Category: general/ whole school

LOIRSTON PRIMARY PARENT COUNCIL

DRAFT MINUTES OF MEETING HELD 25th JUNE 2019

ATTENDED

Parents – Laura Allanach (LA), Karen McClymont (KM),  Fleur Tarling (FT), Karen Strachan (KS),  Nicola Argo (NA), Miroslaw Jackiewicz (MJ),  Kelly Gordon (KG), Shona Neave (SN), Emma Kennedy (EK), Stacey Greer (SG),

School representatives – Mr Nicol (CN), Mrs Hidson (KH), John Carroll QIO

Apologies – Paulo Adams, Kelly McGroggan, Danielle Ligertwood, Jacqui Murdoch, Gillian Robertson

AGENDA

• Welcome/Apologies
• Approve minutes of last meeting/review outstanding action

• Fundraising committee update

• Treasurers Report

• School Update

• Chairperson Notes

• Parental Engagement

• • AOB

• Date of next meeting – 3^rd SeptemberWELCOME AND APOLOGIESAPPROVAL OF MINUTES FROM PREVIOUS MEETING/REVIEW OUTSTANDING ACTIONSMinutes Seconded – Karen Strachan  Nursery survey – 12 parents have offered to volunteer at events from nursery. A couple of different ideas of events to run for nursery children. A list of helpers will be passed to Fundraising Subgroup. Very successful having nursery children at the disco and Easter bingo.Behaviour policy has been shared on the websiteNew reading books have been purchased by the school to replace old/dated booksYear end 31st March 2019 – accounts have been audited and will be sent to the council by the end of the month.Resources – discussion on the request for class contributions for next school year. Agreed that allocating money for tablets and specific requests for resources would be the preferred option rather than class contributions due to limited resources.Chairperson thanked helpers for parents night and running the book fair. Sales of £776 resulting in rewards of £388 for the school. In future the fair will be kept to parents evening and one school day and make it more clear to the nursery parents that they can participate at parents evenings.Tablet funding – suggestion for summer holiday activity has been emailed to Mrs Hidson. A suggestion is for sweet tubes to be filled, pupils to buy their own and fill with coins, before handing back to school after the holidays. KH to send letter to parents with information.PVG checks – volunteers to fill out forms and school to have them approved to ensure there are more PVG checked helpers at all eventsSCHOOL UPDATEThe Local Authority is confident about the progress made since the inspection and will reflect this in a letter to Education Scotland . There had been a lack of consistency between school and nursery however significant improvements have been made in this area. Overall the school has continued to make good progress.Significant improvements have been made in the nursery to the extent that other schools are looking to Loirston as a good example.The school has been working with the authority on literacy and numeracy and in this area is working in collaboration with the nursery.The school is now using data to inform improvements and is using this data to inform planning. The local authority  is confident the school is using PEF money accordingly, and is making good use of data to detect ASN pupils who are then being supported accordingly.Homework survey – Good response at parents evening – mostly supportive and with some suggestions for revisions which will be considered. This has included to place literacy sound words on the ILD, skills grids to come out more often which will then come back signed and this will be acknowledged in some way by the school. In order to improve communication with parents around expectations, these will be placed on the website and on Expressions. Overall it was felt it needs to be clearer how the completion of homework can be fed back. This will all be discussed with staff at the next inservice days. CHAIRPERSON UPDATEKG attended the ACPF meeting on 13/5/19. KG explained the new structure re QIO/QIM. The poverty pledge was explained. Holiday consultation will be reissued with more of a focus on secondary pupils. Next meeting is scheduled for 16^th September. Ideas discussed around running a parents event around 3.15 to encourage more parents to come along to find out more about the parent council and we can help them get involved. Could run a focus group or a single issue meeting. In the focus group ask what the biggest barriers are to attending meetings. In the first few weeks, ask people to sign up for what they would like to help organise. Try to keep volunteers more involved in the organising rather than simply volunteering and attending an event so that they can help organise in the future.AOB P2 class will be in the blue unit next year. This will require some new resources and a request has been made to the Parent Council for funds.   

