Scottish Parent Teacher Council

Backchat Newsletter - Issue 89 - February 2006

In this issue

• An Events Timetable

• Backchat update

• Why are some schools closing?

• Self defence for the Internet

ANOTHER GOOD IDEA We love to be able to hand on good ideas for running your PTA/PA, especially when these ideas come from you! This latest one is for an “Events Timetable”.

You know what it's like when you take something over – you are left with a pile of papers and no idea when things need to be done. We've had a lot of PTA folk phoning us recently saying that “they've just taken over and hadn't known that they needed to send their SPTC renewal form in”. Well, if you keep a timetable of annual events on the front/top of your papers or in your PTA folder (if you're really organised), then the person who takes over from you will know in advance when and what is expected of them. Here is an example of one PTA's timetable:

MERRYDOWN PTA ANNUAL TIMETABLE

January : Agree extra events for the coming year + dates of committee meetings
Last Friday in January : Burns Supper
Last Thursday in March : Workshop evening for parents
Mid May (Two weeks before AGM) : Send out relevant papers
First Monday in June : AGM
June : Send change of contact details to SPTC
Last Saturday in August : Summer Fete and barbecue
September : Information evening for new parents (to be arranged with school)
Last Thursday in October : Pupils Halloween Disco
December 1 st : Send in renewal for SPTC membership
First Saturday in December : Christmas Fayre

Of course a timetable like this should never be written in tablets of stone, and can be changed as necessary. However, it's helpful to know what was done last year and have a reminder of key dates.

Parent Councils - Update

The Parliament's Education Committee has completed its first review of the proposals for parent councils. As a result, it has written a report that broadly supports the principles of the Bill but highlights some areas that need more action. One of these is the advice and support that will be given to the new councils. Work is already underway to develop a “toolkit” that will cover such matters as membership, constitutions and main responsibilities of the new councils. A series of seminars, involving both educational professionals and parents, are being held around the country to discuss what should be included. Some of you may have been invited to participate in these seminars as those developing the “toolkit” are keen that PTA folk as well as school board parents are involved in the discussions.

The next stage for the legislation is that the Education Committee's report will be debated by the whole Parliament on 22 nd February before the Bill goes back to the committee for detailed, clause by clause, scrutiny.

Meantime, we hope you all received the letter that Peter Peacock wrote to every PTA chairperson outlining his hopes for the legislation.

Appointment of Headteachers

The feedback we have had from a number of members suggests that many of you think that parents have no role in appointing headteachers. We took this on board in our discussion and looked at what exactly it was that parents could bring to the process. Actually, no one else from the school is allowed to be involved in the appointment of a headteacher, so we felt that parents were in a unique position to bring a real understanding of the school to the proceedings and that, as long as this role was respected, then parents could make a valuable contribution.

We have written our response taking this as our starting point. We support parents having a role in outlining the type of person that the school needs, and in the interview. However, we feel that drawing up the short list should be done by professionals and we have totally rejected the idea of a group of “super parents” going from school to school as they would not have the detailed local knowledge of each school. It would be better to include more professionals. Read our full response on www.sptc.info

Education funding and school closures

When parents are faced with a proposal to close or merge their local school or limit the intake numbers, their first reaction, quite rightly, is to leap to the defence of their school. However, what is happening locally is part of a wider picture and we thought it might be helpful if we put these changes in context.

The bulk of school funding comes in the form of a grant from central government to local government (council tax only contributes about 15% of the money). The size of this grant is determined by what the local authority is required to do to educate a child, any particular local circumstances and the number of children actually in the local authority's schools; children who go to private schools are not part of the calculation. In recent years there have been two distinct trends. The first is the good news; spending on education has increased in real terms by almost a third since 1999-2000 and now stands at Ł3,855 per primary pupil and Ł5,428 per secondary pupil. This increase has gone on staffing (both teachers and support staff), improved buildings, and better equipment, etc. Moreover, the good news will continue as P1 classes will be cut to 25 in August 2007 and S1 Maths and English classes will be cut to 20.

However , the bad news is that the number of school pupils has fallen dramatically and will carry on falling. Edinburgh , for example, expects to have 25% fewer primary pupils by 2013. Moreover, as the number of pupils falls, so the total grant from central government goes down. This means that local authorities have to review their provision - the number of schools, etc. - and bring it into line with the decreasing number of pupils. If pupil numbers were increasing, we would expect authorities to open new schools to accommodate the extra pupils. What we are currently seeing is the opposite process.

In education, as in most things, there are economies of scale and it is more cost effective to educate pupils in reasonably sized schools rather than have a few pupils rattling around in half empty buildings. A two pupil secondary school in Shetland illustrates this well: it costs more than Ł81,000 per pupil to educate these two pupils against the national average of Ł5,428. It would cost a lot less to send them to Eton . Obviously this is an extreme case and, in rural areas, authorities often have no option but to run small schools because children would otherwise have to travel excessively long distances each day. However, in towns, the argument for mergers and closures are much stronger. Moreover, as authorities are funded per pupil, if they spend excessive amounts keeping small schools open unnecessarily, the money to fund these schools has to come out of the total education budget and there is less money for all the rest of the pupils.

