2004 CONVENER'S REPORT - Steve McColl

WHAT'S IN A YEAR?
Once again it falls to me to report on the activities of the past year and, as I look back, I'm pleased to say we've been moving forward on a number of fronts, from more members, through new computers in the office, an updated website, surveys of members' views and consultation responses, to involvement in a range of national education groups like Curriculum Review Group.

Membership
Perhaps one of the most satisfying changes over the last year is that our membership has gone up from 1304 to 1392. (All members, except those who have joined most recently, are listed by authority at the back of this report.) This is against a programme of school closure in some areas.

Insurance
Another satisfying development has been that the new three-year deal for insurance has worked very well over the past year. However, changes to our Broker have resulted in a further change, this time to the insurers: the policy is now provided by Allianz Cornhill although the terms and conditions remain the same and are set to last for the next three years. This means not only that we can guarantee a good service to members, and continue the public liability cover for discos and the like, but we also have a more secure financial base for future planning.

Financial Projects
As a result of this financial security, we have been able to move ahead on a number of overdue projects
" We have upgraded our computers and installed new anti-virus software (a real necessity today).
" We have updated our website to make it more user-friendly and provide more information, particularly in the Info Shop. This has also enabled us to place more material on-line for down-loading.
" We have reviewed staff salaries (unchanged since 2000) and rationalised them against salaries paid for comparable jobs in comparable organisations.

Publications
Eleanor Coner has taken over editing our newsletter, Backchat. She has brought a new fresh approach to the content and changed what we send members. We now send four large, blue-printed copies which are easy to read and one smaller black-printed copy which is easy for photocopying. We also send Backchat out by email to those members who have given us an email address. We have taken the opportunity to revise and update all our leaflets and our SUSI advice packs on safe use of the Internet. All our material is available on request, free of charge.

Projects
Financial security has also enabled us to move forward in a couple of worthwhile but expensive areas. We have joined forces with Drummond Community High School to produce an updated version of their much acclaimed Equality Game. Despite its name, this teaches youngsters about the inbuilt inequalities in life. It helps them understand the benefits of an advantaged background compared to the disadvantages of one that is less privileged. We have also embarked on our third Success Stories catalogue. In 1995 and again in 1999 we decided to collect accounts of successful activities at school and draw them together into a catalogue which we then distributed to all schools and authorities. An enormous amount of hard work is involved in such a project, not least by the teachers, pupils and parents at school level who help create the projects. However, the collation and editing of the projects has kept everyone in the office very busy over the summer. The catalogue is now at the printers and we hope to have it distributed at the end of this year or the start of 2005.

Surveys
We have undertaken two major and important surveys. The first looked at whether there was support for providing all pupils with free school meals or whether the current system of making a modest charge but offering free meals to those most in need should continue. We heard back from 3,853 people: 41.7% supported free school meals for all and 47.4% agreed that the current charging system should continue with the improvements to the quality of the meals as proposed by the Executive. Comments made it clear that the quality of the school meals was the number one priority for most people.

More recently we carried out a survey on advertising in schools - and we included in this sponsorship and promotional deals. Again we had an excellent response with returns from 1,151 people. The majority (55.9%) supported some tightening of the present system with three quarters of this group supporting better national guidelines and only 15.1% supporting an all out-ban.

The results of both surveys have provoked a lot of interest from the media and policy makers, showing just how worthwhile are both the surveys and members participation in them.

Consultations
As usual we have engaged in a wide range of national consultations. These have included consultations on anti-social behaviour policies; guidelines on school capacity; new assessment arrangements for the 5-14 curriculum; the Additional Support for Learning measures; changes to the regulations on Age and Stage for SQA exams in secondary schools; improvements to the Scottish Qualifications Certificate; the Children's Hearings Review; a new guide on National Qualifications for parents and the operation of the Anti-Bullying Network.

Involvement
Parallel with all this activity over consultations, members of SPTC have been actively engaged in a number of national policy committee groups.

Anti-Bullying Network - Eleanor Coner, replaced by Lynda Grant
Assessment Action Group - Jennifer Stewart
Curriculum Review Group - Judith Gillespie
Ethos Network - Susan McColl
Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) Advisory Group - Eleanor Coner
LTS Enterprise Group - Dr Jo Beaumont, replaced by Eleanor Coner
National Qualifications Steering Group - Judith Gillespie
Religious Observance in Schools Review Group - Linda Coad
Scottish Council for Financial Education Advisory Group - Eleanor Coner
Scottish Joint Committee on Religious and Moral Education - Linda Coad
Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) Board - Judith Gillespie
SQA Advisory Committee - Steve McColl

Issues
The last year has been dominated by two major issues. The first is very positive. It is the Executive's proposals to move beyond the PTA and School Board committees and make it easier for all parents to get involved in schools. The second is more problematic. It is the Disclosure Scotland Regulations and whether or not parents helping out at school events like discos need to undergo police checks.

