Scottish Parent Teacher Council

2002 Convenor's Report By Eleanor Coner

WHAT'S IN A YEAR?

In starting to write this report I decided to remind myself what had happened over the past year by looking at back issues of Backchat. It turned out to be a mix of " a year's a long time in education" and "there's nothing new under the sun". If we look at change, then at last year's conference we were on tenterhooks to know whether Jack McConnell, the then Education Minister would turn up. Henry McLeish had just stood down as first Minister and there was much speculation about who might follow him. We all know the answer now! However, if we look at "nothing new", then in January I wrote a report for Backchat, entitled Food Glorious Food, about a conference I had attended along with Food Tsar, Gillian Kynoch. Guess what? This year our conference topic is Food in Schools and Gillian Kynoch will be one of the main speakers!

SUSI - Safer Use of Services on the Internet

The Safer Use of Services on the Internet is another topic that we have carried through from last year and, in the process, it has moved from proposal to action. The project is part-funded by the European Commission and aims to provide parents with information on using the Internet safely. We have worked in partnership with Learning and Teaching Scotland and parents' groups from Iceland, Holland and Spain. In the autumn of 2001 we sent information packs to all parents from a sample of Scottish schools. These explained different aspects of Internet use - email, chat rooms and, my own favourite, shopping on-line, - highlighted the benefits of these services, the possible risks and gave tips on how users could work safely. The feedback we had was very positive and there is now a project website. This covers more topics than the packs and is also in each of the languages of the four partner parent organisations. The address is www.besafeonline.org

Ban on Smacking

Smacking is another issue that's been on the go for a long time. In 2000, the Scottish Executive ran a consultation on The Physical Punishment of Children in Scotland with the intention of bringing Scottish legislation into line with the European Convention on Human Rights. For parents, the high profile issue was how to define their right to administer "reasonable chastisement" i.e. would it become illegal for them to smack their children. The Executive's initial proposals were not very controversial and attracted only 220 replies, very few from parents. In our reply we supported the Executive's proposed better definition of "reasonable", but said parents should still have the right to smack their children. However, the outcome of the consultation phase was a measure to make it totally illegal for parents to smack their children, even lightly, if they were under 3 years of age. At this point we ran a survey of members asking for their views. Nearly 2,500 parents contributed with 56% rejecting the outright ban on parents smacking their children when they were under three. We passed this information on in written and oral evidence to the Justice Committee, which was looking at the details of the relevant Bill. We were highly delighted when common sense prevailed and the smacking ban was dropped. One of the critical factors was the number who responded to our survey compared to the number who had responded to the original consultation. It just shows that parent participation does pay off and that the new Scottish Parliament listens.

Higher Still

Although diet 2001 of the Higher Still exams passed off smoothly, we were still actively involved in monitoring progress through to diet 2002. We had two members on the Ministerial Review Group, which was charged with checking for any ongoing problems, as well as a representative on the National Qualifications Steering Group, which was responsible for overseeing improvements to the whole exams system. As part of this latter process, the Executive ran a consultation on reducing the amount of assessment in the Higher Still programme. Option A proposed that students get a graded course award on the basis of the external exam only whilst Option B proposed almost the converse, that students get an ungraded course award on the basis of unit assessments only. We suggested Option C - that the number of required unit assessments should be dropped from three to two. In the end the Executive decided that there was no clear case for change. Instead it has implemented a programme for streamlining the different courses. We continue our watching brief.

