MINUTES OF AGM ON 8 SEPTEMBER 2010

Minutes of A.G.M. on 8 September 2010


Attendees: Jeff McGhie, Sherry Houlihan, Mrs McClure, Tammy, Julie Moran
Anne Williamson, Avril Knox, Barbara, Amanda Arkell

Apologies: Michelle McArthur, Vicky Carr, Debbie Innes, Christine Fairbairn


■ Introduction/Welcome

Jeff welcomed and thanked everyone for coming to the meeting. Minutes from the last meeting were approved and signed and no changes were made.

■ Income and Expenditure for 2009-2010

The Income and Expenditure report is still being finalised and will be distributed to the group once this is available. The majority of expenditure for the last school year was used to subsidise school trips, from nursery to P7. The balance left in our account is approximately £500.00. The devolved budget, which is kept separate and is funded by Stirling Council, was used to purchase things like the school calendars, pay for food hygiene courses and equipment for the tuck shop, and paper and photocopying costs for the Parent Council.

The devolved budget available for 2010 - 2011 is £380.00. The cost of this years calendars will be taken from this budget, along with the insurance policy costs to cover discos and other events run by the Parent Council and any other appropriate running/admin costs.

■ Office Bearers for the new school year

The roles that were filled are as follows;

Secretary – Julie Moran
Chair - Jeff McGhie
Treasurer –Anne Williamson

■ Headteacher’s Report/Update

This is attached for your information, which Mrs McClure discussed at the meeting. As confirmed during our discussions Avril has agreed to help with the funding process for the Grounds for Learning Group and will liaise with Mrs McClure regarding this.

■ A.O.B

1. Sherry spoke about the Parent Council doing a fundraising event in the near future to boost our funds. She mentioned a few ideas, e.g. race night, or some kind of active sponsored event that the children can get involved with like a sponsored cycle.

Action: Sherry agreed to speak with Fraser Crawford from Active Stirling about the ideas discussed and will communicate her findings to the rest of the group, so that we can try and organise this sometime in October.

2. Amanda asked if the school was anywhere nearer to obtaining their first Eco Green Flag. Mrs McClure confirmed this was in the school’s plans and was achievable this school year.

3. Parents wanted to know the time for the P7 open night event at Bannockburn High School as noted on the calendar.

Action: Mrs McClure has since confirmed that this has been postponed and details will be communicated to P7 parents/carers to confirm this.

4. The date for the Halloween Disco has been scheduled for Wednesday 27 October in the school. I’ve asked Irene Gower to book the let for this and will pass round a checklist shortly looking for volunteers to help with this, similar to what we have done with previous school discos.

■ Date of Next Meeting

As mentioned this has been set for Wednesday 20 October at 7pm in the school. Hope to see you all there!

HEADTEACHERS REPORT

Parent Council AGM- 8th September 2010

Staffing
HT interviews set for Sept 23rd with visit to the school on Sept 22nd
-A. McClure Acting Headteacher and C. Armitage Acting Depute Headteacher
-Jude Attwood- currently in p2/3 while Christina Press is on maternity leave and Nicole Black in p4
-Ashleigh Cairns- probationer teacher in p3 class (classroom was previously the station) - accommodation is working well.
-Alison Bell who was appointed in June to do the one day a week non contact time is temporarily sharing the p1 class with C. Armitage. (AB on Mon, Tues and Fri) (CA on Wed and Thurs).
- Jill Turner a supply teacher is currently working on Thurs to cover the one day a week non contact time.
On the appointment of the new HT, J. Turner will leave, A. Bell will only work on Thursdays, C. Armitage will revert to full time in p1 and A. McClure will teach 2 days in p3.
We have a supply SLA in place for 15hours (exceptional needs) – Christina McFazden and permission was just granted yesterday to advertise this post internally.
We also got permission to advertise for a full time SLA (again internally) to help with issues arising from the refurbishment. All new appointments have to go through a vacancy management panel.

No University teaching students allocated to Cowie as yet but Forth Valley HNC student begins in the nursery 20.09.10

School Roll
21 new primary one pupils with a total roll of 137 (79 boys and 58 girls).
51 children in the nursery.

Budget
Parent Council has a budget of £380
Any property charges will currently be picked up by the centre.

Refurbishment
Update of plans- small extension which can be used by the community (restricted access to the school)
Phase 1- Begins on November 15th 2010- Expected to take 10 weeks
Hall, dining room and kitchen to be stripped out and made into classrooms.
As previously indicated the community centre will be used for all PE, assemblies and lunches.
Council providing a ‘walk in’ container which will be parked outside the community centre so that all the PE equipment can be stored and accessed easily.
A temporary security system will be installed (access controlled) at the entrance to the community centre.
There are enough tables and chairs to accommodate all our packed lunches and dinners. On an average day we have 75 pupils taking packed lunch and 50 taking school dinner.
Decision has not yet been made re where the meals will come from but the service area within the centre is fine.
Discussions to take place over the next few weeks
¨ Who is opening and closing the community centre?- There is a caretaker but he only works 15hours
¨ Setting up the tables and clearing away? What happens when the janitor is on backshift?

¨ How the PE equipment is best accessed- by an SLA or by the janitor first thing in the morning.

¨ New timetabling –classes working together. This will be necessary to ensure 2 hours of PE for all as the centre has some commitments which it has to honour (School will have no access to the centre on Thurs (am)and Wed (pm).
Actions prior to November
¨ Keeping children safe. HT and DHT (in discussion with staff), to draw up procedures (including level of staffing)for moving back and forwards, fire assembly points, what to do when a child has an appointment, entering the playground, etc.
¨ All equipment resources in the hall area to be boxed, organized and labeled.
Phase 2 – Begins Friday February 11th 2011 (just before the holiday period) – p4, p6 and p7 classes to move into the new classrooms. P5 class will remain upstairs. All ERIS resources will be relocated prior to this and all classroom resources boxed to be ready for decanting to the lower area.
There will be wiring put in for a cashless catering system- fingers scanned.

MUGA update- Douglas Campbell said there was an error on the BS standard for the specification so delay to the start date.
Re Tender issue date -26th August
Tender return date- 3rd September
Site start – 11th Oct
Envisaged completion date- 5th November 2010

Parental Involvement Officer
Lesley Anne Livesey made contact last week and asked if the Parent Council Chairperson could make contact with her so that he is on the mailing list for any relevant information. She asked that parents make suggestions as to what they might wish to see happening e.g. First aid Training for parents.

Grounds
As the building works will impact on the area of the playground next to the hall and then the section where the upper classes line up, it seems appropriate to work on the middles section this year. Janitor has been asked to get quotes to remove the tarmac in the section at the wall. Following an incident at a Stirling school where a child was badly injured on equipment that the Parent Council had arranged to have installed, ROSPA is coming to inspect any playground equipment. In addition contact must be made with the property maintenance inspector prior to any installation of equipment. In addition to developing the one area, the priority this session is to acquire as much funding as possible. Jean Cowie at Viewforth and Di Blackmore from Forth Environment Link might be able to help.

Other matters
-Real issue of parents/carers keeping the school updated with phone numbers and contact details. A number of occasions already this term where numbers on record were unobtainable. Any suggestions? ID card/homework task, homework diary (good ideas).
- Many thanks for the calendars. Not on this because it was only just booked is the Scholastic book Fayre which will be November 16th- 23rd.
- Parental coffee mornings – Only for nursery parents/carers at present. Extend to the school? Tie into book fayre, etc –good idea.
- Meet the teacher event on Thursday 16th September 6-7pm Quite informal