent Council held on Wednesday 7th March 2012 at Kemnay Academy, Bremner Way, Kemnay Present: Graham Peers (Chair) Jackie Smith Jackie Owen Elizabeth Russell Brid Mackay Helen Allan Frances Cribbes Eric Marston Mary Lucas (staff representative) Darryl Peers (pupil representative) In attendance: Dr Charlie Hunter (Rector) Cllr Hazel al-Kowarri Cllr Martin Ford Deb Hoad (Support Services Co-ordinator) Apologies: Jenny Singer Cherry Marks Angie Wood Fran Jones (staff representative) Cllr Nan Cullinane 1. Minutes of previous meeting Cllr Hazel Al-Kowarri noted that in Item 10 of the minutes (Student Update) it had been recorded that Cllr Cullinane had reported back that the meeting between Vera Walker and the Pupil Council had gone very well, when in fact it was she, Cllr Al-Kowarri, who had reported back. With this amendment the minutes were approved - proposed by Brid Mackay and seconded by Frances Cribbes. 2. Matters arising Parent Council Finances – Jenny needs to complete a further bank form for changing signatory names as agreed. New website – Deb Hoad was in attendance at this meeting and was welcomed to the meeting by Graham – further reporting is given under item 4 of these minutes. Parental Skills – reported under item 5 of these minutes. Potential joint meeting with cluster Primary School Parent Councils – email has been sent to the Primary School Parent Councils suggesting a meeting on Monday 14 th May 2012. Supportive replies have been received from Kemnay and Kintore Parent Councils. No responses yet from Alehousewells or Kinellar. 3. Accommodation update Since the last Parent Council meeting there have been two meetings relating to accommodation: Firstly a meeting at Kintore School relating to the provision of a second Primary School at Kintore (attended by Graham). It should be noted that although the current proposal includes an option for a small secondary school this meeting does not form part of the forthcoming consultation on the provision of secondary school provision in the Kemnay Academy catchment area. Kintore School is already well over the capacity for which it was originally designed and with the amount of new housing being built in Kintore additional provision is essential. Aberdeenshire Council are consulting stakeholders on their proposal of a phased development: • Phase 1 – a 325 capacity school with core facilities suitable for 540 • Phase 2 – increase the capacity to 540 • Phase 3 – a 540 capacity Academy with community learning facilities to create a 3-18 joint campus school It is hoped to have the new school open (phase 1) by August 2016. During discussion at this meeting Graham pointed out that based upon experiences at Kemnay Academy a capacity of 540 is too small for a viable Academy which would be unable to offer the breadth of course choice that parents and Curriculum for Excellence require. The current financial environment will only exacerbate this. No date has been set as yet for a further meeting. The second meeting was held at Kemnay Academy and related to planned improvements and extension of the Academy (attended by Graham and Liz). This was the follow up to a meeting held on 18 th January at which the Parent Council had not been represented due to the invitation having been sent to an incorrect email address. The plans presented at the meeting showed changes to those that had been discussed at the Parent Council meeting of 1 st February. Many of the changes resulted from a very fruitful meeting between Derek McWilliam, one of the architects, and the Pupil Council. One of the main concerns of the Pupil Council was whether the canteen and social areas were going to be large enough to cope with the school population even after the modifications were complete. Amendments were suggested to the atrium area and link into the “old” hexagonal section of the school that will better utilise space and marginally increase the size of the social areas although in reality the area might still be considered too small. The disappointing aspect of this stakeholder meeting was that the schedule given for the phases of work showed significant slippage compared to the programme originally discussed with the Parent Council. Phase 1 is now not due to start until February 2013 (was October 2012) meaning that the badly needed extra PE facilities will not be available until October 2013, after the start of the school year (was August 2013 in time for start of school year). This creates a serious problem for the Academy in timetabling PE for this term. Phases 2 and 3, which provide a new two floor building containing additional classrooms and some internal alterations to the existing building, have both slipped by six months to August 2014 completion but Aberdeenshire Council are still hoping that the final phase (Phase 4) will still be complete by March 2015 as originally planned. The total cost is still expected to be £9 million. As there are currently no further stakeholder meetings planned it was asked what the Parent Council can do to ensure that this timescale is adhered to and there is no further slippage. It was felt that a better understanding of the “due process” that the project needs to follow would be helpful and allow the Parent Council to keep a check that the necessary progress is being made. Councillor Ford was able to advise the dates of the various committee meetings and milestones that the project has to meet. This will allow the Parent Council to know when the most appropriate times are to initiate dialogue with Head of Service Wilf Weir. 4. Parent Council section of new school website Deb Hoad gave a demonstration of the new site and informed the Parent Council that it is still a work in progress that is not yet live and that there are a number of “skeleton” pages to finalise, some duplicate quick-links to be tidied and more relevant ones added e.g. letters home, breaking news etc. The website will be sub-divided into the following areas:- Home, About Kemnay Academy, Faculties and Departments, Curriculum, Parents Area, Pupils Area and Contact Us. Pages will include:- • School calendar – Parent Council meetings can be added. • Today’s events • Gallery – photos need to be checked for parental approval before adding to page. • Charity Committee – direct link to their separate website. • Links to useful homework sites. • Parent Council and PTA pages – Frances asked if these could be kept as two separate pages. • Each Department will have a link, glow links and information of interest to parents. Documents will have to be converted from Microsoft to PDF, but this is easily done. Deb enquired what exactly the Parent Council would like to see included on their page and asked that suggestions and ideas be e-mailed to Jackie Owen and she will share information with Deb. Darryl asked about the planned Pupil Council page – this page is currently empty but will be discussed at the SMT meeting on Thursday 8 th March. Deb and Scott Angus (the web team) have full editing rights to the website and can make any changes needed. The school office staff will be able to upload school letters and information but cannot change the layout – only the web team have the right to do this. Kemnay Academy’s current web address will remain unchanged. 5. Parental skills As agreed at the previous meeting, Graham has forwarded details of the site used by Aberdeenshire Council to facilitate group communication. This is currently in the process of changing from “Communities of Practice for Public Service” to “Knowledge Hub” run by the Local Government Association. Graham is a member of a group set up for Parent Council chairs. No further meetings have been held with Lesley Stage since the last Parent Council meeting. Concerns have been raised about the suggestion to use LinkedIn as a means of communicating with parents. Lesley Stage and Dr Hunter have concerns about personal details being too available on this site and Dr Hunter advised that using LinkedIn would have to be cleared through Aberdeenshire Council’s Corporate Communications department. There was also a general concern from Parent Council members that there is a growing backlash against sharing details on websites and that this may deter parents from participating. This approach may need to be reconsidered. As Cherry was not present at tonight’s meeting Graham will draw this to her attention for discussion at the next meeting. It is still the intention to issue a questionnaire to all parents. Dr Hunter suggested that link week should be targeted for this as interest is high amongst “new” parents. An explanatory article did not go in the March School Newsletter but should instead now go in the one to be issued in June before the end of the school year. Cherry to finalise questionnaire for issue. Cherry has advised that access to a computing event held at RGU may be made available to Kemnay Academy. This event has previously been available to city schools only but Cherry was hoping to be able to get representatives from Kemnay along in future. Cherry to send details to Dr Hunter. 6. Head Teacher’s report Dr Hunter presented his report (appended to this document). 7. Parent Council finances Account balance stands at £378.34 with no outstanding commitments. The end of the Parent Council financial year is 30 th April. Jackie to prepare accounts statement for review at next meeting in preparation for getting accounts audited. Frances will need to arrange for a statement of the PTA accounts to be passed to Jackie for inclusion in the Parent Council accounts.