sch mins jan 08

NORTH KESSOCK PRIMARY SCHOOL PARENT COUNCIL
MINUTES OF MEETING HELD ON TUESDAY 29TH JANUARY 2008



Present

Helen Barton (chair)
Hazel Henderson (head teacher)
Ann Graves
Graeme Lyon
Alan McDiarmid
Lesley MacLachlan (clerk)


Apologies

Susanna Leslie
Julia Sinclair


Minutes of Meeting on 30TH October 2007

Those present agreed the minutes of the meeting held on 30th October 2007 as a true record.


Head Teacher’s Report
Miss Henderson advised that HMI visited the school last week to carry out a sampling exercise on art & design. In addition they carried out a survey of P5 maths lessons. The findings will not be issued in a public report but will appear on the HMI website.

Highland literacy project teacher training is currently being undertaken by teaching staff. Mr Danson is the co-ordinator for this project and will be up-dating parents in due course.


Priorities for the 2008 School Year

Alan McDiarmid suggested that the parents meetings to be held on 19th and 21st February would be an opportunity for the Parent Council to promote itself. All members were in agreement and there will be a Parent Council presence on both dates to speak to parents.

Alan also suggested promoting better communication between the Parent Council and parents. Helen advised she would provide contact details for parents in the next newsletter.

Helen took the opportunity to talk through the 3 key priorities for the Council which were agreed at the last meeting: -




1. School Building

There are still some ventilation works to be completed. Miss Henderson is awaiting an up-date from the Education Department in this respect.

An up-date was requested from Miss Henderson regarding the gritting situation. She advised that to date there had been no snow and on the couple of days there were problems with ice, the teachers and P7 children undertook gritting tasks. John Quick has been issued a contract of employment by Highland Council and will be contacted to carry out gritting duties in the event of adverse weather.

Graeme Lyons had provided a list of questions with regard to the objectives of providing the best school facilities in which to learn and the tools to achieve this. Miss Henderson advised that the school was responsible for maintaining the outside of the buildings e;g clearing of guttering, maintenance of downpipes, gritting, extra rubbish collection, etc. In addition the school had a budget to cover staffing, cleaning, telephone bills, postage, etc. An annual budget of £400 has been allocated for maintenance and £200 for travel arrangements.

Miss Henderson will provide a detailed run-down of the budget at the next meeting. Discussion took place between members as to what areas Parent Council and Parent Forum members could contribute to and the teachers are to draw up a wish list for the next meeting so that this may be investigated further. Fundraising for travel costs and the creation of a ‘hit squad’ to carry out maintenance tasks were suggested as possible opportunities. Anne Graves advised she would check out the insurance position with regard to parents carrying out maintenance activities within the school.

Miss Henderson advised that the log seats were becoming dangerous and these were a priority for replacement. Alan McDiarmid advised he had spare timber and transport available in this respect. It was agreed that the parent meetings would be a good opportunity to consult with parents on what they see as priorities for the school.


2. New Development (Growth of the Village)

Helen had received data from the Highland Council regarding the proposed development at Bellfield Farm. This provided indicative school roll forecasts for the next 10 years. These statistics indicated that school roll would decline gently, or perhaps remain stable over the next 10 years. The likely build rate for new properties is constrained by the ability of Scottish Waterto service new houses, resulting in a maximum build rate of 12 new houses per year. This seemed to contradict earlier forecasts provided by the developer and Helen Barton is to contact the Community Council in the first instance to clarify the accuracy of this data.





3. Fundraising

Anne Graves provided a treasurer’s report. She advised that 2 new bank accounts have been opened. There is currently £171.06 in the Parent Council bank account and £0.02 in the fundraising account.

It was suggested that a sub-committee be formed to look at fundraising and Graeme Lyons agreed to lead this group at the outset and will contact parents who have intimated an interest in fundraising activities to arrange a meeting.


Correspondence

A guidance booklet on attendance in schools had been received.

Lesley Mac Lachlan advised she has posted background information on the Parent Council and Forum on www.kessock.net and will send minutes to the site for publishing on a regular basis.

Anne advised that no response had been received to date with regard to lottery registration. Jackie Dey, the school secretary will chase this up on behalf of the Parent Council.


Any Other Business

Miss Henderson advised that Lifescan has sponsored Edinburgh Fair Science people to carry out workshops with the older school children on 17th April.


Date of next meeting

This being all the business to be discussed the date of the next meeting was agreed for Thursday 28th February at 7.00pm in the staff room of North Kessock Primary School.

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