Minutes of School Council Meeting of 16th October 2008

Present:

Alison Noble (AN)
Angela Christie (AC)
Lucy Gallagher (LG)
Claire Ford (CF)
Norman Brown (NB)
June Underwood (JU)
Jane Davidson (JD)
Guy Morgan (GM)
Sean Byrne (SB))
Elke Versmessen (EV)
Alison Platts (AP)
David Coombs (DC)
Apologies:

Bruce Cameron
Clem Friend
Tasneem Irshad

Head Teacher’s Report

AN presented the Headteacher’s Report. A separate copy of this will be circulated to members. This included the key objectives for the school in its improvement plan. Comment from parents is welcome.

Finance

AP gave an update on the current financial position. The School Council has £9,500 in the bank at present.

There was discussion about whether to advertise for a Clerk, or to ask the Council for the money to be paid directly to the Council. There was agreement that the Council should have a paid for Clerk and an advert will go in to the Sciennes Flyer (NB).

The suggestions for spending for this year were discussed. Ideas included:

Digital Cameras – so far 13 have been bought, with an aim of having one available for every class
Books – Oxford Reading Tree and novels
Camcorder – two
Staging – currently the school borrows some pieces from the Cannongate Youth Project
Christmas decorations

The money raised by the Swimathon has been ring fenced for swimming and tennis for pupils, and the Book Fair money for novels for the library.

The aim is to have a costed and prioritised list for discussion (AN/AP)

JU advised the meeting that the Clubs and Events Group are looking to sell a discount booklet which provides discounts to a number of venues, restaurants, events etc. For each one sold, the school will received £5. Since there is no minimum commitment, there is to financial risk.

Climate Challenge Fund

AN There was further discussion about how the School Council could get a Climate Challenge Fund application developed. Since this is likely to be a fairly time consuming activity, it was decided to hold an open meeting for parents to try and form a sub-group to take this forward. A date of 20th November was agreed.


Any other business

Class lists were updated during Parent Consultations. These are now being collated.

Electronic communications – a number of new parents have signed up to this. AC hopeful that distribution lists will be updated before the end of November.

End of meeting.

City Council 2009 Budget Consultation

The City Council has launched a brief consultation on their web site at:

http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/internet/Council/Council_Business/Council_consultations/CEC_council_budget_2009_10

This takes only a few minutes to complete but is an opportunity for you to let them know your priority areas for spending.  Hopefully if enough people put Education as a high priority, schools share of the budget might be protected.

Climate Challenge Fund - Volunteers Wanted!

The School Council is looking to make an application for funding to the Climate Challenge Fund.

The Climate Challenge Fund offers grants to a range of community organisations to help with the planning, learning, communication and most importantly, action to reduce carbon emissions. The projects can involve a range of actions, from helping us to use less energy, or walk and cycle more, to local sustainable food. The projects should be delivered in the context of the wider environmental, social and economic dimensions, that give people new skills, improve health, help them to work together or provide better community facilities, but carbon reduction must be at the heart of every proposal.

To help us develop an application that gets the best for the Sciennes community we are looking for volunteers to help us by:

- lending either professional advice and guidance (e.g. on environmental issues or in making funding applications);
- bringing enthusiasm into a small group who will develop and submit the bid;
- coming forward with ideas which help us to ensure the bid considers all of the areas in which it could benefit the School community.

The first meeting to kick start the process will be in the School on 20th November at 7pm. You are welcome to come along either to this meeting only to find out more about the Climate Challenge Fund and to contribute your ideas, or if you want to volunteer to be part of an going Climate Challenge group.

You can find out more about the Climate Challenge Fund here:

http://www.infoscotland.com/ourfuture/61.html
http://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/ccf.asp
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/SustainableDevelopment/funding/ClimateChallengeFund/


There is more information about Climate Change produced by the World Development Council, a paper on Climate Change Controversies by the Royal Society and details of the projects which have been awarded funding by the Climate Challenge Fund so far at:

http://sciennescouncil.googlepages.com/home

To help us with numbers, please email sciennescouncil@gmail.com if you intend to come along.

We look forward to seeing you on the 20th.

Problems viewing the blog

It seems that there have been some problems lately where the blog didn't display correctly in some versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer although it worked in Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.

If you are having a problem viewing any of the content, please leave a comment stating which browser you are using and which part of the blog doesn't display correctly.

Thanks.

Next School Council Meeting

The next meeting of the School Council is at 7pm on Thursday 16th October. All welcome.

Consultation on Play Strategy

The City of Edinburgh Council is carrying out a review of its Play Strategy and is inviting comments from interested parties. They would be particularly keen for Parent Councils and the Pupil/Student Council's to be involved. Individual pupils or adults may also wish to take part.

The consultation consists of:

- an online questionnaire for adults (closing date 13th October 2008)

- an online questionnaire for children and young people (closing date 3rd November 2008)

- a consultation pack for groups working with children and young people (closing date 3rd November 2008)

The on-line consultation(s) can be accessed via the following links:

The questionnaire to be completed by adults :-

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=j5dRrBQifd93yydIyiEAgg_3d_3d

The questionnaire to be completed by individual children and young people (includes a prize draw) :-

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=FnSYSdLlqmiElwlmwwmT0A_3d_3d

If you wish your views to be heard, please follow the links and register your views.

Proposed School Session Dates 2010/11

If you would like to comment on the proposed school session dates for 2010/11 please e-mail sciennescouncil@gmail.com by 30th November 2008.

The school session must comprise a statutory minimum of 190 days for pupil attendance. Teaching staff are employed for a total of 195 days per session.

