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Backchat Newsletter - Issue 92 - August 2006
In this issue
- Parent Council - latest news
- Insurance and a four-legged race
- Survey Report on teacher's class contact time
- Read all about it – the students strike back!
- SPTC Conference
The Road to Parent Councils The Parental Involvement Bill is now an Act. This means it is law and has to be implemented – the talking is over.
Stage one affects local authorities who are required to develop strategies for promoting parental involvement and for helping schools set up Parent Councils.
For parents in school, change will kick off after a national “launch” conference on September 12 th . This will signal the publication of Guidance on the Act, a toolkit and a Making the Difference leaflet explaining Parent Councils. Copies of all three will be sent to all headteachers, school boards and PTAs, so look out for the mailing.
The Guidance is an official document explaining exactly what the Act means. For example it explains that the term “parent” does not just mean the biological parent that a child is living with, but also includes non-resident parents, carers and others with parental responsibilities. It helpfully lays out the steps that a local authority should take in promoting Parent Councils and it explains the legal status of the Parent Councils, their functions, financial powers etc. The use of the Guidance document is as an on-going reference document explaining the meaning of the Act.
The Toolkit is a bit like an IKEA instruction leaflet telling you how to build a Parent Council. However, it is in words, not pictures, so hopefully you'll manage to get it right first time! The toolkit contains information for local authorities as well as for parents in schools, so the whole document comes in a moderately-sized ring binder. The section that is most relevant to parents will be the one on drawing up a constitution. This offers a step-by-step guide to the things you have to consider, starting with the pretty basic “name” of the Parent Council and working through its membership, how the members are appointed etc. To help you along, we have planned our annual conference in November as a working session on using the toolkit and developing a constitution (details below).
Annual Conference: “How to build a Parent Council”
At the conference, SPTC will run a series of workshops on how to decide on the format and membership of parent councils and then draw up a constitution. The workshops will demonstrate how to use the toolkit and offer suggestions for different models. There will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions. The conference is open to all parents and teachers. Indeed, it is a “must conference” for anyone who wants to understand parent councils and/or wants to get involved in one.
Date : Saturday 18 th November 2006 – put the date in your diary
Time : Registration from 9.30 for 10.00 am start
Venue : Moray House Campus, Holyrood Road , Edinburgh
Format : Information sessions and workshops with Celia Burn and Gillian Strachan, field officers responsible for development work on the parent councils
The cost is £7.50 for any delegate from an SPTC member organisation reduced to £5.00 if more than one person comes from the same organisation. (Non-members pay £20)
The fee includes the conference plus morning coffee and lunch, guaranteed totally delicious
Registration forms will be sent out in September
WE NEED YOU!!
As always, as we head up towards our Annual General Meeting, we put out an appeal to all members for people to join the SPTC Board of Directors.
This is made up of volunteer parents and teachers (no more than one from any one school). It meets six times a year to discuss SPTC policy and educational issues.
Directors can also attend conferences and represent parents interests on various national committees.
Look out for more information on how to become a Director with your Conference registration form in September. If you would like to know more, get in contact with the office.
Are we covered for a four-legged race?
This genuine question came in from a Highland school one Friday afternoon when, frankly, we're not at our brightest. Intrigued, we asked for a little more information. Apparently the race involves teams of three mums (dads are left in a hotel to look after the children) tied together, racing between pubs in a fund-raising event. The mums are all volunteers (bet there's no shortage); the pubs volunteer their services and the PTA takes the responsible action of informing the police about the event. It sounds a great idea, really good fun, and we immediately offered to provide a team. However, the serious issue concerned insurance – were they covered?
The short answer is “yes”, but this needs a little more explanation.
The PTA is covered for its legal liability, for injury or damage to the public or third party property, under the public liability policy we have arranged. So, if a third party were injured as a result of the three-legged race, he/she could try to make a claim against the PTA's insurance; e.g. if one of the teams tripped up and knocked a bystander flying such that the bystander was injured, then he/she could try to claim for damages if the injury warranted it. However, the participants would not be covered for any injuries that they suffered themselves (e.g. if one of them broke a leg) because participants in such events as this are assumed to take the “risks of the activity” themselves. The same situation applies with playing football. Those playing cannot claim for any injuries, but if the ball breaks a window, then this can be claimed for on the insurance.
Cut in teachers class contact time – survey report You may remember that over the summer term we asked you if you knew that teachers' class contact time – the time that they can actually teach - would be cut from this August to 22.5 hours a week and, if so, what this would mean at your school.
