What is the Parent Forum?  

A Parent Forum is made up of parents or carers with a child at the school and all parents and carers are automatically members. The Parent Forum is the body who should appoint the Parent Council to run matters on its behalf, and they also have the right to decide on their constitution; this should be done at an Annual General Meeting (AGM) or an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM).

What does being a member of the Parent Forum mean?

As a member, you can expect to:-

• have your views represented in an equal and fair way.
• be invovled in deciding what the priorities are for the Parent Council, and how you can be involved in activities, such as sub committees etc.
• receive information about the activities and priorities of the Parent Council.
• be asked for your opionion on issues relating to the school community.
• be told about opportunities you can be involved in the school.
• get information about what your child is learning.
• get information about events and activities at the school.
• have a say in selecting a Parent Council to work on behalf of all parents at your school.

What is the Parent Council?

The Parent Council is a group of parents who represent all the parents and carers (Parent Forum) at the school. At Deanburn Primary the Parent Council is made up of office bearers who are selected at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) which is held in September every year and include a chairperson/s, treasurer and secretary. Any parent or carer with a child at the school can volunteer to take on any of these roles.

Parents can be members of the Parent Council for as long as they choose.

Parent Councils can also invite members of the local community and school staff to join their Parent Council and Elected Members are also invited to attend meetings.

What is the purpose of having a Parent Council?

The main duty of the Parent Council is to represent the views of the parents and carers of children at the school. The duties of a Parent Council are not laid down in legislation, so it is up to each Parent Forum to decide what they want their Parent Council to do. This should be detailed in the constitution. The Parent Council will generally be involved the the following:-

• ensuring all parents and carers of children at Deanburn, irrespective of culture, or background, are listened to, have their views represented and understand what the Parent Council does.
• reporting back to the Parent Forum.
• supporting the work of the school, for example, by advising the school on its policies.
• involved in the appointment of senior staff.
• organising events to support your child's education. for example, literacy evenings, health and wellbeing workshops etc.
• promoting links and contact between all parents, pupils, teachers, pre-school groups and the wider community.
• discussing anything that is of interest to parents.

Parent Council Members

The current Parent Council Office Bearers are:-

Karen Stein - Joint Chairperson

Sarah Ballantine - Joint Chairperson

Clare Doherty - Secretary

Rona Smith - Treasurer

Ann Ritchie - Community Nominated Member

(Appointed at the AGM on 2nd September 2019)

We would encourage more parents and carers to become involved with the Parent Council so we can support the school in providing the best environment for our children to develop and learn. This could involve attending meetings, being part of the Parent Forum and supporting events run in conjunction with the school. Meetings are once per term, however, if there is something specific we are working on, additional meetings will be held.

Date for your Diary

The dates for this school years meetings are:-

2 September 2019

21 October 2019

3 February 2020

11 May 2020

All meetings start at 6.30pm and are held in school. Meetings have an agenda and always include a report from the Headteacher and a Treasurers Report. If you wanted any items added to the meeting agenda's email us at deanburnpc@gmail.com

You can also follow us on twitter - @Deanburnpcdfg.

What Do We Do?

The Parent Council support the school with its aims and objectives for the year and use these to establish our own. We work in conjunction with the Headteacher, Pupils, Cluster Schools and the Community Council.

To give an example of the work we do, here is a list of our achievements from the last school year.

• continued work with Pupil Council to address the issue of road safety.
• purchase of Parking Buddies to have on display around the turning circle, encouraging safe drop off and collections.
• providing trophies for P7 leavers assembly.
• involvement in appointing new Depute Headteacher, Mrs Millar.
• supporting school with the Fair, including the school frontage.
• representatives present during Parents' Nights and P1 induction session.
• Dementia focus for the children and a parent's forum.
• Focus on Resiliance and the ACE model at a Parent Council meeting.
• completed a parental survey to gather thoughts on homework and allow the teachers to review the homework policy.
• consultation around the School Improvement Plan, PEF funding, Standards and Quality Report.
• carried out Parent Council Health check and developed action plan to improve communication:-
  • active use of Twitter and Facebook to increase communication.
  • positive feedback regarding the use of SWAY to share minutes etc.
  • regular meetings with Headteacher.
  • regular Parent Council section in school newsletter.
  • use of school email system and community section in local newspaper to communicate with parents and carers.
  • explored use of community notice boards in playground.

• Working as part of the Parent Council Cluster Group regarding:-
  • cluster P7 disco.
  • involvement in budget meetings to ensure parents' voices were heard.
  • continued work around road safety.

Our aims and objectives for the coming year will incorporate the findings from the recent HMI Inspection. We will then work with staff and pupils to develop an action plan to improve our children's learning environments.