The
Annual Report
What is this report about?
Welcome to the 2nd
annual report of Webster’s Parent Council.
The Parent Council is made up of a group of parents and carers of
children who attend the school. Any parent or carer with a child at the school
is a member of the Parent Forum. Any member of the Parent Forum can join the
Parent Council or any one of its sub-groups.
(See contact details below)
This report sets
out some of the things we have undertaken during the last school year and what
we propose to do next year. If you find
after reading this that we have missed out items that you feel are important, or
you disagree with the suggestions we have made, then we would like to hear from
you. Please contact us.
What
the Parent Council did in 2008/09
Parental Survey
It is very
important to us that we accurately represent your views to the school. We sent out over 600 questionnaires - one to
every family - in October, and we would like to thank the 130 families who
returned them. We collated the results
and we learned following things:
·
the
overwhelming response is that Webster’s is valued as a good school
·
areas
that you would like the Parent Council to discuss with the school are:
o
communication
between the school and parents
o
school
uniform
o
lunchtimes - what our children eat and where they go
Formal Meetings
We meet
regularly, 6-8 times a year. We meet
with the Rector or his representative, other staff members and representatives
from the community, such as local councillors and church ministers. Pupil representatives are also invited to
attend. Occasionally the Parent Council calls on
members of the Parent Forum who can offer particular skills to help with
projects at the school.
The minutes of
these meetings are available to everybody from the Parent Council secretary (we
have a vacancy for this {paid} post at present - contact us for details). We are
hoping in the future to post these on the school website.
During the past school
year the Parent Council discussed items you’ve told us are important to your
children’s education at the school. For example, the Parent Council were
instrumental in helping the school suspend the construction work for the
extension during exam time. Other issues
included:
- term dates
- school buses
- Curriculum for
Excellence (http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/curriculumforexcellence/)
- specific
issues raised by parents/carers.
Informal Meetings
As the regular
meetings are busy with a formal agenda, we also meet informally to discuss
ideas for the future. If formal meetings do not appeal, then you
are welcome to just join these informal ones.
We aim to advertise these on the
Parent Council area of the school website and, if you give us your email
address, we can let you know where and when these are being held.
Meeting with Webster's
In November, the
Parent Council met with the school management team (the Rector, his deputes and
other teaching and administrative staff).
Also present were representatives
from the Parent Councils of the local primary schools. The
meeting discussed many issues facing the school in the future. These included:
·
Education
·
Communication
·
Health
·
Manners
·
Environment
As a result of
this meeting, several initiatives have been started. For example, the Parent Council organised and
paid for a series of six lunchtime exercise classes called the Bodyworks
Initiative. This was aimed at children
who perhaps would not normally get involved in school team sports. The music was geared to their age groups and
the classes fitted around the school timetable.
The pilot was very well supported and we hope to repeat this.
Webster’s Parent
Council is represented on two committees organised by Angus Council's Education
Department: The Angus Parental Consultative Group, which meets roughly three
times a year to discuss issues facing parents about education matters and to
offer advice and support to parent councils throughout Angus; and the Angus
Parents Updating Website Committee which meets to develop the education area of
the Angus Council website. This area aims to help parents understand
their children’s education better and to help parents help their children make
the most of their education. It also
offers advice and support to parent councils.
The new website area, called
Parents as Partners, will shortly be launched to parents across Angus and is
available at www.angus.gov.uk/parentsaspartners/. Please
take a few minutes to have a look.
What else has the Parent Council done?
On Mo Brodie’s
retirement, a representative from the Parent Council was involved with
interviews to appoint the new Depute Head Rector, Donald Currie.
In addition to
the main Parent Council, we have an events sub-committee called the WAGs
(Webster’s Activity Group) who organise fund raising and help at various school
events. Any parent or carer is welcome to join WAGs - we
are always keen to have new members.
In the past
year, this group has raised funds through two major event:.
On
Valentine’s Day we held an old school Disco in
The
WAGs also organised a very enjoyable Quiz Night in November.
This brought the
fundraising total to £1039.19
Some of these
funds were used to provide:
ü
two
marquees, as requested by the sports department - these were needed for outdoor
activities to provide shelter and a base for refreshments for Webster’s
athletes attending sports meetings.
ü
contribution
towards a projector, replacing an older version which was donated by the school
to the Litien school in
ü
a dinner
money float for the school office to use for emergencies.
ü
the
Bodyworks Initiative described above.
ü
refreshments
at the annual prize giving and the Christmas Concert.
The
Future
Next year we are
looking at the following projects outlined below but we will always be guided
by what you think is important. To do
this we need you to let us know. There are plenty of ways to contact us,
details of which are given below.
We want to
communicate better with all parents and carers involved with the school and this
will be the focus of next year’s activities.
WHS website
We are currently
considering how we can help the school to develop and maintain its website. We
want to do this to improve communication with the Parent Forum. We
plan to work with parents and the school to look at ways we can help to keep
the website completely up-to-date and to be a reliable and comprehensive source
of information. If you have expertise in this area and would
be willing to advise or assist, we would be delighted to hear from you. We
need to involve parents who have the technical know-how.
Email
Our database of
e-mail addresses of parents is growing. If you haven’t already done so, please give us
your email address. We will only use it to let you know what is
going on in the Parent Council. There is
no pressure on you to join in with anything if you don’t want to but we would
like to hear your views and to be able to reach you direct through occasional
e-letters which we piloted last year.
Uniform
We know from our
survey that school uniform is another area of parental concern. Some
parents would like the policy to be stricter and some want it to go altogether. The
only clear thing is that most parents aren’t happy with the current situation. What do you think? Please let us know.
Involvement
Most
importantly, we want to involve more parents and carers with Webster's Parent
Council, in as many ways as possible. Several of us are due to leave in the next
year or two, as our children move on from Webster's. We
badly need new members to build on the foundations we have laid. We
strongly believe that the Parent Council can make a real difference - but it
needs parent/carer volunteers in order to do that!
Who is on the Parent Council?
Any member of
the Parent Forum may be a member of the Parent Council. We
have a wide cross section of people but we are always keen to have more.
Current Members of the Parent Council
are:
Alan Weir
(Chair)
Helen Pratt
(Vice Chair)
Claire Kadoch
(Executive Secretary)
Alison Ross
(Treasurer)
Kathy Roberston
(Chair of WAGs sub-committee)
Jane Stork
Denise David
Gill Urquhart
Janice Torbet
Alison Niblock
Louise Valentine
Helen Stott
Donna Hood
Rhona Guild
John Corrigan
Sally Cowie
Claire Little
Veronica Barnes
How can I contact the Parent Council?
If you would
like to contact the Parent Council you can:
- contact any member of the Parent
Council directly
- email
parentcouncil@webstershigh.angus.sch.uk
- ring Jane Stork 01828 640196, email Jane@thestorks.co.uk
- call at the school office or ring on
01575 572840 and they will pass the message on.
TO WEBSTER’S
PARENT COUNCIL:
EMAIL ADDRESS
If you are happy
to be included on the Parent Council database to enable us to contact you via email, then
please complete your details below and drop it into the school office, email to
jane@thestorks.co.uk or alternatively send this slip to us at :The
Auld Kirk,
Name:………………………………………………………..
Email Address:………………………………………………………………
If you have any
comments on this report, or any other activity that the Parent Council
undertakes please let us know:
Comments: