EARLSTON HIGH SCHOOL

PARENT COUNCIL CORE GROUP

Minutes of Meeting held on

Thursday 3rd May 2012

7pm Earlston High School

Present
Sheelagh Aird, Fiona Donaldson, Sarah Leslie, Ruth Magowan, Siobhan McDermott, Linsey McGillivray (Clerk), Isla McQuarrie, Lynne Milligan, Louise Ogilvie, Michelle Strong, Avril Tobin
1. / Apologies for absence
Angie Henney, Melanie Lawrie, Dean Sewell, Kate Warner
2. / Minutes
The Minutes of the Meeting held on 28th March, 2012 were discussed. It is suggested that the I.T. and Learning presentation be detailed in a newsletter to parents. The Minutes were approved, proposed by Sheelagh Aird and seconded by Siobhan McDermott.
3. / Matters Arising
Ruth and Fiona attended a Parent Council Forum Meeting for Chairs at Scottish Borders Council. On the agenda was a presentation on Deep Audit of CfE by Yvonne McCracken and Senior Phase by Laurence Alexander.
First Presentation by Laurence Alexander.
CfE – standards were high across the board in Scotland. Scottish Universities are autonomous and it is still the case that they will give more weighting to the number of Highers gained at one sitting. This talk continued for 20 minutes and there was lots of interaction which cut into the time available for the next item on the agenda. It was interesting to hear the concerns and anxieties felt at other schools. It would seem that other schools do not benefit from the same amount of communication between school and parent as we do here at EHS. Each school interprets the guidelines in their own way and there is concern from some parents with children in Senior 2 that this will be the ‘guinea pig’ year. If anything they should be reassured that all eyes are on that year to make sure what is happening will not disadvantage them.
The second presentation was by Yvonne McCracken- auditing is to gather evidence so that schools can demonstrate what they have achieved. The aim is to scrutinize what schools are doing as some schools are going in different directions. It is to analyse how we deliver education and how we report and assess.
Gillian Simmonds sent an email that gives some examples of learner journeys and Fiona is to email the website link to committee members. The examples are very different. Action: Fiona
The next Parent Chair Council Forum is 10th May.
4. / 33 Period Week
No updates
5. / Head Teacher’s Report
The school newsletter has been issued and all should have received a copy.
Charity - Very well done to Sharief, Jordan, David and Eion who went beyond the call of duty and had their heads shaved for charity by the hairdresser.
Mary’s Meals – our young people have gathered 50 backpacks (containing t-shirts, flip flops, stationery, toiletries etc) – special thanks to the Learning Support Department for co-ordinating this.
The Easter Concert took place and this is quite different to the Christmas Concert because it is about individual compositions and often showcases those in their final stages at EHS. Thank you to the Sub Group for organising refreshments and the raffle.
Church Services – it was a beautiful sunny day to walk to the church for the services conducted by Rev. Julie Woods.
S3 exams were condensed over period of 6 days because the 4th, 5th and 6th year exams started one week earlier this year.
ASDAN graduation – Congratulations to the students in the pupil support department gaining their Silver awards in the ASDAN challenge. All have positive destinations. It would be appreciated if someone could come to talk to the committee about ASDAN. The project that Richard (one of the graduates) was involved in raised money for charities. He also gave something back to the community by working with Spike and made raised beds for the East Green Nursery.
Samantha Kinghorn was critically injured at her farm but has shown great determination by taking part in the London mini-marathon. She was awarded second place with a time of 18 mins. The winner gained first place with a time of 12 mins. She has joined the British racing team; her trainer is hopeful that she will make it.
The hairdressing course has been oversubscribed and interviews have been taking place for this course. Interviews for the construction course are to follow.
S4 study leave went well.
Seniors - We said goodbye to our Seniors yesterday – we always hope it goes without a hitch and that the weather is good. A great time was had by all: we had normal classes in the morning, including social education where awards were presented. We had a game of football at lunchtime and fun in the afternoon. Some of the pupils were in fancy dress and there was a bbq and a slippy slide.
Forthcoming events:
-  Over the next few weeks we are very much into SQA exam fever until 6 June.
-  S2 residential experiences take place in the middle of May.
-  S3 History pupils are going on a Battlefields trip.
-  Junior timetable starts on Monday 21 May.
-  Sports Day and Jubilee celebration takes place on 7 June.
-  Leavers’ Evening will be in June. A lot of money has been raised by the young people this year and one local and one international charity will receive £1,700 each which is a tremendous achievement.
-  P7 visits take place on 12th/13th June.
-  Citizenship morning and Olympic torch is on 14th June.
-  The School Show this year is Crazy for you. Next year the show will be Miss Saigon. We will be the first school in Scotland to perform this.
-  School roll next session is 983. We have capacity for 1,000.
-  There were 39 placing requests which have all been accepted. Priority is always give to our own pupils first. Legally we have to leave 6 places for people in each year group.
Some young people applying to college this year did not get places. An alternative programme has been offered to some until Christmas. Jill MacDonald has organised a winter leavers programme to help young people go on to a positive destinations. Once we have a final idea of who will be returning, an individual programme will be created involving work experience and get ready for work type activities. We are working closely with Career Scotland to ensure that they are ready for the next step.
6. / Presentation – Respect
In preparation for the new school, the core values were developed with all stakeholders. The top values were:
1. Respect
2. Responsibility
3. Honesty
4 Excellence
5. Commitment
We have spent the last two plus years consolidating our values but feel now is a good time to affirm them with younger pupils. A respect group has been established and we have been working on reinforcing school dress. This has been reasonably successful. Our work on restorative practice continues to work well. We now wish to move to developing a Rights Responsibilities charter.
Rights and Responsibility Charter