The Great Debate

However, the issue, which has dominated Backchat over the last year and has taken much of our time, was the Executive's National Debate on Education and a parallel inquiry by the Education Committee of the Scottish Parliament into the Future of Scottish Education. Both inquiries aimed to seek the views of those who are not normally involved in policy decisions. Our contribution to this was to hold a series of meetings round the country and invite school parents to say what they thought. Inevitably with such a process, feedback was contradictory. The tone was set at the very first meeting when one parent said that she really didn't like the open plan design of her child's school only to have her neighbour say that she found the open plan style really attractive. From such promising beginnings, our debate continued to be lively and we heard a range of views on modern language teaching, the excessive amount of assessment, the need for more sport, art, music and drama whilst at the same time keeping everything that's currently in the curriculum. There was a lot of support for teachers, for the importance of having teachers in the classroom and not having teaching by computer - although online learning did have a place. One of the great benefits of this whole process was that we got people talking about education and the things that mattered to them. ScotRail did OK out of it too!

School Meals

Whilst the Great Debate meetings were going on, Tommy Sheridan introduced a Bill to the Scottish Parliament, proposing that all children should be entitled to a free school meal. His aim was to end the stigma currently experienced by those entitled to free school meals and improve the health of all children. Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and someone somewhere would pick up the bill. We took the opportunity at our meetings to ask people what they thought of this proposal. What we heard was that there were a whole series of reasons why children didn't take school meals - the quality of food, the state and noise of the dining room, the need to queue. Making them free would not be enough to encourage more pupils to take school meals. What was needed were improvements. We again presented this evidence to the relevant committee - the Education Committee this time - which was responsible for looking at the Bill in detail. The Bill was rejected and the Executive has now come forward with its own proposals for improving school meals, but we do not think it is the end of the story.

Public Private Partnership

As more and more of you are coming to experience the complexities of a school build under PPP, we were delighted when Judith Gillespie, our Development Manager, was asked to be on the advisory panel for an official review of PPP funding of schools in Scotland. In theory she was there to give advice on the school system. In practice she found it a crash learning course on school funding. She was keen to share her new-found knowledge with the rest of us - talk about complicated! However, it is good to have a better awareness of the benefits and pitfalls of PPP.

THE OFFICE

The big change to the office this year was a change of premises in July. Our offices in Shandwick Place had always been very cramped and when the lease came to an end, we were delighted to move into more spacious premises in George Street. Moving office is a bit like moving house - a period of intense chaos and losing things before order returns. However, we are now settled, organised and enjoying the extra room. Lynda Grant, who was the new girl on the block last year, is now totally up to speed with all the oddities of SPTC life and has taken steps to improve our record keeping. The next major trauma we will have to face is that Mairi Craven has decided to retire from her post of Information Officer at the end of November. She will be much missed. We've decided to tie Judith Gillespie to her chair so that she stays around for a little while longer.

Office hours

This is normally staffed during the following hours:
Mon, Tue, Thur & Fri: 9.00 am to 2.00 pm
Wed: 9.00 am to 1.00 pm
Messages left on the answer phone at other times will be answered as soon as possible. An increasing number of members are now contacting us by email - sptc@sptc.info - whilst our website www.sptc.info offering a useful service to people who want immediate access to information.

Membership

Membership has continued to rise with over 60 new PTA members this year. Our ordinary membership now stands at 1268. At the back of this report there is a list of members by council area for the beginning of October. (A number of schools have joined since then and are not included in the lists but they are on our current database). The balance between primary and secondary schools in our membership reflects the actual balance between primary and secondary schools in Scotland. We are pleased to have members from every authority area.
Help and Advice
Our telephone help line is available during office hours and we take calls on anything affecting our members, or indeed any parent or teacher who calls. Queries include:

PA or PTA matters - what can a PTA/PA do
Money handling questions
Constitutions
Insurance queries - particularly the difference between public liability and personal accident insurance
Personal problems which individual PTAs and/or parents are experiencing
The need for police checks. This is a new problem which arises out of concern for children's safety and it is causing a lot of confusion all round.

Our free advice leaflets are an extension of the telephone service and deal with the problems raised most frequently. They continue to be popular.

Regional Meetings

We continue to get out and about although this year our regional meetings became merged with meetings for the Great Debate. It still meant a bonus for ScotRail as we shot off to Argyll and Bute, Aberdeenshire and North Lanarkshire, to name but a few venues.