In addition, Edinburgh recognises, wherever possible, the following criteria when setting session dates:

· Session to end before the beginning of the Trades Holiday, normally the first Saturday in July.
· Two In-Service days for staff at the beginning of the session
· Provision for local holidays
· A one week break during the third week in October (ie the week preceding the last Thursday in October)
· 2 full weeks’ holiday at Christmas
· Date of SQA examinations
· First two full weeks in April for Spring Break

Details of the proposed dates can be found at:

http://sciennescouncil.googlepages.com/DraftSchoolSessionDates2010.doc

Message about the next JGHS Parent Forum.

The message below is about the next JGHS Parent Forum. P7 parents may like to attend, and JGHS are keen to see as many interested parties along as possible.

Our next monthly School Council Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 7th October, 7pm at James Gillespie's High School. We discuss or have a presentation each month on different relevant topics. Following suggestions from parents, we are aiming to convene a discussion and open forum on the School Dress Code. Did you know that there is a dress code? What do you think of these issues?
We hope to generate an informed discussion on the topic and to seek views of a range of invited representatives from different groups within our community, including:
Associated Primary Schools
Teachers from within JGHS
Pupil representatives from JGHS
Community council representatives from across the catchment area
Parents from JGHS
We hope that you will be able to attend or send a representative along to this meeting. The evening starts with coffee at 7.00 with the meeting convened at 7.15.

Link to the Code - http://www.jghs.edin.sch.uk/parents/maildrop_materials_08/School%20Dress%20Code.pdf

Vivienne Swan
Vice Chair, JGHS School Council

Minutes of Meeting - 11th September 2008

Present:

Alison Noble (AN)
Angela Christie (AC)
Lucy Gallagher (LG)
Claire Ford (CF)
Norman Brown (NB)
June Underwood (JU)
Jane Davidson (JD)
Guy Morgan (GM)
Bruce Cameron (BC)
Elke Vermessen (EV)
Alison Platts (AP)

Apologies:

David Cross
David Coombs
Tasneem Irshad
Michelle Wilson
Clem Friend
Sean Byrne


Welcome and introductions.

Members were welcomed to the first meeting of the Sciennes School Council for 2008/09.

Planning

The main topic of the meeting was planning the activities of the Council for the coming year. A number of different areas were discussed and it was decided that a number of last year’s activities should be carried forward including Clubs and Events and the Sick Kids group. On the latter GM reckoned that most of this year would be taken up with producing a feasibility study into what might be possible with the Sick Kids site. JD agreed to find out the latest position within NHS Lothian regarding the site and the move to the RIE.

One of last year’s areas of activity was around Health Promotion. After discussing this, it was felt that the School itself was well placed to take this forward through the Health Promoting School initiative, calling on parent volunteers as required.

A suggestion was made that, as the School is already an Eco School with a Green Flag and has an active eco group, one possible Council activity may be to look at whether it was possible to apply for a grant under the Climate Challenge Fund, and to develop a broader eco project.. NB agreed to distribute some links giving background on the Climate Challenge Fund.

http://www.infoscotland.com/ourfuture/61.html
http://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/ccf.asp
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/SustainableDevelopment/funding/ClimateChallengeFund/
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/scot_ccfalliance.html

Communication was also discussed. It was felt that this could be further improved in various ways:

· Better distribution of minutes
· Small numbers of copies of minutes and other documents available at reception
· New school web site launched
· More parents signed up to receive information electronically
· Class lists

A number of actions were agreed including:

• AC to produce a class list template for use at the Parent Consultations (Note: class lists need to be owned by a parent rather than the School Council)
• Teachers to encourage parents to sign up for electronic communication at the Parent Consultation. NB will send a template to AC and AN for this purpose.
  
  AN raised the issue of an audit of parental views which she would like to undertake during the year, and which she would look to the School Council to assist with, both in devising the questionnaire and in collecting the views of parents.
  
  Election of Office Bearers
  
  Volunteers were sought for the posts of Chair, Vice Chair, Treasurer and Secretary of the Council. The meeting agreed that NB would be Chair and AP Treasurer.
  
  Last year there was no Vice Chair and there were no volunteers at the meeting. NB agreed to produce an overview of what the responsibilities of a Vice Chair were, to seek a volunteer.
  
  The role of a Clerk was also discussed. This may be a paid role, and NB will confirm this with the City of Edinburgh Council, before a volunteer is sought through the Sciennes Flyer.
  
  Headteacher’s Report
  
  AN presented the Headteacher’s Report. Key points were:
  
  Improvement Plan – key priorities are the implementation of the Curriculum for Excellence and to continue to develop Assessment is for Learning.
  Through the Comenius project the School is developing links with Poland, Turkey, Ireland and Belgium.
  Attainment for 2008 was Reading – 94%, Writing – 89% and Maths – 94%.
  Lucy Gallagher is acting DHT covering maternity leave.
  The school office will try and maintain a blog at sciennesschoolbulletin.blogspot.com which will have the most up to date news and information.
  
  Any other business
  
  The issue of after school bookings and the school not being able to retain the income from these was discussed. This is an issue as this means the School incurs costs such as heating which it cannot recover. NB will write to the City Council.
  
  School meals were discussed. The new system was seen to be very effective from a School perspective, both in reducing waste and also in ensuring a child has a well balanced meal.
  
  Post the meeting, two members of the Council – Anna Skinner and David Cross – indicated that other pressures mean that they wish to step down. New volunteers will be sought through the Sciennes Flyer.
  
  End of meeting.

Next School Council Meeting

The next meeting of the School Council is on 11th September at 7pm in the school. All parents are welcome.