The death of PTAs has been greatly exaggerated!

Oops – we have been so busy trying to help people move forward to Parent Councils that we have inadvertently given the very confusing (and false) message that PTAs will cease to exist after August 2007. Our apologies! This is most certainly not the case. We borrow our headline from Mark Twain in an attempt to put the record straight.The essential changes in schools, resulting from the Parental Involvement Act which was passed last year, are:

• School boards will be abolished from August 2007
• All the parents at a school, whether they like it or not, will be deemed to be members of the parent forum from August 2007. (And the term “parent” has a very wide meaning; it includes carers, absent parents, anyone with a significant “parenting” role, as well as the resident biological parent/s).

• if it wants to set up a parent council to run matters on its behalf - but it does not have to
• who and how many people should be on the parent council
• to have the current PTA activities run by the Parent Council or a subcommittee of the Parent Council, or to keep a totally separate and independent PTA.

It is even possible to decide that the existing PTA will take over the discussion role of the current school board. However, in that case it would essentially become a Parent Council and would be treated as a Parent Council by the authority even though it could continue to be called a PTA.

Choices, choices, choices – the options are almost limitless. However, one part of this which is not optional is that whether you continue to operate as a PTA or you decide to run your PTA activities through the Parent Council you will still need Public Liability Insurance to protect those who turn up at your events. We can provide that insurance whether you continue to operate as a PTA, as at present, or operate as a Parent Council in the future. Moreover, if you decide to change from being a PTA to being a Parent Council or part of a Parent Council, you will be able to take your public liability insurance with you at no extra cost. Now that’s what I call service!

All change at primary school

Last August, teachers’ class contact time was cut to 22.5 hours a week. This August there will be more change, this time to class size; all P1 classes are to have a maximum of 25 pupils per teacher.

For many of us, primary school had a lot of fixed points. There was the same teacher all the time with just the occasional different person coming in to take music, PE or, more commonly, needlework (fond memories of cross stitch and chain stitch come to mind!). Then, at the end of the year, the whole class moved up together with only the odd child leaving whilst anyone joining the class was viewed as a complete stranger until we’d all got to know them. In all but small rural schools, classes were classes of children all in the same year group.

However, the various changes to teachers’ hours and class size mean that now things are very different.

• Pupils routinely get more than one teacher during the week. As teachers’ weekly class contact time is now less than the time P3-P7 pupils are at school, all pupils in these years have at least two teachers, maybe a second general teacher, maybe a specialist or maybe a combination of both.
• Because regulations on class size are different for different year-groups – (from August, class size maxima will be P1 = 25, P2 & 3 = 30; P4-7 = 33) pupils have to be moved around to match the extra classes to the teachers available and/or fit them into the available rooms. For example an intake of 60 pupils in P1 may be in three classes, but moved into two classes of 30 in P2.
• As pupils rarely come into school in such neat class-size groups, the headteacher may have to set up composite classes to accommodate some children. Children might be in such classes for just one year or for a number of years. Of course, composite classes are the norm in rural schools where they are not seen as being any kind of a problem.
• Finally, in some schools there are simply not enough classrooms to accommodate separate small classes and so here the school may be forced to put two classes together in a large room with two teachers. If your child comes home saying that there are 40 pupils in his/her class, he/she is probably right. However, some teachers have experience of working in large classes with other teachers, so there is good practice for schools to draw on and the evidence suggests that pupils are not disadvantaged by being in such classes.

Yep, this doorway looks big enough!

PPP schools

As more and more schools are being re-built using Public-Private Partnership – to give PPP it’s Sunday title – so more people are discovering the delights and draw backs of the scheme. Pupils have a particular insight into what it is like working in school that is in its “snagging” phase, and we are pleased to carry an article by one pupil who was underwhelmed by a recent Ministerial visit but very impressed by the speed with which jobs that had been sitting unfinished for ages suddenly got dealt with.

The Minister came to call

Our guest writer is a former pupil who was rather disillusioned after a visit by Peter Peacock, then Minister for Education, to his finally “finished” PPP school
My mum says the Queen thinks that everywhere smells of paint because people always redecorate before she arrives on a royal visit. Well, I’ve found out that it’s not only the Queen who is given this special treatment.

