Minutes of the Netherlee Parent Council Meeting – 13th September 2018

Present	Debby Biddles (Chair)	DB		Tennant Stevenson	TS
	Lesley Cook	LC		Carole Chalmers	CC
	Joanne Scott	JS		Felicity Rose	FR
	Angie McHendry	AM		Kaneez Fizza	KF
	Adam Capek	AC		Karen Strachan	KS
	Julie Roberts	JR		Margaret Robertson	MR
	Lisa Gold	LG		Marie Owens	MO
	Lynn Sweeney	LS		Cllr David Macdonald	DMac

Apologies:          Alison McCosh, David McLeish, Ellie Murphy, Ruth Alexander, Fiona Leatham, Jane Thomson, Cllr Annette Ireland, Bev Eades, Brian Cook, Cllr Stewart Miller, Cllr Alan Lafferty

Observers:          Chris Cox (CC), Chris Fawbert (CF), Pauline Paterson (PP), Alison Abbott (AA), Stuart Bryce (SB)

Welcome

Fiona Leatham standing down. Parent Council thanks Fiona for all her contributions over the year and thanks for her ongoing support.

Minutes from AGM – Wednesday 17^th May 2018

Proposed by: CC                                                             

Seconded by: AC

School Matters

Key Points

•        Maths week Scotland - children fully immersed

•        New House Captains elected

•        Elections of all pupil groups taken place

•        Parent Council budget taken away at last East Ren Council budget review

•        Attainment:

•        Scottish Standardised Testing took place for the first time for some year groups last session. No results will be published this time

•        East Renfrewshire Standardised Test – attached

•        Full School Improvement Plan - available on school website. 

Key areas to be addressed include: Health and Wellbeing, Teacher Professionalism and Increasing Creativity and Employability. Within the Nursery, improving use of Digital Technology and Enhancing partnership work with families

•   Key Achievements and Developments at Netherlee Primary School from 2012 – 2018 -  attached

Active Schools Update (SB) & (CC)

Almost 70% of Netherlee School pupils involved in some form of before school, lunchtime or after school sport.

Aim is to engage the remaining 30%

Wish to re-establish Choose-a day clubs and have a sustainable model where parents are main drivers.

Sport Scotland can provide training, PVG checks and sports plans for these clubs

Discussed possibility of re-establishing the ‘Netherlee Sports Forum’.

Action: DB to meet with SB and CC to produce a communication perhaps in conjunction with the Children’s Sports Forum.

Equalities - FR

Full presentation available.

Summary of presentation:

•        Equality of opportunity is key

•        The cost of the school day can be a significant financial burden

•        First step is to look at socio-economic inclusion

•        All should be able to access and feel included in all school activities from tombola, ‘dress as you please’ donations, school trips etc

•        Typically 16 in every 100 children in East Renfrewshire live in poverty. In Williamwood/ Stamperland & Netherlee ward 6 in every 100 children live in poverty.  Equates to approximately 6 per year group

Action: DB to set up a sub-group with FR, KF and KS.  Look at what school doing?  Look at how we can make parents aware of support available if required.  Liaise with Education Department Quality Improvement Officer David Gordon.

AOB

Road Safety - work in car park ongoing.  Clarkston Road Pedestrian Crossing has been extended making busy times safer at the main road.

Parent Council Priorities – from the November 2018 meeting we will work with Mrs Donaldson to continue and develop parental involvement.

DB thanked Mrs Scott for everything that she has done to take the school on such an amazing journey across so many parameters keeping the happiness and wellbeing of our children at the heart of everything that she has done.

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the Netherlee Parent Council, 16th May 2018

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the Netherlee Parent Council 16^th May 2018

Present:

Simon Cunningham (Chair) Debby Biddles (Vice Chair) Beverly Eades Fiona Leatham Lesley Cook Fiona Dempsey Alison McCosh

SC DB BE FL LC FD AMc

Tennant Stevenson Carole Chalmers Margaret Robertson Angie McHendry Joanne Scott Lynn Sweeney Cllr Annette Ireland

TS CC MR AM JS LS AI

Apologies:                      Fiona Needleman, Ellie Murphy, Jane Thomson, David McLeish, Lisa Gold

Observers:                      Kaneez Fizza, Adam Capek, Karen Strachan, Marie Owens, Brian Cook,

                                            Felicity Rose

Welcome

Simon Cunningham (SC) welcomed everyone to the last Parent Council Meeting and Annual General Meeting for the school year. 

