Scottish Parent Teacher Council

Backchat Newsletter - Issue 98 - August 2007

In this issue

Welcome to all
SPTC News
Bullying Conference
Help with Parenting
Safe travel to school
The Internet – a public place
Your Questions Answered

Scottish Parent Teacher Council, the independent voice for parents, is a national organisation.
It has been serving parents’ groups in schools for 60 years.

Parent Councils are go
As everyone returns to school, there are some new kids on the block - Parent Councils. We would like to welcome them and everyone who has not only agreed to take part but to plunge into slightly unknown territory. We would also like to welcome back all those PTAs & PAs that have decided to carry on the good work that they are already doing.

Survey
We recently sent a survey to all our existing PTA/PA members (via the headteacher) asking whether they have decided to continue as an independent group or become part of their Parent Council. It is clear, from the complex picture that we are hearing about, that parents have been enthusiastic in finding a form of involvement that suits their school. In some small rural schools, everyone is working within the whole Parent Forum, with no Parent Council or PTA; in some schools there is a Parent Council plus a PTA/PA and in yet other schools there is a Parent Council but no PTA - although there may be a fundraising subcommittee.
It is very important that we get the surveys back so that we can continue to offer insurance to those that need it. The return date is 10th September. However, if you have not yet made any decision, please keep the survey until it has been decided what is happening at your school.

PTA/PAs as part of the Parent Council
However informal the PTA/PA may have been, it still had a legal identity and the members of the committee were legally liable for its actions. In order to change and become part of the Parent Council, it is very important that the proper procedure is followed otherwise the parents on the committee could still be liable.
Step 1: hold an AGM or EGM at which a motion to disband the PTA is passed.
Step 2:write a minute of the meeting and record who proposed and seconded the motion and the vote in favour.
Step 3: the Parent Council should then set up a subcommittee and decide its remit and membership. (These can be exactly the same as the now disbanded PTA.)

SPTC NEWS
We would like to welcome all new readers to Backchat. This is our regular newsletter which we send out six times in the year. We try to cover a range of topics that are of interest to parents, including fundraising ideas and information about education changes. This time we carry an item on Parenting Across Scotland and the help that is available to all parents but, for the October edition, we have commissioned an article outlining the Curriculum for Excellence developments.

Distribution
You will notice that we send four B4 sized newsletters and one A4 sized one. The B4 ones are for handing out or putting on a notice board and the A4 one is included for ease of photocopying. We also send Backchat in electronic form where we have an email address. Many folk tell us that this makes it easier to distribute the newsletter round their committee and to other parents. If you want to receive Backchat electronically and we haven’t already got your address, please email us on sptc@sptc.info

CONFERENCE & AGM
Longstanding members will know that we hold our AGM and conference in November. For the past two years we have focused on the introduction of Parent Councils. Now it is time to move on and look less at how parents are involved in schools and more at what they might actually do once they are involved.

Bullying in Schools – can parents help tackle it?

This year’s theme is bullying and we have teamed up with Andrew Mellor of the Anti-Bullying Network. He will run a session on how parents might help schools tackle bullying.

However, we cannot get away completely from questions about Parent Councils, PTAs and parental involvement in general, so in the afternoon we will have an open question and answer session about any teething problems Parent Councils are having, how PTAs are managing within the new set-up, examples of good practice and questions about insurance.

The date and time of the conference is 10th November, 10.00 a.m. to 2.45 p.m.

The venue is the Holyrood campus, (Moray House) at Edinburgh University.

The cost is £7.50 per person from a member organisation (£5.00 per person if more than one person comes). This covers morning coffee and lunch.

A registration form and poster are available from our website www.sptc.info .

DIRECTORS WANTED

The AGM is not only an opportunity for SPTC to report on what it has been doing in the past year, it is also the time when we seek to appoint new Directors. All member organisations are entitled to nominate one parent and one teacher to become one of our twenty directors. This year this means nominations from PTAs/PAs and from Parent Councils. Member local authorities can also nominate potential directors. A nomination form and a leaflet explaining what is involved in being a director are available on our website. Because we are both a company and a charity there are some formal requirements, but in general it’s a chance to talk about education with like-minded people.

We do not operate a quota system and in the past have always been fortunate to end up with a good mix of folk from around the country, from small primary schools to large secondary schools, and from rural and urban areas. This diversity of experience helps ensure that policies are properly discussed and the resulting decisions are balanced. If you want to find out more, please phone the office.

WEBSITE
As mentioned above, both the conference registration form and the directors nomination form can be downloaded from our website www.sptc.info There you will also find our range of information leaflets, which we are in the process of updating to take account of the changed form of parental involvement, more fundraising ideas, and this and previous Backchats.

Parenting Across Scotland (PAS)
Parenting Across Scotland (PAS) is a unique partnership of 9 voluntary organisations funded by the Scottish Executive.

Almost 1 in 3 adults in Scotland are parents of children aged 16 and under. However many people contribute to the parenting effort even though they themselves are not the biological parents. Parents generally do a fantastic job and parenting can be hugely rewarding but being a parent is not easy and most parents will look for advice and support at key stages of their child’s life, for example; the early years, starting school and the teenage years.

PAS aims to support parents and families and provide information when it’s needed. In May 2006 PAS launched our ‘Ok to Ask’ website - www.oktoask.org - and telephone helpline - 0808 800 2222.
The telephone helpline provides a single entry point through Parentline Scotland with direct transfer opportunities to One Parent Families Scotland, Capability Scotland and Stepfamily Scotland. The website provides an ‘Ok to Ask’ database which provides links to a wide range of web-based information sources for parents. PAS would also like to hear the views of parents and has set up a virtual parent’s network through the website.

For further information about PAS, email alison.clancy@children1st.org.uk
or visit the website at www.parentingacrossscotland.org

Safer Routes to Schools
Safer Routes to School is another Scottish Executive initiative, this time aimed at improving the travel-to-school experience for pupils and making it safer for youngsters to walk and/or cycle. The twice yearly newsletter is full of good ideas that schools around the country have been implementing and others can copy.

Perhaps the most ambitious was the car free health day run by Glasgow’s Parkview Primary with the support of the local authority. Artificial turf was laid on the school’s access road and police monitored the scheme, riding up on horses or bicycles.
In Aberdeen, a group of pupils set up their own walking bus. After asking the schools travel co-ordinator to check their safety skills, they walk to school unsupervised, but wearing highly visible clothing.
Sustrans has been making money available to provide safe and secure bike storage at schools.
Parents in two Aberdeen primary schools have set up schemes for persuading parents to park away from the school gates when dropping their children off. Children have designed stickers that can be displayed in co-operating cars.
A DVD has been produced that makes cycle training more attractive. It shows BMX riders demonstrating their riding skills. And proof that cycle proficiency can pay off comes from James McCallum. When he was in P7, his mum said that if he passed his cycling proficiency, she’d buy him a racing bike and let him join a cycling club. This set James on a path that led to him winning a bronze at last year’s Commonwealth Games - proof that bribery can pay off!
Meanwhile, SPTC is beginning a campaign for CCTV to be installed on all school buses to improve safety and reduce bullying. We’d really like to hear your views and experiences.

To subscribe to the free newsletter, contact Sustrans Safe Routes to Schools Information Service by phone 0117955 0100, by email schools@sustrans.org.uk or visit their website www.saferoutestoschools.org.uk

We thought we’d launch our Parent Council with a social event. Are we covered for providing hotdogs and home- made cakes?

If your parent council is in one of those authorities that have signed up to our membership insurance scheme, then the answer is “yes”. There are no problems with what you plan and you have all the public liability cover you need. If you are not covered by our insurance (and we have written to the headteachers of all those schools that do enjoy this cover) then you should check with your local authority to find out what arrangements they have made.

Of course, regardless of whether you are insured or not, you don’t want to give anyone food poisoning, so it is important to take sensible precautions. With hotdogs, the pre-cooked ones should be kept cold and separate from the hot ones. You should make sure that the hotdogs are heated properly. With the cakes it is a good idea to avoid high risk products such as those containing fresh cream and raw eggs. With these precautions, I’m sure your event will be a success and I hope you have a good time.

We are planning on holding a wine and cheese party for new parents. Do we need to get a licence?
You need a licence for the sale or provision of alcohol, so the short answer is “yes”. Moreover, you cannot get round this requirement by selling tickets that people then exchange for a drink: that still counts as the sale of alcohol. The only time you do not need a licence is if you invite people to bring their own drinks. To get a licence you should apply to the licensing department of your local authority for a “temporary permission”. (The cost varies by authority but is not high). The number you are allowed each year is strictly limited, so it is a good idea to work out when you might need one and for what events.

Does everyone on our committee have to have a disclosure check?
No; the people who need to have a disclosure check are those whose “normal duties” include childcare. This would be someone who ran a school club on a regular basis. However, if you are just meeting to discuss policies or you invite parents to help out at school discos on a casual basis, then none of this would satisfy the criteria of “normal duties” and no one would need a disclosure check. Moreover, it is illegal to have a disclosure check done on someone who does not need one. For more information see our advice leaflet which is available free of charge on our website or from the office.

INTERNET: - A VERY PUBLIC SPACE
We were recently contacted by a journalist about some youngsters who had been misbehaving, had filmed their actions on a mobile phone and then posted this on You Tube or some such website. We were invited to be horrified at their misbehaviour, but we were more struck by the fact that the youngsters probably had no idea that the film of their stupidity would become such public property. Moreover, as public property, it could come back to haunt them in the future when they have matured and are perhaps applying for a job.

Many youngsters do not realise that the Internet is a very public place and that what they “post” will be public now, and available in the future for others to see. Moreover, their activities can be traced back to them. Hiding behind a funny name or an alias is not good enough. There will be an infallible electronic trail. Think of way the police can trace terrorists or those who download pornography.

Much is made of protecting youngsters from the dangers on the Internet, from grooming by unsavoury adults, but they also need protecting from themselves. They should be helped to understand that emails are not confidential documents – they can be read by others, whilst information on the Internet may be no more accurate than the gossip older generations heard behind the bicycle sheds. The Internet offers great opportunities, but only if users take care.

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

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