My school was recently given a ton of money when they were named as one of the new Schools of Ambition (whatever that is!), and this was enough to bring the Minister for Education on a grand tour. Me and my mates were all well p*****d off when we found out on the day before Mr Peacock’s visit that our dress-down day for charity had been cancelled and we had to come to school in proper school uniform. Two of my friends hadn’t heard about the visit, (something to do with a hearing problem associated with teenagers, Ed.) and turned up on the day in their jeans and Superman T-shirts only to be shown the door. Brilliant excuse for a day off!

Isn’t it funny how things that have been put off suddenly happen when important people appear? I go to one of those “wonderful“ PPP schools and over the past couple of years it’s been a building site inside and outside – I won’t even mention the builder’s bums! While the bulk of the work had been finished, there were still lots of jobs needing to be done. But, surprise, surprise, as soon as we heard Mr Peacock was on his way, the mega patch-up began. You’ve never seen so much emergency painting, repairing and general tidying-up. What a fuss! Of course, they couldn’t finish everything so it was easier just to cordon off certain areas and restrict the visit to one part of the school. My favourite bit was when we got a team of jannies in the CDT department to hang up the whiteboards, (which don’t work!). I wish I could have shown Mr Peacock the real state of the building – damp patches on the walls, wires hanging out of the ceiling, unused equipment and best of all where one boy had fallen through a wall – show him the real quality of a PPP building.

The big day finally arrived with everyone warned to be on their best behaviour. The “naughty classes” were not part of the tour - I don’t know what happened to them … maybe they were locked in a cupboard somewhere?? The ministerial convoy was shown around the school by a welcoming committee of 20 including all the SMT, Head Girl and Boy, Depute Head Girl and Boy and anyone else who would look nice and behave themselves. Of course, they rushed him through certain areas like the CDT rooms so he couldn’t get a close look at the unusable equipment. It was a real laugh to see the Depute racing around the classrooms that were to be visited to check that everyone was behaving themselves and to put any tie-less students at the back. Anyway in comes the Minister to my Higher Geography class. Do you know, if there’s one thing I hate, it’s adults trying to be cool when they talk to kids. Well, Mr Peacock asked some really cool questions like, “Do you get a lot of homework?” I knew the answer to this because the Headteacher was standing behind the Minister nodding his head like an idiot. Another amazing question was: “How would you change Highers?” And what do you think the answer was from a class of 16/17 year olds? MAKE THEM EASIER, of course!

Does the Minister ever get to see a real Scottish school?

I hope you can help. We've now discussed the all-risks insurance at a PSA/PTA meeting, and I’d be grateful if you could clarify some points.

1) Are there any specific security requirements regarding equipment that is locked in the school building?
Answer: No, there are no specific security requirements as long as items are kept inside a locked school and there is evidence of a break in for a theft claim. You cannot claim where there is no evidence of a break-in and the theft may have been carried out by an insider.

2) Is the £100 excess per item or per claim?
Answer: The £100 excess is per claim, not per item; so if you keep school uniforms for sale and one is stolen, this would fall within the £100 excess and the insurers would not pay anything. However, if a number of the uniforms were damaged because of a burst pipe, then you would be able to claim the value of the damaged uniforms less £100.

3) What proof would be required to prove PSA/PTA purchased the item, as normally we transfer the funds to the school and the school buys it?
Answer: There should always be some evidence as to what the PTA has purchased for the school, even if the school makes the actual transaction through its usual supplier. For example, the school would not be able to make the purchase without putting in a purchase order; there should be a record in the PTA minutes about what the PTA funds have been spent on and there should be a report – at least once a year – to all parents telling them what the money has been spent on.

SPTC NEWS

New National Body – a clarification
We wish to make it clear that the survey on a new national body that was included with Backchat 94 was not an SPTC survey. We sent it out on behalf of Greg Brown who is carrying out some work for the Scottish Executive. The questions were his questions, not ours, and it should not be assumed that we endorsed them.

In the same way that decisions on whether to set up a parent council or keep a PTA are for parents at the school to decide, so the future - independence or any merger - is for SPTC (and its members) to decide.

STOP PRESS

There’s been a lot in the press recently about the misuse of mobile phones and the risks youngsters face when they go on-line. In the light of this, we have been asked to do a presentation on parental concerns and we would like to hear what you think. Please email your comments, observations etc. to sptc@sptc.info Meantime, if you’d like to know more about the range of internet services available to young people, there’s always our SUSI (Safer Use of Services On-Line) packs which we would be happy to post out.