Minutes from Meeting – Wednesday 21^st March 2018

Proposed by: DB                                                             

Seconded by: CC

Update from the Chair

The car park renovations for the pavilion car park are still be be undertaken and have gone back out to tender.  It is expected that the works will be undertaken over the summer and it is hopeful they will be finished once school recommences in August.

Mrs Joanne Scott will be retiring from her post in October 2018 and SC wished JS the best of luck from the Parent Council and thanked her for all the support and help she has given over her tenure at Netherlee Primary School.  There is an ongoing recruitment process for the new head and SC, Debby Biddles (DB) and Alison McCosh (AMc) will be involved in the recruitment process. 

Elect New Office Bearers

SC will be stepping down as the PC Chair and thanked the Parent Council (PC) for all the support they have given him as Chair and Vice Chair and thanked the PC for the work they have undertaken on behalf of the PC.  SC also thanked JS, DB and Lynn Sweeney (LS) for their support as well as the local councillors and Councillor Annette Ireland (AI). 

SC proposed DB to be the new Chair, Fiona Dempsey (FD) seconded.

DB proposed Lesley Cook (LC) to be the Vice Chair for one year, AMc seconded.

SC said that Fiona Needleman and Fiona Dempsey would be stepping down from the PC and thanked them and other members stepping down for the time they have given to the PC.

Elect New Members

New members joining the Parent Council are:

·         Adam Capek

·         Marie Owens

·         Karen Strachan

·         Kaneez Fizza

·         Brian Cook

Marie Owens (MO) is the vice chair of the PTA and will be the liaison between the two groups.

School Matters

The results for the Standardised Testing for Primaries 3, 5 and 7 which were taken in February 2018 had still not been received.  The results of the tests would be sent out to each child once the data has been received.

SNSA (Scottish National Standardised Assessment) information should have been received by parents of children in primaries 1, 4 and 7.  There will be no data to report this year as the tests are new, therefore there is no historical data.  JS said the tests were going well and did not seem to be an erroneous task for children.  P1 children will go in small groups to take the test, in order to have support using the computer and mouse.  P1’s are not tested in writing but are tested in reading and numeracy.  Carole Chalmers (CC) asked if the school knew the results of the tests.  JS said that the tests show the number of correct and incorrect answers.  JS will look to see if there is anything useful in the data and if so, will share with parents.

JS said children are not told about the tests but the school is trying to get the balance right of the importance of doing your best work but also to enjoy the experience and not be fearful about the tests.

The school will be 85 years old this year and a birthday party will be held on 21^st June 2018.  The children and involved in the organisation of the party.

The school received a small budget of £32k for Pupil Equity Funding and have used the funds to employ an additional teacher to go into the classroom.  This has allowed Mrs Mann to come out the classroom and help with pupil support and training.  Children with needs will benefit from this with things such as homework support, social skills support, one to one support and time spent with PSAs using specific resources for five minute boxes for numeracy and literacy.  This has had a positive impact and staff are reporting that they are seeing improvements in children’s attainments.  The budget for the next school year will allow the school to continue with this.

Community learning is about to end for this block and JS said there had been great support from parents and expressed her thanks and appreciation of the help given to the community learning sessions.

Mrs McDermott and Mrs McIntosh will be retiring at the end of this session.  Mrs Anne Tennant, Office Manager is also retiring and interviews have been held for this position to be filled.

Three new members of staff have been appointed:

Miss Cheape

Miss Centola

Miss Elliott

Road Safety Update

SC said the recent road safety event was very successful.  LS said that good feedback had been received from the parent body.  Children were excellent and did really well and seemed to have a good impact on the day.  High visibility vests and banners from the road safety competition winners were excellent.  Tennant Stevenson (TS) said that there had been one case of a car parked in the staff car park and the driver agreed to rethink and look for somewhere else to park. 

DB commented that Ellie Murphy had compiled a great press release and this has been circulated to various online media sites.

