SPTC Mission and Values SPTC’s mission is to support the development and maintenance of high quality parental involvement. We will achieve this by: • sustaining SPTC as a robust, parent-led, independent membership organisation with a focus on research and evidence-based development. • working with parents and carers to build their confidence, knowledge and skills so they feel able to engage in the way they wish, with their child’s school and wider education services. • working in partnership with organisations and individuals in the educational and wider Scottish community, to build awareness of and engagement with parental involvement and its benefits for children, families and communities. Our Values • We are a membership organisation committed to treating all members and stakeholders with respect, honesty and integrity. • The Directors and staff work tirelessly and passionately to create productive, creative partnerships which support positive educational outcomes for all young people. • We engage with our employees respectfully and flexibly, supporting their learning and progression and encouraging their enthusiastic involvement in the development of the organisation. • We support parents and carers to be involved in the way that is right for them: with their own child’s learning; the local school; local authority or at national policy level. • We are committed to equality and dignity for all parents, carers and children. • We utilise evidence and research to advance our work and to support policy and practice. 1 Convener’s Report – Jeanna Brady Reflections on SPTC’s 67th Year Welcome to our annual report on the activities of SPTC during the organisation’s 67th year. While some might consider that the grande dame of parental involvement in Scottish schools should perhaps be slowing down a little, the very opposite is in fact true. This financial year was busy and demanding, and indeed inspiring, as befits an organisation which I believe is going from strength to strength. Our Projects Gathered Together Our partnership project with BEMIS Scotland – We’re very excited to be doing this work: it’s all Gathered Together – continued to work around about making things better for our children and Scotland, supporting greater involvement of families improving outcomes from school. It’s about the shared from diverse cultural and ethnic minorities in the endeavour which is supporting our children. education of their children and the school community. In the first year we’re working with schools in Glasgow, While, in December, the members of the project team Angus and Edinburgh and have an ambitious plan to based in SPTC’s office transferred to the BEMIS make Partnership Schools a core part of what we do office in Glasgow, the project continued to work very in Scotland. We see Partnership Schools Scotland as effectively. The Scottish Government has committed a means to address the attainment gap and to bring to a further 12 month’s funding for the project so it can about tangible parental engagement. undertake further work. Professional Development SPTC has learned a great deal from Gathered In addition to our Information and Training Sessions for Together: the barriers faced by many families and parents, SPTC’s training for Head Teachers and senior strategies for improvement. We are building this into staff – piloted in Fife in 2013 – is now being offered the day to day work we do with parents, teachers and to local authorities across the country. The training other professionals who work in education. session is focuses on how school staff work with Parent Councils - the intention is that this is a starting Partnership Schools Scotland point for a more extensive training and development During the year SPTC commenced another major service as part of our plan to diversify income. project, with funding from Skills Development Scotland. Partnership Schools Scotland is a five-year We believe working with school staff is at least as programme to pilot a model of school, family and important as work with parents if we are to make a community partnership. sustained impact on parental involvement in Scotland. Based on the work of Dr Joyce Epstein and the National Network of Partnership Schools at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, Partnership Schools offers an evidence-based model which can be tailored to the needs of individual school communities and focuses on creating family-like schools and school-like families to improve outcomes for young people. 2 Member services Providing services and support to parents and parent groups is the most important part of what we do, and why we exist. Membership fees paid by individual groups and by local authorities fund the majority of our work to provide information, advice and support to our members, and indeed any parent, on issues relating to school education. Growing our membership is therefore very important as we work to balance our books. During the year we were successful in further growing our membership numbers, though again PTAs represent a shrinking group as they continue to disband or merge into the school’s Parent Council. Both East Renfrewshire Council and the shared Stirling/Clackmannanshire education service joined SPTC as group members in 2014-15. The decision of Aberdeen City Council to offer insurance to its PCs, however, led to a notable reduction in our membership within the local authority area. 2014 - 2015 2013 - 2014 PTA Membership 270 297 Parent Council Membership 1535 1503 Clubs and Groups 20 18 memberships Corporate Membership* 25 16 Associate Membership 22 20 TOTAL 1872 1859 *corporate membership is open to local authorities and other organisations which want to support our work. Our focus on developing the range of As a registered charity SPTC is subject to services and supports we offer continues. the requirements of the Office of the Scottish During the year we produced a number of Charities Regulator (OSCR). During the year podcast Conversations and added them we worked with OSCR to define whether we to our website. They cover a number of might be able to extend member benefits topics of interest to parent groups, including still further by allowing members to use Constitutions and Setting Agendas. our charity number when making funding applications. We also surveyed our members to help us understand their priorities and requirements While a final decision is still to be made from SPTC: our membership-linked insurance around this, it presents real opportunities as continues to be the most valued member parent groups work strenuously to bridge benefit, but the online resources, information the gap between diminishing local authority & training sessions and our email and phone funding and services, and the needs of our advice line are widely appreciated. Members children in school. also asked us to find ways to bring events to them in their local area: this is something we are working on and intend to pursue in the future. 3 The membership-linked insurance, which is We advise on risk assessment and good so appreciated by our members, makes up a practice in organising a safe activity, and if significant part of our work. necessary refer members for specialist advice from insurers. Day to day, we answer queries from members who are organising an enormous Claims on the membership-linked insurance range of events and clubs as part of the are an inevitable part of the service too, though community building and fundraising parents thankfully not too often. These can range regularly engage in. Swimming lessons, from relatively minor breakages to substantial fetes and fayres, muddy runs, petting zoos, claims for theft of group funds. In one case we fashion shows, after-school clubs and were able to help one of our members recover even major events like the Dunbar Science after a very significant theft – a traumatic and Festival are part of our work. difficult experience for our members. Here’s a quote from our contact at the PC: “…we were just delighted to receive the £…. This payment is ultimately down to your commitment in supporting us …..Thank you once again for your empathy and fantastic support.” Communication Communication with our members, In September 2015, for the first time, we and finding ways to hear what they took part in the Scottish Learning Festival, have to say, is of prime important to organised by Education Scotland. Along with National Parent Forum Scotland we set up us. and manned the Parents Connect stand at the event, giving us the opportunity to speak to That’s why we have paper surveys and the teachers and other professionals from around on-line survey group Parents Voice. During the Scotland – as well as the odd parent too! year we ran surveys on the role of religion in education, CfE, qualifications and the Children We also supported the No to Named Person and Young People’s Act Guidance. (No2NP) campaign, which brings together a wide range of organisations opposed to the Our Backchat newsletter is now distributed Named Person provision in the Children and termly, and our e-newsletter goes out to an Young People’s Act. extensive list of subscribers on a monthly basis. Although the Act has now been passed and work is underway to introduce its measures Our web site grows in popularity, as does our (including Named Person) we have committed Facebook page and our Twitter presence. It to continue to urge the Government to re- is all part of our strategy to make our member think the Named Person as we believe it communication as effective as possible. undermines the roles of parents and creates opportunities for information sharing which are against the interests of families. 4 Staff As SPTC strives to offer a valuable and valued Our office staff team also saw change as Mary service to its members, so it continues to Stark, our Administrator, left for pastures new.