Surveys

Our big survey this year was on the proposed smacking ban. We asked respondents to tell us the actual number of people for and against each proposal, and we added the figures up to give grand totals. We were delighted with the response and the efforts individual schools made to contact more parents. Thank you to all who took part.

CONFERENCES

As usual there have been a number of conferences this year attended by SPTC members. These include conferences on bullying, misuse of alcohol, the uses of ICT, a unified examinations system, the Scottish Council for Research in Education's Annual Forum as well as several on the Great Debate.

SUPPORT FUND

Two years ago we set up a Support Fund for parents to attend relevant conferences. This year the fund has been only modestly used for conferences on bullying and special educational needs. The fund remains a permanent feature of our support for parents.

SPTC AND OTHER BODIES

Top of this agenda have been meetings with both Cathy Jamieson and Nicol Stephen on a number of issues including parental involvement.
We also continue to have formal and informal meetings with other organisations including officials in the Scottish Executive, Her Majesty's Inspectors, and SQA. We have given oral evidence on a number of occasions to parliamentary committees. We participated in a seminar run by Andy Kerr, Minister for Finance and Public Services, on the future development of local government. I was delighted to attend the new Education Awards ceremony which celebrated good practice in schools.

We also represent parental interests on a number of committees, as listed below.

Eleanor Coner: Ministerial Review Group, and Learning and Teaching Scotland's Advisory Group and their 5-14 Reference Group
Linda Coad: the Scottish Joint Committee on Religious and Moral Education and the Religious Observance Review Group
Ruth Higham: the Health and Safety Executive's Industry Advisory Group for schools.
Sue McColl is on the Ethos Network Advisory Group and SCRE
Steve McColl: Ministerial Review Group on Higher Still
Judith Gillespie is on the Higher Still National Qualifications Steering Group and is a member of the SQA Board. She was also on the advisory panel for the Account's Commission review of PFI funding of schools.
Jennifer Stewart: Assessment Action Group

Directors also continue to serve their own schools both on PTA committees and on school boards. SPTC is often contacted by the media for a "parental view" on educational issues. We try to present a reasonable view though not everything we say is reported.

CONSULTATIONS

As always we have responded to a number of consultations. These have included:

Scottish Executive consultations on Higher Education, Renewing Local Democracy, draft Guidance on Home Education, a review of Education for Work and Enterprise, Chartered Teacher Programme, a Framework for Professional Review and Development
Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education consultation on school self-evaluation of health issues
Scottish Parliament consultations on the Purpose of Scottish Education, Criminal Justice Bill, School Meals Bill, Scottish Qualifications Authority Bill

It's been a busy year!

THANK YOU

Well, this is my final report as I stand down as Convener at the Annual Conference in November. It's been interesting, fun and a challenge to the transport system from East Lothian. I only had to plan on going to a meeting for my chosen form of transport to break down or most spectacularly in the case of a bus, blow up.

I will gloss over my embarrassment when my smart skirt split from calf to thigh in front of the then Minister of Education. But if you can handle incidents like that - and of course any parent can - then you can handle making speeches, appearing on the telly, talking to journalists on the phone at home whilst making the dinner, and challenging officials.

I've learnt a lot and I hope I've also struck a blow for all parents up and down the country. Let's have an end to confusing abbreviations and language (not that we're ever guilty of using either!!) Of course, I haven't done this alone.

The SPTC directors are a fantastic bunch and offer great advice and support. Meetings are informative but also a good laugh. My particular thanks go to the office bearers, David as vice-convener, Steve as secretary and Ruth as treasurer.

And finally I would like to thank Mairi, Lynda and Judith for all the work that they do quietly behind the scenes to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Anyone who rings with a problem or query gets a sympathetic response and generally sees that SPTC fulfils its original remit to encourage friendly relations between parents and teachers.

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