SC thanked the children for their enthusiasm and fantastic execution of duties with the support of Miss Osborne.  SC also thanked AI for attending the event. 

AI said that there would be possible changes to the crossing on Clarkston Road with the narrowing of the carriageway to slow traffic down. 

Discussion was held on a traffic survey being held on 1^st Avenue.  AI said she would look into this and pass on any information received.

Angie McHendry (AM) said that she had spoken to traffic police regarding issues on Stamperland Drive/Stamperland Hill.  Traffic officers have been out and did not record any speeding,although there was a high volume of traffic.  SC asked that PC members report to community wardens and the council the high volume of traffic if witnessed in this area as this would help prompt a road survey being  carried out. 

FR raised concerns about children cycling dangerously to school.  LS and JS said that awareness of safe cycling would be raised with the children.

Equalities

SC said that East Renfrewshire Council have an equalities forum and it would be useful to have a representative from the PC to attend.  FR agreed to take on this role and a deputy would be appointed at the next PC meeting.

AOCB

CC asked why there were no bins in the playground.  JS said bins were being set on fire and are now taken in at night.

DB thanked SC for all his work to the PC.  He has been the longest serving member of the PC and longest serving Chair and the school and PC are grateful for the support SC has provided the school. 

SC thanked the PC for their support and commitment.

Date of Next Meeting

Wednesday 12^th September 2018 @ 6.30pm

Netherlee Primary School’s children tackle Road Safety with new banner campaign

Children from Netherlee Primary School will launch a new road safety banner campaign at a Road Safety event on 15^th May, to try to encourage more responsible parking in and around the school. Four winning designs have been chosen from a pupil led competition across the whole school, which saw over 100 children taking part.

Children were invited to design posters to convey a message about parking safely, to stop parents and carers parking illegally or irresponsibly at drop off and pick up times and to make sure the children are kept safe.

The four winning designs chosen by the Junior Road Safety Officers and the Parent Council were:

• Ben Moulson (P6): “Don’t Park in an Ambulance space; Don’t park on a yellow line; Don’t park unless you have a blue badge”
• Jack Brown (P6): “Please don’t park in these spaces our teachers need these places”
• Holly Johnson (Former P7): “Keep school areas clear. We are watching you”
• Cara Young (Former P7): “Be a Bright Spark Don’t Double Park”

Simon Cunningham, Chair of the Parent Council, Netherlee Primary School said:

“Road safety in and around our school is a huge focus for us, making sure our children can go to and from the school safely. We want to make sure parents and guardians aren’t unwittingly putting children’s lives at risk."

The winning designs have been made into banners which will be unveiled around the grounds of the school on 15^th May.

Minutes of Netherlee Parent Council Meeting, 21st March 2018

Minutes of the Netherlee Parent Council Meeting – 21^st March 2018

Present

Simon Cunningham (Chair) Debby Biddles (Vice Chair) Beverly Eades Fiona Leatham Lisa Gold Fiona Needleman Lesley Cook Jane Thomson Lisa Gold

SC DB BE FL LG FN LC JT LG

Tennant Stevenson Carole Chalmers Margaret Robertson Angie McHendry Joanne Scott Julie Roberts Lynn Sweeney Cllr Stewart Miller Cllr Alan Lafferty

TS CC MR AM JS JR LS SM AL

Apologies:                 Joanna Teuton, Alison McCosh, Fiona Leatham, Ruth Alexander, Ellie Murphy, Jane Thomson, Adam Capek, David McLeish, Cllr Annette Ireland  

Welcome

Simon Cunningham (SC) welcomed everyone to the penultimate meeting of the Parent Council for the 2017-18 session.  He also welcomed Jason Rush and Alex Provan who are Community Wardens from East Renfrewshire Council to give an overview of their remit.

Minutes from Meeting – Wednesday 24^th January 2018

Proposed by: DB                                                             

Seconded by: CC

Community Wardens - Vandalism and Parking

The Community Wardens have the responsibility to patrol schools in East Renfrewshire with increased patrols in school holidays.  During holiday times the wardens come onto school premises during the day and in the evenings.  There is also CCTV monitoring premises from the Control Room in ERC.  They asked that if any anti-social behaviour is witnessed to contact the police. 