We had an unprecedented response and many thanks to everyone who got back to us. In all we heard from 178 schools (12% of those surveyed) across all but one local authority area. The breakdown (for analytical purposes) was 125 primaries, 30 secondaries and 164 individuals.
Q1: Did you know of the cuts?
Just under two thirds of each category – primary, secondary and individual - had actually heard of the cuts in teachers' class contact time. However, only a portion of these people had heard about the change through their school and we had a lot of very angry comments about the poor communication coming from the school. A number of parents observed that our survey was the source of their information and many asked to be kept informed. A number of respondents said that they knew because they were on the school board but that other parents did not know.
Your views on the cuts
We did not ask people what they thought about the changes, but that did not stop people from commenting! Many were incredulous that such a change had been agreed; they were concerned that it would “have a negative effect on pupils”, although some were quite supportive and “in favour of teachers having time to prepare for classes during the working hours”.
Q2: The changes it will mean - Primary
The cut in class contact time has a different impact in primary and secondary schools. In primary schools it means a class can no longer have the same teacher all week; indeed for the equivalent of half a day someone else must take the class. Respondents showed that, depending on school and authority, there were different ways in dealing with this time. Top three solutions, in the order in which they were reported were:- a second class teacher, specialist teacher, the headteacher or depute taking the class. Respondents were most enthusiastic about the use of specialist teachers and there was some concern that, with the headteacher teaching more, she/he had less time for whole-school tasks, including talking to parents.
The changes it will mean - Secondary
In the secondary sector the impact of the change in class contact time is less obvious and many respondents did not know what was happening. However there were reports of changes to the timetable, more use of distance learning and bi-level teaching for small classes and anticipated problems over absence cover.
Q4: Parent/teacher evenings
We asked if parents were aware of any changes to parent/teacher evenings. Only a small proportion had noticed any changes and some of the primary respondents said that these had been as a result of changes in the reporting system.
Comment
We were surprised by the level of response to this questionnaire and by the obvious anger expressed by parents in their comments. They were mostly angry that they had been told nothing about the cut in teachers' contact hours even though this had a direct impact on their child's school experience. Whilst those who had an active involvement in the school were better informed, this was not seen as adequate by the majority of respondents. Of course, the irony is that whilst we were running the questionnaire SPTC staff were actively involved in the Parental Involvement Bill, which is based on the premise that parental involvement in children's education is a good thing.
The survey suggests that parental involvement is viewed as working only in one direction, with parents giving support to the school. There is little understanding that, for involvement to work properly, it has to be a two-way process; schools have to keep parents properly informed.
The full report on the survey is available on our website www.sptc.info
Before Tommy there was….
Pupils were angry that the Barrhead News report implied the school was full of riff-raff and used a photograph of pupils, not in uniform, outside a building that was not Barrhead High School to illustrate the offending article. In their response the pupils wrote “Barrhead High has a very strict policy….if you come to school with tracksuit bottoms you get sent home (although) if your trousers are in the wash, then it's OK to keep them on”. The pupils were further annoyed because the Barrhead News had never reported the many awards that Barrhead High has won; the Real News set about putting the record straight.
It was a bit hard to miss Tommy Sheridan's court victory over the News of the World in his recent defamation case. Less well noticed, but before Tommy, there was the case of the Barrhead High pupils' battle with their local newspaper the Barrhead News . Pupils were angered by a report, run under the banner headline “teachers' terror”, that claimed pupils were sexually harassing female teachers. Some S1 and S2 pupils decided to set the record straight, so wrote and distributed their own publication, Real News from Barrhead High School , to rebut the allegations.
Read all about it!
They published the series of awards that included not just a list of academic achievements, but also the £3,000 + that pupils had raised for charity this year, the school's national award for film-making, the success of the under-15 girls basketball squad and so on. For our part we reckon that taking on the local newspaper so successfully is also worthy of an award. Well done those pupils at Barrhead High School .
Calling All Parents – Minor Ailment Service
If you haven't heard about it, then here's something that will make your life as a parent a lot easier. The NHS has launched a scheme called The Minor Ailment Service. This allows anyone who is exempt from prescription charges, e.g. children under 16 or those up to the age of 18 in full-time education, to register/be registered with a local pharmacy to get advice and treatment for common illnesses such as coughs, colds, pains, hayfever and headlice, free on the NHS. Go to your local pharmacy for more information.
Email: sptc@sptc.info Web site: www.sptc.info
Article 398 - published on 21 Aug 2006