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Smithycroft Secondary Parent Council Meeting
Minute of Meeting held on Monday 13th January 2025
In Attendance: James How (Teacher Rep), Elaine MacLeod, Mark McClintock (Treasurer),
Patrick Oberg (Head Teacher), Libby Young, Neil Young (Chair) and Julie Thompson (Clerk)
Apologies: Lynn Bryce, Simi Dosu, Sam Gillies, Lorraine McConway (Vice Chair), Rebecca Orr,
Tracy Quinn, Daniel Snee and Caelyn Tollett
- Previous Minute
Previous minute was accepted.
- Head Teacher Report
PO decided not to produce a report for this meeting as at the end of term he uploaded an update on to the School Website and there was nothing to add to this. He will give his Head Teacher Report as normal at our next meeting.
- Bank Account
MMcC plans to go to the Co-op Bank tomorrow to discuss us moving our account to there. He will contact NY with an update after he has been, and we will discuss at our next meeting.
- Information Sharing
PO has adapted the Smithy Snapshots that are being issued to staff on a weekly basis to make them parent friendly. These have been put into a video clip and can be added to the School Website. PO asked if the parents thought this would be helpful for and welcomed by our parents. The Parent Council felt they would be a worthwhile thing to share.
Our website was reviewed and discussed as now maybe the time to majorly update it. We also need to make it more user friendly and mobile phone friendly. We may need to look at a new provider.
- Mobile Phone Use
We are trialling a new process during our Prelim Diet trying to reduce mobile phone use in school. If a young person asks to go to the toilet they must leave their phone in their classroom and not take it with them. Some classes have a ‘Phone Zone’ and are encouraging pupils to put their phone there as soon as they come into the classroom. PO intends purchasing more of these and will offer to staff who want to encourage this.
The Parent Council support us trying to restrict phone use in school. They also suggested that pupils are reminded during registration that their phones should be off or on silent.
NY showed statistics that demonstrates that since the introduction of different apps i.e. Facebook, Snap Chat etc. the mood of people has started to decline.
Discussion around the possibility of us having a pilot whereby around 20 / 30 young people volunteer to give up their phone during the school day took place. This would need to be in agreement with the young person and their parent. We could run it from April until the end of term and would need to evaluate the impact. If positive we could then roll out to the whole school in time.
We would need time to set it all up properly. These ideas will be discussed with SLT.
- AOCB
There was no other competent business to discuss.
started at 6.00pm
Meeting finished at 6.50pm
Schedule of Meetings:
Monday 2nd September
Monday 28th October
Monday 18th November
Monday 13th January
Monday 17th March
Monday 12th May