The service is currently run until 1am in the morning and does not run for 24 hours and it has been noted that disturbances have increased since the service ceased to run 24 hours.

With regard to parking issues, the Community Wardens commented that there were issues in all schools as more people are using cars.  The main problems with Netherlee Primary were parking on double yellow lines and double parking in the car park.  The Wardens are allocated a school to patrol each day at 3pm and it would be impossible to patrol every school every day but they are trying to educate people regarding safe parking and move them on.  Wardens can ticket for parking on double yellow lines, but cannot ticket for double parking or parents parking in the staff car park.  They will try to maintain a presence at the school and try to deter dangerous parking but sometimes the Wardens being there can cause more issues with people trying to move away from the Wardens.

SC commented that the roadworks currently on Clarkston Road were have an impact on parking.  The Wardens said they did respond to a call but didn’t see anything.  The Wardens commented that if dangerous parking was witnessed to report this and if there is a Warden in the area then they will respond.

SC requested that if any vandalism was witnessed in or around the school that the Community Wardens or the Police be called to report the anti-social behaviour.  There are cards ready to be distributed to the children with the Community Wardens number on it. 

Angie McHenry (AM) thanked the Wardens for their remit and said that their presence is a good deterrent and their attendance would be welcomed as much as possible in the area.

AM also asked that if parking on white zig zag lines was witnessed to report this to the police.  The Wardens have a community liaison meeting with police on a Monday and this information can be passed on. 

Discussion was held on the tasking and co-ordinating process of the Community Wardens and the Parent Council would like to be involved in tasking prior to the summer holidays and lend additional support to the council by going through the tasking process and requesting additional funding over the summer to focus on vandalism and anti-social behaviour.  The Community Wardens were not aware of funding but commented that there is a presence in Netherlee and Clarkston and the schools are checked in the holiday periods.  The Wardens also commented that when calls are received and areas highlighted they respond to the calls. 

Fiona Needleman (FN) asked if there were other road safety measures that could be implemented, for example, using cones at the entrance to the staff car park.  If coned off this could deter people from parking there.  Joanne Scott (JS) said there was no issue with this but would need to be manned by volunteers.  SC asked if anybody would be free to volunteer to do this. 

SC thanked the Community Wardens for attending the meeting and reiterated the importance of reporting any vandalism or anti-social behaviour witnessed.

Update

Installation of gate at Saplings nursery building -  SC and Cllr Annette Ireland (AI) had met with Ruth Adams at ERC and she has agreed to install the gate.  The ironmongers who are carrying out work to the school roof have given a quote for the new gate to be installed.  SC also said that a line will be painted for parents and carers to use when accessing the Saplings building where the line will not be crossed into the playground and children in the playground will not cross the line. 

Car Park Works – John Marley from ERC has had the car park plans redrawn to accommodate the turning of buses into the car park.  As a result two spaces will be removed from the car park.  SC and AI have met with contractors and John Marley and discussed the widening of the car park for the buses.  SC said the funding has not been lost and will be carried over into the new financial year and it is hoped that the works will be completed by the end of the school year.  SC and AI will keep in touch with ERC until the work is completed.

Spring Concert – SC paid tribute to the Spring Concert held in March.  He said the concert was amazing and the dedication of the children seems to get better year on year and wanted to pass on congratulations from the Parent Council to the children, staff, Raymond Watson, Becky Roberts and Stephen West.  JS said that the Community Choir is working very well and is about participating and being part of a group, although more boys in the choir would be nice.

School Matters

JS said that planning for the next session had commenced and the school will be interviewing for three full time posts for the next school year.

Mrs Pollock would be going on maternity leave from 30/3/2018 and Miss Wormsley would be taking over Mrs Pollock’s class.  Miss Wormsley joined after Mr Duncan left and ensures continuity. 

Miss McNamee will return from maternity leave at the end of May. Mrs McIntosh and Mrs McDermott will be retiring at the end of the school year as will Mrs Anne Tennant from the school office. 

In the next school year there will be four Primary 7 classes which means there is an issue with space for classrooms.  To overcome this the Base Room which is used for additional learning and literary resources will be used.  A quarter of the Innovation Space will be used for the Base Room.  IT will be affected slightly but with mobile technology improving, this should be less of a problem.  The move will happen next term. 