The Rights and Responsibility Charter (values) based on the school 5 values will be a responsibility agreement. It will say what we will provide and what the pupil’s role is. It s that the school will support the pupil and what we expect of the pupil. The Charter will be in every classroom and it says what we work to on a daily basis.
Leadership development. Nationally it is recognised that schools should develop leadership amongst students and staff. This is highlighted in both the Donaldson Review and Curriculum for Excellence documentation. EHS are working hard to develop this as fully as possible and we are benefitting from the joint working with our CLD worker, Norrie Tait. Norrie is working with 24 members of 5th year on an SQA leadership programme to enable them to be good role models in 6th year.
Prefects, Heads of school, Buddying, Peer Mentoring.
Heads of school –in the past there has been a democratic selection comprising of all 6th year and staff receiving a vote. We have recognised that this should be more rigorous. Students returning for 6th year will be asked if they wish to stand for the Head Team and then they will be voted for. The top 8 people will have a further interview, where they will give a presentation to their year group. The panel comprises; Michelle, Mrs MacDonald, 6th years, the previous Head Team plus a member of the teaching staff. Every role is important & this will provide a more rigorous selection to choose the best people for the posts.
Prefects - historically everyone becomes a prefect automatically until they do something untoward and this title is removed. This year we are asking for 30 prefects. They will apply for selection. The prefects will work in teams of 6 and will perform duties on a daily rota basis.
Buddying – every first year is given a ‘buddy’ and they are linked to a member of 6th year and meet up on a regular basis through registration. The buddy will take any problems to the guidance teacher or a member of staff. This year 6th year buddies will be young people who want to participate, they will be given adequate training in counselling e.g. for low esteem. Buddies will have monthly meetings with the Principal Teacher of Behavioural Support to keep momentum going and deal with any issues arising. Buddies will also be able to meet in the library at Friday break time.
Peer Mentoring – we have a superb resource in our older pupils to inspire young people to take responsibility further up the school.
House System – The current house system runs in the PE department for 1st and 2nd years. It would be difficult to implement into 3rd year because of subject choices. Karen Hall from the PE department is keen to roll it out through the school so that everyone is a member of a House including staff. There is recognition in awarding house points for achievement in the broadest sense. Eg. One young man raised £227 for charity and he could have got house points for this. The house system would celebrate achievement, it would not be to punish or demerit. Duke of Edinburgh have Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards and we are looking at 5 points for Bronze, 10 points for Silver and 15 for Gold. This will encourage young people to become more competitive and hungry for success encouraging participation and commitment e.g. in hockey, rugby, football. We also wish to involve staff to encourage in-house rivalry e.g. English versus Maths departments.
There would be House Captains, sports captains and house assemblies run by seniors. Planning with young people will make sure that everyone is involved.
There are 94 pupils in 6th year. Every year we have 4 Heads of School; and they do a power of work but each year the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th pupil would be ideal House Captains and we could ensure they sign up to the responsibility of this.
The Respect Group hope that students will develop a sense of pride and belonging, celebrating things like work ethic, commitment to work and achievement. It will reward the silent majority in the middle that are not in the lower 20% spectrum or the gifted spectrum. There will be positions of responsibility such as Class Representative and Heads of Committees so there will be something for everyone.
Raising expectations – we are looking at consequences for young people if they don’t do what they are meant to do
Parental support – we will share the Responsibility Charter with parents and once we have agreed our consequences we will share these with parents. It was discussed whether we should ask parents to sign the charter and it was reiterated that this is currently a work in progress.
Education and reinforcement (sustainability is key) – EHS high values will be sustained. Michelle will keep us informed. Implementation of the leadership agenda will assist young people to be more competitive in the work place.
The Respect group is meeting at lunch break today and will meet with the junior pupils to flesh this out. We will meet with the seniors next school year as they have exams.
Fiona thanked Michelle very much for an excellent presentation.
7. / Sub Group Report
The Sub Group met last week. The Committee looked at next year’s events. There is a slight nervousness as four of the long standing members will be leaving in the summer leading to anxiety over running events.
8. / Correspondence
Fiona received an e-mail from Gillian Simmonds. Each year SBC give a grant to each Parent Council to cover costs of travel, photocopying, clerk etc. Each grant is based on the size of the school and is decided upon for the following year. The grant is put into the Earlston High School bank account but SBC would prefer to put this money into an Earlston High School Parent Council bank account. It was decided that the administration involved in running a bank account e.g. signatories and maintaining accounts etc. would be considerable and the preferred option is to keep things as they are. The grant will continue to be paid into the EHS bank account and Linda (financial administrator) will be responsible. Lynne Milligan will continue to maintain the finance for our committee and organise any payments required.
9. / AOCB
Louise wondered why our 6th years leave on the 2nd May, and thought that their leadership skills could be utilised in the school after their exams are completed. MS responded that it is difficult to ask seniors to return to school after study leave and exams as most are moving on to summer jobs etc. Staff also use the time they gain for development. Jeff Thompson has some pupils returning for school show rehearsals and some are returning to participate in the Olympic sports and to assist in P7 visits.
Sarah Leslie informed us that she will be standing down as her youngest has now officially left school. Fiona thanked Sarah for her support and the committee hope Sarah will join us at the next meeting.