Parents in school: trying to improve parental involvement in schools has been a policy aim of the Executive for over a year. Indeed it featured as the lead item in last year's annual report. A major issue for the Executive has been whether the legislation on school boards needs to be updated or whether it was more important to focus on better information and links for all parents. After much internal debate, the Executive has decided to move forward on the latter approach and in August the Minister made a major announcement about his intentions. He wants to highlight good practice and has commissioned Strathclyde University to prepare clear, straightforward leaflets for parents on helping their children with homework and on supporting good behaviour in school. We wonder if the leaflets will be as easy to understand as ours!

Disclosure Scotland: Our phones have been red-hot and our email very busy with enquiries from members about whether they need to be police checked for helping out at school discos and the like. Some authorities are making it a requirement but our firm advice is that where there are several people/parents supervising/helping at an event, there is no need for police checks. Rather, all the adult supervisors/helpers should operate a system of conscious mutual supervision. This both safeguards the children and protects the adults from false accusations. In many ways it is the same as the good practice of having two people count money: this is to ensure that the counting is accurate and that each can act as witness to the other's honesty.

The main problem with the Disclosure Scotland regulations is that they are extremely unclear. On first reading they seem to apply only to clearly appointed posts or positions, whether paid or voluntary e.g. to teachers and Scout Leaders. It is the duty of the appointing body to get the police check and the checks cannot be passed from one appointing body to another, so people who are both teachers and Scout Leaders need to be checked twice. However, the actual limits and legal requirements are very unclear and so a number of people are assuming everyone who has any contact with children needs to be checked. We have raised this issue with local authorities, the Scottish Executive and the Parliament's Education Committee in an attempt to get clarity. We are still working on it.

Office hours
The official office hours are from 9.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m. Monday to Friday, but there is someone around until 4.00 p.m. most days. Otherwise, messages left on the answerphone 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 is offering a useful service to people who want immediate access to information.
Help and Advice
Our telephone helpline is available during office hours and we take calls on anything affecting our members, or indeed any parent or teacher, member or not. 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 - an area of uncertainty for parents and schools alike.

Regional Meetings
Unfortunately we have only managed to hold two regional meetings in this reporting year - one in Aberdeenshire and one in North Lanarkshire. However, we greatly value such meetings, as they enable us to visit schools up and down the country and hear directly from members on what they are doing and what difficulties they face. We fully intend to promote such meetings more.

Conferences
As usual there have been a number of conferences this year attended by SPTC members. These include conferences on school estate, supporting classroom assistants, sexual health and relationships, assessment and reporting, inclusion, ethos and positive discipline, overcoming violence, national qualifications, children's commissioner, links between school and FE colleges, bullying, childhood obesity, citizenship and the law, charity law reform and child protection. Reports from conferences are posted on our website. We are also fighting a battle against the excessive delegate fees charged by some conference providers. We write back and say we would love to come but the conference is too expensive - and by that we mean over �100 for the day. The response is variable, but we get particularly angry when conferences are supposedly targeted at parents and the costs are astronomical or the case of the conference on social exclusion that cost over �200.
Support Fund
Having said that, we continue to support parents who wish to attend conferences by using the support fund to pay delegate costs.

SPTC AND OTHER BODIES
We have not met the Minister this year but we have had meetings with officials in the Scottish Executive, Her Majesty's Inspectors for Education and Careers Scotland.

National Confederation of PTAs (NCPTA)
One of the most satisfying developments over recent years is our increasingly close links with our sister organisation in England and Wales, NCPTA, particularly with their Chief Executive, David Butler.

NCPTA and SPTC jointly negotiate the terms of the insurance policy and NCPTA's massive size (they are about ten times as large as SPTC) helps deliver a very good deal for everyone. However, links have moved beyond this financial transaction to discussion of common issues and a sharing of good practice. We have reciprocal membership with each and exchange newsletters and other information.

European Parents Association (EPA)

Rather less satisfactory have been our links with EPA, the European umbrella body of national parents' organisations. We were founder members of EPA back in the 1980s but for many years it has lived beyond its means and been very dependent on uncertain EU funding. This year financial reality hit home and EPA has had to face up to considerable debt. There has been an energetic email debate about what to do for the future. Groups from across Europe recognise the benefits of communication with each other, but many have questioned the need for the expensive organisation that EPA has enjoyed. Crunch-time came at the recent AGM when our interests were ably represented by David Butler. The outcome is a massively slimmed down organisation, an increased dependence on email networking (a process that the financial problems have successfully kick-started) a realistic budget and much tighter budgetary controls. There's an agreement that EPA is now on probation and the various national parent bodies will keep a close eye on progress over the coming year.

And Finally

Once again, it's been a busy year and I would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank-you to our three staff who work way beyond their remit and to our volunteer Directors who give of their time and expertise so willingly and generously!

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