Parent Involvement Area Meeting

Both Martin Sisley and myself attended this evening meeting held on Tuesday, 18th March, at Meldrum Academy and were pleasantly surprised by the large turnout of people.
A 7.30 pm start saw a Parent Council Up-date being given by Heather Hamilton, one of the Heads of Service, on Disclosures, Budget, Length of the School Day, Parent Council Focus Group, Transport and accommodation. The minutes of the previous meeting were given out and an explanation was given regarding the invitation extended to Head Teachers to be present at this meeting. There had been 'a whole meeting request' for more feedback time at the last meeting and consequently there had been some adjustment to the Agenda.
Very little seemed to have moved forward in a number of areas, such as the school day or Parent Council Budgets, as those were governed by ministerial or governmental action and information was not yet available regarding budgets from April 2008 onwards.
Mr Gordon Bulloch then spent time explaining and reviewing the process associated with the Appointment of Headteachers/Depute Headteachers in both secondaries and primaries.
Members of the Meldrum Pupil Council gave a presentation to the assembled audience on the CfE and about their involvement in developing pupil ideas, expressing concerns and generally improving communication between the School Management team, teachers and Parents.
Following this, two workshops were held, the first relating to Pupil Councils and examples of good practice and the second on the Role of Headteachers in working with Parent Councils.
The first workshop examined Pupil Council engagement with Parent Councils.
We were pleased to note in our discussion group that we already had this form of engagement taking place at Tarves by having representatives of the Pupil Council at selective Parent Council Meetings.
In the second workshop, the role of the Headteacher in working with the Parent Council was discussed, but was cut short by a lack of time.
Once again it appeared, to Martin and me, that there had been insufficient time allocated to the tasks.
If the intention of this meeting was for it to be a consultation exercise and to promote early thinking, then it was probably a success, however it disappointed us by not offering us anything 'new' to try out and develop.