St Mark’s Primary School, Hamilton

Parent Council Meeting

Thursday 3 December 2015

Sederunt: A McGrory, B Murphy, M Greenwood, I Keaveny, K McDowall

Apologies: S Munro, C Campbell and N Boyle

Joint PC/PTA/School Council meeting

There was no school council representative available for tonight’s meeting

A McGrory thanked the PTA for putting on such a great Christmas Fayre, This was very successful and enjoyed be everyone.

The PTA is looking into reestablishing the Clothing Bank within the school grounds. They will use ‘Rag Bag’ as they did before. There was some discussion about giving a percentage of the profits to a nominated charity.

The ongoing issue of parking inside and outsidethe school grounds was discussed as some parents were continuing to park irresponsibly and dangerously. It was recognized that a number of actions had already been taken but that the Parent Council would again request that parent’s park safely and appropriately at the beginning and end of the school day.

Head Teacher’s Report

  • Pupils received the flu vaccinations
  • The Spotlight on Learning assembly was a great success and was attended by Carol Mackenzie, Head of Education, Development Officers and was well supported by parents and families
  • P7 visited the Foodbank and Asda in relation to their Equalities and Enterprise Education
  • C Campbell attended the Mass of Bereavement with pupils who had lost a parent
  • Rights Education was promoted to the whole school with a ‘Making Rights real’ assembly
  • P7’s swimming lessons are now completed and pupils have received 10 free passes to help consolidate their learning. Almost all pupils can now swim.
  • P6/7 visited the ‘Blue Chilli’ restaurant to finish their Japanese topic.
  • Congratulations to the football team won the Andrew Edward Shield.
  • The Singing Club sang in EK shopping Centre in support of Ronald McDonald House at Yorkhill Hospital
  • The Daily Mile official launch took place on 30 November. This was a fantastic success which was well attended by parents, families and Active Schools . Elaine Wylie, founder of ‘The Daily Mile’ was the special guest.
  • The Athletics team were in Blantyre Sports Centre for practice rounds.
  • Class visits to ensure Quality assurance in literacy have taken place as well as peer visits n Spanish
  • Attainment interviews with staff for all pupils have taken place. There was some further discussion on this which is noted below
  • Letters are going out in relation to poor attendance and late coming
  • Reviews have taken place with the Educational Psychologist, There are also visits currently being undertaken by Hearing Support, Specialist Behavior support, Speech and LanguageTherapist as well as the schools’ Specialist support teacher.
  • The whole school is busy preparing for the school show.
  • The school looks to be losing 44 P7 pupils in June with potentially only 7 new P1 pupils next year. An open day for potential P1 parents to visit the school is planned before Christmas.
  • P6 have produced a leaflet on division for parents as requested by parents at Parent’s Evening. This will be distributed shortly.
  • Louise Arthur from Lepra visited the school to thank them for the donation of nearly £1,000
  • The school is delighted to be supporting two M Ed students from Glasgow University and a Post Graduate student form Strathclyde University as well as another student from UWS, who is a former pupil.
  • P4 took part in a Rugby Taster session organized by Active Schools
  • P7 visited the library to meet author, Jonathon Meres who wrote ‘World of Norn’.
  • Fr Quinn visited the school and has offered to take the school’s Papal Blessing request to Rome when he visits next week.
  • C Campbell contributed to leadership learning by opening the Leadership Conversations for aspiring Head teachersand established head teachers in Rutherglen.
  • Elaine Wylie, founder of the Daily Mile attended the recent In Service day and coached and inspired staff
  • The school had offered to put on a production for the Holocaust Memorial with the support of the Development Officer.
  • Congratulations to Paula Walsh who has successfully completed her Customer Service Award and graduates this month.
  • The school will be contributing to the ‘Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce’ initiative and asked everyone to think about how the school can do this with one suggestion being holding a community meeting involving the Rotary.
  • Mrs McCallum give out copies of HGIOS 4, Shining the Light and a list of the schools and staff successes produced at the in service day.

Other Business

Discussion on Attainment

There was a view which was shared by some that more able children were not always pushed to excel. It was noted that the question ‘do you feel you child is challenged enough’ was not included in the Parental Survey. It was requested that the above question be included again in the survey.

Some felt that over the past year they had seen a tangible improvement in pace and challenge.

There was also some discussion about the feedback given at Parent’s evenings and how this dialogue could be improved.

Christmas Parties

The PC received an email from a parent who was querying why the parties had been arranged by class rather than stage. This has now been changed after consultation with pupils and staff and a letter went out today to advise parents of the change.

Email from the Scottish Catholic Education Service

A copy was given out at the meeting and will be carried over to the next meeting.

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