Eleanor Coner writes about her experience as a lay member of a school inspection team.

The first time the postie arrives with your bundle of papers from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) for your first inspection, you're likely to wonder what you've let yourself in for. The amount of paperwork you are sent to read prior to visiting the school can be pretty daunting - the school handbook, quality and standards report, questionnaire responses, just to name a few. However, all this paperwork gives you your first impression of the school and helps you to pick out issues you may want to follow up during the inspection. You usually have at least a weekend before to have a good look through and you may also have a chance to go to the pre-inspection visit with the Reporting Officer - or the RO as he/she is more colloquially known. (That's another thing, I'm considering publishing a glossary of acronyms because lay members have to learn another language to work in schools these days!) The pre-inspection visit gives you a chance to introduce yourself to members of staff and get used to the layout of the school.

I must admit to being pretty nervous before my first inspection. However the other members of the team were very helpful. I realised that I couldn't be expected to know everything and so decided not to be afraid to ask the "daft lassie" questions. The Reporting Officer nursed me through the first day and gave me a detailed timetable and feedback as to whether I was on the right track or not. It was certainly a very full day - interviews with pupils and parents, a guided tour around the school with the janitor, eating lunch with the pupils, finding out about the extra curricular activities and even more reading - newsletters, reports and so on. It was fascinating, but I was exhausted at the end of the day and I felt as though I had had information overload. But it was a good feeling and really interesting to have seen how different other schools can be.

My first inspection was at a large school and so I was there for a couple of days and on the second day I soon realised that, as a lay member, I was able to get to know things that the rest of the team maybe couldn't. While the inspectors were finding out about the learning and teaching, I was getting to know the real atmosphere of the school - always thinking to myself, "would I like my children to come to this school?" Keeping my interviews informal gave me a chance to get to the nitty gritty and find out what it was like to be a pupil there, whether you were valued as a member of the ancillary staff or if you felt welcome as a parent in the school.

I am not an inspector, even though some people treated me as one. For example, I had to get used to students, (and staff) staring at me as I wandered around the school and realised that it was nothing personal when nobody wanted to sit with me at lunchtime. Put yourself in their shoes - it must be pretty daunting to hear "the inspectors are coming"!

If you're interested in becoming a lay member on a school inspection team, you can apply on-line by going to the website www.hmie.gov.uk. Alternatively, if you'd like to talk to a human being, phone Veronica Thomson on 0131 244 8478
 

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This year's conference is going to be " Sex, Drugs but no Rock 'n Roll: Information parents need to know as their children grow."

The date is 8th November. The venue will be in Edinburgh, although we're still working on exactly where.

We are also still in the process of approaching speakers. The full programme will be ready and sent out in the new session. Meantime, please put the date in your diary.

We are again keeping the cost down to £7-50 per person and that covers morning coffee and lunch. However, it is only £5 when more than one person comes from the same school.

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We're pleased to tell you that the next in our series of regional meetings is:-

4th June: Winton Primary, Anderson Terrace, Ardrossan at 7.30 p.m.

Regional meetings are for all local PTAs/Pas. They're a good opportunity to compare notes and hear what other people do. If you'd like to host a regional meeting, please contact the office. You just have to take out a let and provide coffee: we do the rest.

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Do we need a licence to run a 200 club?
A lottery licence is not needed for a 200 club if you only include PTA members - i.e. parents and teachers at the school. However, if you want to involve people outside the school, you do need a lottery licence. You can get one from your local authority licensing department. There may be some variation in cost, but it is about £35 for the first year and £17-50 for subsequent renewals. The same rules apply with advance-sale raffles with printed tickets and named prizes. If the tickets are sold only to members, no licence is needed. If the tickets are sold to the wider public, a licence is needed. However, the good news is that it is the same licence as for the 200 club and the one licence covers both activities. You do not need a licence when you have a simple raffle, using cloakroom tickets which are only sold at your fundraising event.

We're holding a disco for the children and someone has suggested that the disco provider should be police checked. What's the position?
Checking police records is a child protection measure. It should be carried out when people are appointed to positions - paid or unpaid - where they will have regular contact with children and young people or where they will regularly care for, train, supervise or are in sole charge of children and young people up to the age of eighteen years.

You cannot have people checked randomly, because someone suddenly suggests it's a good idea or because someone is the victim of a rumour. You should have a policy on who will and will not be checked that fits in with the "regular" and "unsupervised" criteria above. Moreover, your policy should also identify which crimes will exclude someone from working with children and which ones are acceptable. For example, a 20 year-old conviction for shoplifting or a conviction for obstructing payment on the Skye bridge are not reasons for excluding the person from working with children.

As for someone who runs the occasional disco for you - he/she will not fall within the concept of "regular". Nor will he/she be "unsupervised", as there will be plenty of other adults helping out at the event. In any case, a police check only tells you about a person's criminal record. It does not tell you whether the person is suitable to work with children. It is better to adopt safe procedures. In the same way that it is good practice to have two people counting any money both to make sure that the counting is accurate and to act as witness to each other's honesty, so supervisors at an event are there both to ensure that the children are safe and to act as witnesses for their fellow supervisors that nothing untoward happened.
 

Article 180 - published on 02 Mar 2003