Understanding probably doesn't make it any easier to cope with a local school closure or merger, but hopefully it does help explain why authorities are acting as they are.

Graph showing the fall in the number of live births in Scotland since the 1960s.

• In 1964 (when today's 42 year-olds were born) there were 104,355.

• By 1976 (the birth-year of today's 30 year-olds) there were only 64,895.

• The number of live births then stabilised for a while until starting to fall again in the early 1990s.

• In 2004, there were only 53,957 live births.

For more information go to the Registrar General's website www.gro-scotland.gov.uk

Understanding probably doesn't make it any easier to cope with a local school closure or merger, but hopefully it does help explain why authorities are acting as they are.

NEWS ABOUT BACKCHAT

Why do we ask for email addresses on the renewal form? Well, there is now an e-version of Backchat. Every PTA contact who gives us an email address gets sent one as a matter of course so that they can send it on to other members of the committee. It's in a different format to the printed version so that it is easy to read online. Anyone can ask for one – just send us your email address. Alternatively you can get this e-version by going to our website at www.sptc.info and downloading it.

Of course we still send out the printed version, and if you've ever wondered why you get four large and one small Backchat this is because we hope to make it easier for you to make it available at committee meetings and to other parents. For example if there is a parent's notice board at school, why not display a Backchat there? Alternatively, if you think an article is particularly interesting, you could copy it into the school/PTA newsletter – maybe the article on school funding will interest a lot of parents! The black and white copy is for you to use for photocopying – believe it or not, there are schools that send Backchat to all their parents.

As you can see from the front page, we always welcome ideas from our members. If you have a question that you would like answered, if your PTA has a successful event or campaign, or if you would like us to tackle an issue, then contact u s.

Keep in Touch

If you receive Backchat but are no longer involved with the PTA/PA – let us know.
If you have an AGM and there is a change of personnel – let us know.

Your Questions Answered

I've just taken over as Treasurer for our Parent's Association and I'm a bit worried about how to cope. Have you got any tips to help me?

It is very important to use best practice to manage PTA funds. You don't need to keep any complicated accounts – just write down all your income and expenditure and keep the receipts for each one. Also remember to:

Make sure that you count the money raised at events with someone else.
Have at least two signatures for each cheque or cash withdrawal. (More than two people should be eligible to sign in case someone is away.)
Don't get blank cheques signed before you need them.
If it doesn't already happen, ask your Chairperson to give you time to report at each meeting. Remember, all committee members are responsible for PTA funds.
Before the AGM, get the accounts audited by someone who is not on the Committee. They don't have to be a qualified auditor, just someone who is competent with numbers.
This information and more is available in our leaflets: A Simple Guide to Money Matters and Office Bearers and their Roles . You can request these from the office or download them from our website at www.sptc.info

Does our public liability insurance cover children who are injured on bouncy castles?

Your insurance covers you for any accident or injury that occurs as a result of your negligence - for example: if PTA helpers let too many children onto the bouncy castle and someone gets hurt as a result of this. But normal risk is not covered – bouncing up and down can sometimes cause bumps and bruises! Remember that your public liability insurance does not cover damage done to the bouncy castle and you may have to think about taking out short-term all risks insurance if the provider does not have cover.

One of our committee members no longer has children at the school but is willing to continue helping out until we can recruit new members. Is this allowed?

You need to check your constitution; if PTA membership is restricted to the parents (in its broadest sense) of children at the school, then a parent who does not have a child at the school cannot be regarded as a member. However, in the transition system you describe, the parent could be asked to “help” by the PTA committee. In this way this person becomes an “agent” (i.e. acting on behalf of) of the PTA and can continue in this role until such time as that help is no longer required.

Arm your children with their own “Internet Self Defence” from NetIDme

If you have a computer at home you may have noticed your children “talking” to their friends via instant messaging. But how do they know who they are talking to and are you confident that they are safe? Some people take the drastic measure of installing software to keep an eye on them, but this may only result in your son or daughter being excluded from MSN chat as their friends don't want to be spied on. SPTC has always encouraged parents to give youngsters strategies to protect themselves. We have just heard about NetIDme which is a unique online identity “checker” and works like a “web” passport. Children from 9 – 16 years old can register their basic details which have to be validated by the parent and signed by a professional person, such as their teacher. The youngster is then given a NetIDme nickname. Then, before starting an online conversation, “chatters” have to provide others with their nickname.

If you would like to know more, here is the website: www.netidme.com As an added bonus NetIDme have very kindly offered free registration for the first 150 parents that email or phone them and say that they have read this article. Phone: 01355 813 567 or email Julie.Mchenery@NetIDme.com

Printed & Published by:- Scottish Parent Teacher Council, 53 George Street, Edinburgh, EH2 2HT Tel 0131-226 1917 or Tel/fax 0131-226 4378
Email: sptc@sptc.info Web site: www.sptc.info

Article 363 - published on 24 Feb 2006

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