National Parent Forum of Scotland

National Parent Forum of Scotland

MINUTES OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Held on Saturday 9 June 2012,

Education Scotland, Optima Building, Glasgow

1Welcome

The Chair welcomed all Forum members, Education Scotland and Scottish Government to the meeting. The chair also thanked Education Scotland and Scottish Government for their continued support.

2Present and Apologies

Lindsay Jane Murray, read out list of apologies given. Iain notified the group that SQA will be joining the group to update them all.

1. Present/Apologies

Apologies

In Attendance

3Minutes

The previous minutes were approved and proposed by: Julie Wild, Seconded: Eric Lumsden.

Iain welcomed Douglas Chappelle who is the new representative for East Dunbartonshire to the meeting.

4Chairs Report

Iain Ellis highlighted the success of last year’s conference and that planning for the third national conference for parents was underway.

In addition to the range of seminars available for parents at the 2011 conference, there was a breakout discussion group on the particular challenges faced by parents with children with Additional Support Needs.

Billy Gibson will be leading a follow up meeting scheduled for 19 June.

Tony Rafferty has worked in partnership with Andrew Brown, Education Scotland on improving the National Parent Forum of Scotland website, .

The NPFS training event in March went well, evaluations were positive. The presentations delivered by high level of presenters enabled reps to get up to speed with different aspects of Curriculum for Excellence.

A number of Focus Groups took place around the country which sought to gather parent’s opinions on different aspects of Curriculum for Excellence. Further Focus Groups will be planned for the year. Iain will send further details to reps once planning has been finalised.

Action-Iain to create proposal for the focus groups and send to all reps.

Iain also highlighted the involvement of a number of NPFS reps in the Education Awards. The Award Ceremony will take place on Tuesday 12 June. The NPFS look forward to be involved in future awards.

Iain highlighted that the evaluation from Lorraine Spalding is due to go out to reps this week. Iain has met with Lorraine Spalding on numerous occasions as have many reps. Lorraine will be discussing the strategic planning for the NPFS at the meeting in the afternoon.

The NPFS submission to the Scottish Learning Festival (SLF) has been accepted. Margaret Leitch and other NPFS reps will be presenting a seminar at the SLF this year. Registration is now open and the event is free to attend via the link-. http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/slf/whatsonoffer/index.asp

Action- Lindsay Jane Murray will send the link for the SLF to reps to register their attendance. The seminars and keynotes tend to fill up quickly so reps are encouraged to register for any seminars and or keynotes as soon as possible.

Tina Woolnough gave a vote of thanks to Iain Ellis for all his hard work this year.

Iain Ellis, Barrie Sheppard and Debbie Newlands hosted a seminar for the 4th Year Graduate students. This seminar was the best attended at the conference and was very successful. Iain is looking at working with student teachers at this early stage and being able to discuss what parents expect, confidence and a very important link to make. Tina suggested that NPFS should look at strategically approaching student training centres. Julie Wild has a session on probation teachers CPD session in Stirling. Tina suggested that all reps should look at this approach.

Action-Lindsay Jane and Irene Russell to contact student training centres and to look out for trainings meetings that NPFS could support.

5Budget

Iain Ellis is working with Education Scotland on the budget plans and these will be communicated to the group once they are finalised.

6Constitution

The meeting discussed the constitution and Iain suggested there be a change in the constitution from all schools to schools under Local Authority control. This was voted on and accepted by those at the meeting.

7Elections

Iain Ellis introduced the elections and notified the group that Steven Whalley will now be standing down as Vice Chair and as NPFS representative for Scottish Borders; Iain thanked Steven for all his work. Iain also noted thanks to Fiona Black from Western Isles, Bob Cree-Hay from Shetland Islands and Nigel Tiddy from Moray who have also stood down. Iain proposed a need still for two vice chairs.

Steven informed the group that only one nomination for Chair had been received. The nomination from Eric Lumsden was for Iain was re-elected as Chair for the National Parent Forum of Scotland.

Iain nominated Charlotte Harrison to be re-elected as Vice Chair. The forum agreed to re-elect Charlotte as Vice-Chair.

There was a discussion and it was agreed voting would commence after lunch to give members time to decide if they would like to put their name forward for the position of vice chair for Organisation.

No other representatives came forward to nominate themselves for the positions of vice chair for Organisation, this position will remain vacant.

Vice Chair for Orgainsation (please note these roles are draft)

• Support the chair in AGMs, quarterly meetings, Annual Conference
• Support reps in attending meetings, reviews, consultations etc
• Liaise with Education Scotland in supporting functions
• Support chair with Policy and Governance
• Any other duties highlighted by the chair

Vice Chair for People and Communications (please note these roles are draft)

• Keeping on top of vacancies
• Liaising with Authorities and Parent Councils
• Supporting new reps when considering appointment
• Supporting communication with reps in local areas
• Any other duties highlighted by the chair
• Coordinating and reporting what the groups are doing and report to the chair

The full elected Group is:

Re-appointed Chair: Iain Ellis (West Dunbartonshire)

Re-appointed Vice-Chair: Charlotte Harrison (Orkney)

Vice-Chair: Vacancy

8Year Ahead

Iain discussed the year ahead for the organisation and a large part of this will be informed from the evaluation from Lorraine Spalding. One area highlighted was the need to continue to improve internal communications. The sub - groups also need to improve communication links and it is up to the group how they do this, e.g. glow meet or face to face etc.

The conference is due to be held on Saturday 6th October in Bishopbriggs Academy. Margaret Leitch will be organising a satellite conference for Falkirk Iain asked that if any reps would like to organise further satellite conferences in their local authority to contact Iain as soon as possible. Details are nearly finalised with regards to the programme and seminars. Iain has requested that reps send ideas for seminars this week. The theme of the conference this year is Aiming High and is encouraging Parents and Children to attend. There will be seminars available for Parents to attend such as: Probation Teachers, SQA, and Education Scotland, Education Awards representative on Literacy and for Children: Childrens Parliament and the Science Centre.

Leading up to the conference there will be 5 day online conference following the success of this last year. . Iain suggested for the future looking at International delegates either attending or joining online.

There was discussion around children’s participation and who will be responsible for them. The outcome of this discussion was that all children will be pre-registered to seminars and or the creche. Parents will be responsible for taking their children to seminars and or Creche. While the Children are in seminars it will be the responsibility or the seminar leaders with possible support from reps and or staff. Once seminars are finalised this will be communicated to the presenters taking the children’s’ seminars.

Action-All reps to email Iain with ideas for Seminars and or Satellite conference involvement.

Neil MacGowan, Head of Operations at SQA presented Implementing Scotland’s New National Qualifications. The papers and his presentation and the draft operations model which went to all Directors of Education for all Head Teacher will be available and sent to all reps.

Action-Neil to send the draft operations model for Irene to distribute to all reps next week.

Iain thanked Neil for his update to the forum.

9AOB

There was no AOB to discuss.

9Conclusion

Dates for future meetings will be sent to reps in due course.

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