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Smithycroft Secondary Parent Council Meeting
Minute of Meeting held on Monday 15th January 2024
In Attendance: Lewis Agnew (Pupil Rep), James How (Teacher Rep), Mark McClintock - Treasurer (Co-opted member), Lorraine McConway – Vice Chair (parent – Rebecca McConway), Patrick Oberg (Head Teacher), Libby Young (Parent – Struan, Angus and Fergus Young), Neil Young – Chair (Parent – Struan, Angus and Fergus Young) and Julie Thompson (Clerk)
Apologies: Sam Gillies (parent – Matthew and Ben Madden) and Erin MacDonald (Pupil Rep),
- Previous Minute
Previous minute was accepted.
- HT Report
PO was delighted to give a staffing update and shared that Adam Hoggan was successful in being appointed PT English.
We had a very busy run up to the Christmas Holiday. The Christmas Concert was, as ever, fabulous. The attendance reward trip to the Tron Panto was thoroughly enjoyed by both staff and pupils. Our first School Panto was very well received by the audience and the young people did really well. We also had the School Fayre which was very well attended and had a lovely atmosphere. Finally, we had our first ever Snow Ball.
Attendance is a focus on our School Improvement Plan and we are delighted by the improvements that are being seen. PO issued a Heat Map showing our comparison from last year to this. This shows a stark improvement especially for the last week of term where we improved by 14% across the school. We are extremely keen to continue with these improvements. The Parent Council were very impressed by these improvements.
PO was asked for a roll analysis for session 2024 / 2025 by GCC. If our S1 is capped at 180 we will be sitting at 930.
This week we have relaunched our Learning & Teaching Strategy. We have new posters to be displayed in every class and S1, S2 and S3 attended assemblies today.
During his last Learning Community meeting PO shared our L & T Strategy with our Primary Head Teachers. They were very interested in it and agreed to take it back to their own schools to discuss with the possibility of everyone adopting a similar strategy.
- Curriculum Rationale
We are about to start a piece of work in school, initially with staff asking “What is the Purpose of the Curriculum”. This discussion will begin at the Extended Leadership meeting tomorrow.
We will then have this discussion with pupils and parents.
PO issued a draft S3 Pathway Form and explained we are introducing some new courses to offer as much flexibility as possible.
LY and NY have been very impressed and pleased with the fact we introduced the HWB morning for S1 this year. NY questioned how we will evaluate this and suggested we bring in university students to do this for us as part of their dissertation. PO will investigate this further.
Discussed ensued.
It was agreed the Parent Council would give this more thought and discuss again at our next meeting – ‘what more do you want the curriculum to do for your young people?’.
- AOCB
Primary Transition Visits
MMcC queried the Enhanced Transition process. PO explained this is underway and will discuss with our PT Support for Learning and DHT with responsibility for transition.
Meeting started at 6.00pm
Meeting finished at 7.00pm
Schedule of Meetings:
Monday 4th September 2023
Monday 23rd October 2023
Monday 20th November 2023
Monday 15th January 2024
Monday 18th March 2024
Monday 23th May 2024
Parent Forum Meetings:
Monday 11th December 2023
Monday 26th February 2024
Monday 10th June 2024