March Meeting Minutes

Minutes of Parent Council Meeting on 12 March 2008


Attendees: Scott Ferguson, Keith MacAskill, Michelle McArthur, Audrey Ross,
Rachel Byrne, Julie Moran, Bernadette Wheatley, Anne Williamson, Amanda Arkell

Apologies: Vicky Carr, Avril Knox, Christine Fairbairn, Debbie Innes


■ Introduction/Welcome

Keith welcomed and thanked everyone for coming to the meeting.

■ Amend and approve minutes from last meeting on 16 January 2008

1. Keith confirmed that he has received a cheque for £612.00 from the previous Parents Association which will now be banked into the Parent Council Account.

2. The feedback we received from parents at the Parent Consultations on 6 February 2008 was very positive. We asked parents for fund raising ideas, their ideas on how to improve the school, if parents would support a Race Night and feedback about the Cowie Primary School website.

3. Action: Rachel will continue to follow up the previous action point and speak to Bob Wylie about the £10,000 grant mentioned during an earlier Pupil Council Meeting.

4. Keith has had no response from Iain Binning about the School Travel Plan. Mrs Ross confirmed this was because he was no longer in his post as School Travel Co-ordinator. The Cycling Proficiency Courses will be considered by the group at a later date, run by
Recyke-a –bike in Fallin and the Police.

5. Amanda asked if visitors to the school website http://www.cowieprimary.ik.org/ could add their own comments/feedback.

Action: Scott will update the site to include a comments/guestbook facility.

6. It is hoped the Community Centre access point to the school will re-open soon.

Action: Julie will contact Margaret Brisley again for a response to her previous communication, about the concerns over pedestrian safety at Mount Oliphant.



7. Rachel asked at our previous meeting if the school would consider being involved in a community clean up, due to the amount of rubbish lying within and outside the school playground.

Action: No update on this as yet. Mrs Ross agreed to liase with the Eco-group to see how the school can support this. Debbie agreed to speak to her dad who is part of the Community Council, to see how they can help.

8. The school disco in February 2008 was well attended and the children really enjoyed themselves. A huge thanks to Gavin McArthur who was our D.J for the night. We agreed that the infants would have benefited from playing more games to keep them occupied. An update on the funds raised at this event will be detailed in the next school newsletter, to be issued to parents/carers in April 2008.

9. We spoke about using some of the Parent Council funds to help with the cost of replacing the curtains in the Gym Hall with black-out blinds. This would benefit all children in the school. We agreed to re-visit this at a later date.

10. Keith confirmed that the Race Night would go ahead in April/May 2008 and a date is still to be confirmed. He suggested that a steering group be set up to organise this event. After further discussion we set up two steering groups as follows;


Fund Raising

Rachel Byrne
Amanda Arkell
Michelle McArthur
Bernadette Wheatley
Julie Moran


Education Matters

Audrey Ross
Anne Williamson
Scott Ferguson
Keith MacAskill


These groups can meet at any time, as and when it’s appropriate, and would feedback to the main group on their progress at the next available Parent Council meeting. Keith mentioned that these groups are not exhaustive and other parents can join them at anytime.

11. We agreed to re-visit the role of Treasurer next session. A separate account exists within the school for Parent Council Funds. Irene Gower is the main signatory for this account.

12. We spoke about using some of the Parent Council funds to buy water bottles for children to use during school time. Before taking any further action with this, we will speak to Debbie to get an update as she was going to ask her employer about the availability of free water bottles.

Action: Debbie to update the group on the availability of free water bottles from her employer.

13. We agreed that Parent Council Communications should have a ‘slogan’. Mrs Ross mentioned that in future she would like to see communications being issued with Cowie Primary School, Stirling Council and Parent Council ‘slogans’.

Action: Please bring along your ideas for a Parent Council ‘slogan’ to our next meeting.

■ A.O.B

1. Amanda asked if the school could include homework satchels on the school uniform order form this year.

Action: Mrs Ross said she would arrange for this to be done.

2. Rachel asked what arrangements have been made for the Primary 7 graduation and leavers party, as the Parent Council are happy to help with this.

Action: Mrs Ross will speak to Mrs Young about this.

3. The Parent Council agreed to subsidise a school trip for each class by £5.00 per child next term, from Parent Council funds.

4. Keith and Mrs Ross spoke about the HMIe inspection the week commencing 17 March 2008. The inspectors will be in the school for three days and will meet with different groups of people, i.e. parents, teachers and the Parent Council. The last inspection carried out at the school was in 1998, but this will not form any part of this inspection. A copy of the final report is normally available approximately six weeks after the inspection takes place and the school will then implement the action points.

■ Date of Next Meeting

The date of the next meeting has been set for Wednesday 30 April 2008 at 7.00pm in the school. All parents are welcome to attend this meeting.

Action: Mrs Ross agreed to organise the let for this meeting.