• Next meeting – AGM Sept 3rd 2019
• A presentation was made to Mr Nicol to thank him for his service to the school
• Ballot for P6 children on P7 Leavers party for 2020 to be arranged by the parent council before holidays to secure hotel date if required.
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• PARENTAL ENGAGEMENT
• KG attended the workshop on 13^th June 2019 ran by Donna Cuthill on running collaborative meetings. Training dates to be confirmed.
• Copies of the draft constitution have been issued to Parent Council. They will be issued to all parents before the holidays with feedback being asked for and any revisions made before the AGM on 3rd September.
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• Staffing – information on the headteacher vacancy will be given at the end of the week. Leaving Loirston are Mrs Forbes, Miss Reid, Miss Ratcliffe, Mrs Flett. Joining the staff will be Becky Murray, Francesca Johnstone, Jenny Connan and Caitlyn Bushell. The P6 vacancy has been interviewed and a preferred candidate identified.
• The school has developed the leadership of all staff and pupils who are all now contributing to improvements
• Home learning is a strength of the school.
• A curriculum rationale is now in place and takes account of the local setting. The school is making use of progression grids.
• One target set was self evaluation. It is felt the school is much more rigorous in this area. A quality improvement calendar is up and running. The school is being helped by the authority on how to move forward with self improvement. Self evaluation is now tied into the improvement journey and the school is also taking part in the Young Inspectors programme. It has been noted that the parent council has taken part in the improvement process.
• Current QIO John Carroll attended the meeting. He will retire this summer and replacement to be confirmed.
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• Xmas fair – date set for 23 Nov. Access to the hall would be required in the afternoon of the day before – To consult with KH. Xmas merchandise company has been agreed and dates confirmed.
• Chairperson thanks organiser /helpers for the Summer Disco – £400 approx profit. 220+ children attended with preschool invitations worked well. Need to highlight the importance of emergency forms being filled out before as this held up the queue. Need to highlight the importance of only helpers being allowed in the hall. For Halloween disco, discussion on inclusion of pre-school children since summer disco worked well. This will be reviewed and discussed at the next meeting.
• FUNDRAISING UPDATE
• Balance – £7981.05 and available balance – £4076.61, still to be paid are the contribution towards the Dalguise bus (approx. £450) and P7 Leavers USBs (approx. £200).
• 
  TREASURERS REPORT
• Newsletter has been issued
• Internet safety workshop has been completed
• OUTSTANDING ACTIONS UPDATE
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• Minutes proposed – Fleur Tarling
• The meeting was opened at 6.30pm by the chairperson who welcomed everyone and thanked them for their attendance – KG

[CN1]Organiser

[CN2]The Local Authority (not Education Scotland)

[CN3]The local authority (not Education Scotland)

A big well done to everyone who has been rehearsing hard for today’s competition. Everyone had a fantastic time and the support from the audience was fantastic. Thanks for giving up your first day of the holidays.
The video is too big to load to the blog so I’ll load to directly to the school’s Facebook page.

Just a reminder that any Nursery to P6 children interested in being part of the ‘Celebrate Aberdeen Parade’ and football games as part of the Community Champions League with AFCCT should return the tear off slip by Thursday 4th July.

Community Champions League Letter 1

Any families in Nursery to P6 interested in attending a block of Dons Family in Training sessions should return the tear off slip by Friday 5th July.

Dons Family in Training Letter

Attached is the Summer News Letter.

Summer News Letter July 2019

We would appreciate any donations of uniforms we can add to our dwindling supply of spare clothes. Any trousers, skirts, shorts, jumpers, polo shirts, pants, socks, tights and gym shoes in a good clean condition would be appreciated. We need clothes of all sizes and any excess of clothes will be used to fill the clothing bank at the front of the school and raise more money.

The winning house this term is Burnbanks.   The children in the winning house have been informed that the House Points Prize is tomorrow, Wednesday 3rd July. They can come to school in their own clothes.  Any children with dietary requirements will be catered for.   Any P7’s can take a change of clothes for after their Leavers Assembly.

On Thursday, 4th July, there is a Football Festival at the school.  Children to come in sports clothes (no football tops).

Friday for the informal concert, all children to come in their own clothes to school.