Lesley Cook (LC) asked whether P5 will be reducing their classes due to numbers.  JS said that numbers will be over the threshold so P5 will remain as four classes.

JS said that P1 parents are being informed that classes may change but at present P1 will remain the same.

Grounds development has commenced on the quiet area.

JS said the school had had a number of recent successes:

·         Glasgow Music Festival – individual children and the orchestra did well, the Lunch Bunch did well, the choir did well but were not placed and were a little disappointed but it is important to keep going.

·         Sports – skiing team recently attended the SSA Alpine Races at Glencoe.  Out of 15 schools attending the A team from Netherlee placed 2^nd, B team placed 2^nd in their category and the C team placed 6^th in their category.

·         The Netball team are doing well and won the cluster tournament and will now go forward. 

·         The Dance Team did well and placed 2^nd.  JS said there was problems with the music failing but the team were brilliant in their performance. 

Maths – four staff presented at the Head Teachers Seminar and Netherlee Primary has been shortlisted for raised numeracy in education.

ICT – virtual headsets have been delivered to the school.  Julie Roberts (JR) said that two children have been recruited from each class across P4-P7 to be champions of this new technology and teach the other children and teachers how to use it.

Standardised testing has been completed and the results will be shared when these are received from ERC. 

Starting next year will be the Scottish Standardised Testing and JS will send information out regarding this closer to the time.  This testing will be for Primaries 1, 4  and 7.  The test is done electronically and the results will be available immediately.

Road Safety Update

SC said that there were still issues with car parking and he will continue to deal with these issues and liaise with Community Wardens and the Police.  After Easter SC will meet with Angela Mitchell, Police Liaison Officer.

SC asked Deby Biddles (DB) to liaise with Jodie Osborne and Lynne Sweeney regarding holding another Road Safety Event.

SC asked if anyone was happy to help out patrolling the car park at the end of the day.  LC said it would be good to have a rota and have a presence consistently for two to three weeks.  Lesley Cook, Tennant Stevenson, Simon Cunningham, Margaret Robertson and Lisa Gold all volunteered.  It was agreed that if people could be identified as staff or disabled then they would be given access to the staff car park.

SC said that there still issues with the availability of Crossing Patrols outside the school.  SC asked again that a message be sent out again asking if people are interested in taking on a Patrol Crossing role to contact ERC.  SC will continue discussions on this matter.

Action: AM said she would take action to talk to traffic police and to talk to ERC regarding the allocation of resources at ERC for the Community Wardens.

SC said he would talk to JS and JR to encourage parents to report issues, no matter how minor.  AM said that when teams are being scheduled, the more calls which are made from an area creates a hot spot and allows resource to be allocated to this area. 

LC asked if ERC would adopt the car park and SC said that anyone parked out with a space can be ticketed.

School Pitch

SC said that Danny McManus will attend the next Parent Council Meeting to discuss the school pitch.  It would not be hard to change the pitch to 4g but would take a lot of fundraising by the Parent Council and any deficit could be made up by ERC.  There could be some other sources of funding i.e. Lottery Funding.  Approximately £160k-£300k would need to be raised for the new pitch. 

This would be a long term project but would also give the community a chance to become involved in the school.  Lisa Gold (LG) said that Stamperland Residents Association may be able to offer some help.

It was suggested that it may be worthwhile talking to Giffnock Soccer Centre as they self-funded to update the pitchers behind Eastwood Leisure Centre.

Cost of the School Day

 SC said that it was important to identify families who may need financial support when paying for school trips and other expenses and to support the school in these matters. 

JS said it was difficult to get a true picture of where families are struggling and would be worth exploring how we can identify this.  The PTA help with fundraising money and pay for activities such as the pantomime.  Staff run lunchtime clubs and the school has started to look at recycling uniforms and the results of the recycling effort will be available in the next few weeks.  Information is also given out about the trip to Lockerbie Manor and this indicates that financial help is available for families. 

SC said that this was an ongoing issue and he will continue to discuss this at the next Parent Council Meeting.  JS suggested that members could come back with some ideas around the cost of the school day. 

Date of Next Meeting

Wednesday 16^th May 2018 @ 6.30pm