Parent Council Minutes - October 2021
Smithycroft Secondary Parent Council Meeting
Minute of Meeting held on Monday 6th September 2021
In Attendance: Gillian Doody (parent – Heather and Fraser Little), Adrian Hood (Teacher Rep), James How (Teacher Rep), Andi Knight (parent – Ruairi Knight), Tracy Miller - Chair (parent – MacKenzie Christie), Mark McClintock - Treasurer (Parent – Kerry McClintock), Patrick Oberg (Head Teacher), Muriel Pearson, Libby Young (Parent – Struan and Angus Young), Neil Young – Vice Chair (Parent – Struan and Angus Young) and Julie Thompson (Clerk)
Apologies:
- Previous Minute
Previous Minute was proposed by MM and seconded by NY.
- HT Report
PO expressed his delight that things feel quite normal even though everyone is still wearing face coverings, sanitizing their hands and moving around the school using our one-way system. Pupils have returned looking extremely smart in their uniforms and ready to learn.
The loss of Paige Lloyd, who should have been in S4, has been felt by the whole school community. PO plans to meet with Paige’s family to begin discussing how best we can remember Paige and how we can celebrate her life. Mum is creating a JustGiving Paige to help them to purchase a bench which will be placed in Hogganfield Loch to allow Family and Friends a special place to go to remember her.
PO is grateful to our staff, especially our SLT and Pastoral Care colleagues, who are supporting our young people around this tragedy.
A staffing update was given; Jill Haywood and Sharon Webber have both has moved to the centre on a secondment. Craig Murphy has secured his current post on a permanent basis, Sam Best is replacing Jill Haywood in her PT role, we have welcomed 4 probationers which will increase to 6 in October and both Dionne Bilbao and Laura Gray are continuing in their acting PT Pastoral Care roles. We have welcomed a new Campus Police Officer, PC Laura Thomson as well as lots of other new class teachers.
As planned we were part of the SQA Alternative Certification Model (ACM). As promised, all of our results were accepted and we were pleased in the main with our overall school results. PO issued paperwork showing our results against Glasgow City Council and our Virtual Comparator. This information allows us to see where we are and where our focus should be for improving. TM stated that her daughter found the ACM to be much less stressful as she knew what her results were going to be and didn’t have the nervous wait as would be the case if we had had external exams.
A Consultation was carried out before the summer with staff, parents and pupils asking what they feel is important and as such should form part of our School Improvement Pan (SIP). Literacy and Well-being came out strongly. With this in mind we used PEF funding to allow us to retain Stephen Brown in his PT role which, in turn means, Marie Kerr will be able to focus on recovery including literacy support. She will be working alongside Sarah Stobie and Sheelagh Bartlett to work both with small groups and on a one to one basis where necessary.
We have also introduced a Youth Base which is run by J12 and Fare. This base is offering practical and emotional support to our young people.
This session we plan to engage our senior pupils in roles of responsibility to encourage them to ‘give back’. Muriel Pearson mentioned Cranhill Trust would be able to offer opportunities for this.
- AGM
Our AGM is scheduled for 25th October. This will be advertised as normal and will run as a hybrid meeting with the Parent Council members being in school and others joining via Zoom.
- Training – Recruitment
Members were reminded of the vast amount of high-quality training that is on offer by GCC.
- COVID within the School
The main change since our return is that we no longer need to carry out the Test and Protect process. Although we have seen a rise in positive cases we have far fewer pupils needing to self-isolate.
Lateral flow testing is still being encouraged.
- Ties
As planned JT ordered ties for our S1 pupils. The total cost to the Parent Council is £444.31. Once again, the Parent Council were thanked for their generosity.
- Bank Account
The school fund will be used to pay for the ties with the Parent Council then reimbursing the School Fund.
- Future Assessments
SQA have announced that the normal SQA Exam Diet will return in 2022. They also said that sections which were removed this year will not be put back into the exams yet. The expectation is that we will assess throughout the year so that we would be prepared if we had to use to ACM again. PO stated that pupil assessment takes place as a matter of course every year.
- New Members
As we approach the AGM how do we encourage other parents to join the Parent Council? At a recent training attended by TM they discussed using social media, but it was noted that the admin of this could be problematic.
Both PO and AH are at the school gate at the end of the day and will promote the Parent Council to parents when they can. TM and NY will do likewise.
MP suggested issuing a Forms Questionnaire asking parents what topics they would like discussed at our Parent Forum Zoom meetings. The Parent Council could create the questions.
TM and NY will meet out with this meeting to discuss further.
10.Social Media
NY knows that other schools are effectively using social media and feels that we are missing out. It was suggested that we use Twitter initially to see if we can engage more parents. PO explained that he can create a new account which could be used by the Parent Council. TM and NY will also discuss this idea when they meet.
11.AOCB
Muriel Pearson
Huge thanks were passed to Muriel for her support of the Parent Council and the School. Well wishes for her big adventure were passed on.
After School Clubs
NY is delighted to see the return of the above and wondered when our Lunchtime Clubs would once again be on offer. It was explained that these are proving tricky at the minute with our split lunchtime, but hopefully we will see their return in the not too distant future.
Parking
TM once again raised concern over parking outside of the school at the end of the school day. She feels some of our parents are parking dangerously and as such putting our young people at risk. PO will seek support from our Campus Police Officer.
It was acknowledged that we don’t have an abundance of alternative parking for our parents, but we need to make it safer for all of our young people. Lots of schools have parking restrictions in place and it would be good it we had something similar.
Meeting started at 6.00pm
Meeting finished at 7.35pm
Next Meeting to be held on 25th October