Minutes of meeting on Monday March 28, 2011 at Netherlee Primary School
Present: Lisa Bullen; Ailsa Crum; Cllr Ralph Robertson; Val Graham, Liz Grant; Susan Skirving; Karen Hussain; Jan Aitken, Nick Smith, Cllr Mary Montague, Sue McMillan John Stoner
Apologies: Steve Galloway; Tim Adams, Vivienne Wilson; Seona McKenzie, Cress Maher; Kirsty McNeil, Sandra Mitchell, Brenda Williams
1. Minutes of previous meeting held Nov 3, 2010 were approved.
2. ERC Budget Update
ERC’s Budget has been agreed for the coming year. Lisa Bullen said that the consensus of opinion from the other schools’ PC chairs was that consultation notice period was very short. As it was Netherlee PC just managed to get a letter to parents before the end of Xmas term and other local PCs adopted our letter/ email that Val Graham had originally drafted. Mary Montague said it was very much a consultative process and parent feedback was recognised by the Director of Education. No one from the school was able to say how the new approved budget would affect the Netherlee PS directly.
3. Proposed Gala Day Sat, June 19 –
Providing the support of Active Schools Co-ordinator Lesley Palmer could be assured, the Sports Event would go ahead. The Health & Well Being Team led by Kirsty McNeil would also play a key role. Parent volunteers both pre-event and on the day were vital components, too. Liz Grant, Sue McMillan, Nick Smith and Ailsa Crum were drafted on board and Seona Mackenzie would be approached for her help. Liz said she would seek further support from parents and said that Kirsty was likely to co-ordinate a list of race participants by asking the children to pre-register for races.
4. NPS Communication beyond the website
Sue McMillan gave an overview of how she had progressed NPS’s Facebook account and how we could now “tweet” posts for parents on a variety of subjects, for example in relation to the Sports Event or for targeting new members. Everyone expressed their gratitude to her for moving this on. Sue said it would make sense that the PC and the PTA should use the same account rather than operate as two separate entities and this would be raised with the PTA after the AGM at the end of April. Because Sue is the only administrator we should look for some others – possibly, Jen, Fiona and John.
5 Councillors’ Updates
Mary Montague was pleased to note the new fence which she had discussed previously with Sandra Mitchell. She extended a warm welcome to everyone connected with the school to the ‘Gala Day’ for the communities of Stamperland, Williamwood, Netherlee and Clarkston which would be held on the afternoon of June 11 at Overlee Park. Mary touched on the ERC ruling re the St Ninian’s HS catchment and the Placing Request ruling that those with Baptism Certificates from outwith East Renfrewshire could still be given priority over those children in ER seeking places. Fortunately Netherlee PS had no such issues.
Ralph Robertson raised the issue of roads around the school and potholes parents might be hitting en route. He said ERC did its best to spread money for road repairs from area to area but at busy locations, for example near schools, – if the Council had a particularly high level of complaints- would react . The Customent First no 0141 577 3001 was the first place to ring.
A short discussion on School Safety followed with members saying that the parking access located between La Brava and the school gate was causing new safety issues. Parents were having to caution children very frequently that the resurfaced areas were not all pavements and perhaps new road markings should be painted. It was also felt that road markings at the new school boundary fence might help as the cars in the car park/ access ramps were still very close to the children as they vacated the premises. For other Anti Social Behaviour issues Ralph said to use the Ring & Report number and this could be done anonymously 0800 013 0076.
6. ERC Parent Council Chairs Meeting
Lisa updated on the February meeting and said a presentation had been given on the ‘Role of the School’s Parental Involvement Co-Ordinator’. (For Netherlee this is Elaine Milne)
Another topic was in relation ‘senior school attainments in national qualifications’ where not surprisingly the authorities with a higher socio- economic profile tended to do well eg East Dunbartonshire, Aberdeenshire, Stirling, Mid Lothian, East Lothian and East Renfrewshire. Ailsa Crum picked up on this saying that there should be more specific research on what happens in four years beyond these national qualifications taking place. For example at Glasgow University there is a significant number of East Renfrewshire students who do not complete their original course and observations had been made that self –directed study was a particular challenge and possible reason for an acute amount of drop-outs. Interestingly the University of the West of Scotland (Paisley) was a beneficiary in gaining these students when they returned to study. While the focus of this activity was at least seven years beyond those attending currently in Netherlee PS age it was discussed that self-directed study should be nurtured in primary age. Also as it seems increasingly likely that those leaving Netherlee in P7 this year to go to Williamwood HS in August will start to “choose” options at the end of S1, names and labels of subjects such as “physics”; “biology, “geography”, “modern studies” should be made clear at Primary School within the Curriculum for Excellence framework. Mary Montague was interested to hear of any data on University drop out rates by East Ren students.
8 Other Business
9. Next meeting
A date for the next meeting will be circulated soon.
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