Dunecht School Parent Council
Tuesday 27th January 2015
Attending
Emily Patton (Secretary), Olivia Williams (Treasurer), Oliver McMillan (Head Teacher), Susie Young, John
Carter (Chairman), Louise Paterson, Marlene Crane, Ewan Smeaton, NJ Ndlovu
Apologies
Sheila McIntyre, Fiona Smith
Approval of the last minutes
The last minutes were approved. Proposed by Susie and seconded by Oliver.
Correspondence Received.
There was correspondence re a training meeting to be held in Torphins – this has been cancelled and
not yet rescheduled. John would recommend attendance as a good opportunity to learn about other
parent councils and network a little.
John received minutes of a meeting of chairs of local parent councils.
National Parent Forum of Scotland (NPFS) continue to produce informative e-newsletters, available at:
www.parentforumscotland.org
Treasurers Report
Christmas Fair.
The Christmas Fair made a profit of £976. This was slightly down on the previous year. The change of
time and day did not seem to stop visitors from attending and it was felt that the event was enjoyed by
everyone there.
Disco
There was no DJ for the last disco, instead Olivia provided the music for the evening. The children still
really enjoyed themselves. Fewer provisions were purchased for the tuck shop as leftovers were being
used up. This resulted in a healthy £100 profit.
The balance in the bank account is £4270.10 with £2863 available to spend.
School Agenda
ICT update
1. Parent Mail will be implemented in the next few weeks. This now has a free 12 month trial. It
will be possible to opt out if parents still wish to receive information by letter. This should
however greatly reduce the amount of administration time for staff and cut the cost of paper
and ink.
2. GLOW. P5-7 is now actively using Glow. The pupils are beginning to utilise the newsfeed.
Further staff training is needed. The site is easier to use, the children do not need to have
complicated and continually changing passwords. There will be some use of this for online
homework.
3. School Website. A new site will be created and rolled out via the Council. The current site is
maintained by Alastair Burr who will have no links to the school after the Summer and it seems
sensible to start preparing a new one that will be easier to maintain. Possible links on the front
page of the new site were discussed and a variety of other websites were looked at for examples
of what was liked. There should be a menu with areas for Parents, Staff, Calendar, and School
Information, with sub menus underneath. It should not be too cluttered so that it is easy to
navigate. It was also suggested that there should be a direct link to the Dunecht Dash website
and Rural Rascals. There was also agreement that some pictures should be on it – some of the
building, children having fun and the staff. The current site will not be closed until the new one
is up and running.
Playground
The installation of the playground is scheduled for the week beginning 16 February so, weather
dependent, it should be completed by the return to school later in the week. Scotplay were awarded
the contract and the Council will maintain the equipment. The line painting has been omitted as this
was £400 over budget.
Homework
There is a draft homework policy that has been brought to the attention of the Parent Council again.
Views of the parents re timing of homework were sought. The staff prefer homework to be in on a
Thursday. There was much discussion around the subject. It was decided that most preferred to have
no homework over the weekend. Homework will now be set on a Monday to be returned on Thursdays.
Parent /Teacher support meetings
During recent support meetings, there has been an increased occurrence on parents not attending. This
has risen to 50%. Each lost meeting has a cost and logistics consequence. The staff are happy to be
flexible and to rearrange meetings provided reasonable notice is given. There was surprise at this
statistic as these meetings are designed to help the children and are planned well in advance. It is
hoped that Parent Mail will help with this as email reminders can be sent out easily.
Councillor Iris Walker
Iris Walker has been in touch with the school to offer any assistance that she can with any local issues
that may arise.
Pantomime trip
Mr MacMillan thought that it would be a good idea to have a break from going to see the pantomime at
HMT. He suggested seeing a smaller production of something else. One idea is to invite a smaller
production company, through NEATS, to perform in the village hall and possibly make it a family evening
or event.
Parents Agenda
Christmas Fair
This was successful as already discussed. It was agreed to try the Sunday timing again.
Dunecht Dash
Preparations for Dunecht Dash are now under way. This is the 10 th year that it will have been run and is
the biggest fundraiser for the school. Possible charity links were discussed. Those mentioned were
CLAN, CRUISE, The Archie Foundation which has a link to a project in Africa, Deaf Blind Scotland and
Aberdeen Open Hands Group. It was hoped that some of the charities could write a short paragraph to
the Committee so that there can be a link established.
Football Tournament
Ewan Smeaton proposed that it would be good to hold a football tournament. Dunecht facilities are not
great for this purpose so he thought that maybe we could approach Echt and suggest a combined event.
This was considered a good idea. The numbers attending training are good just now and it would be
great to be able to sustain this. Ewan will approach Echt school to suggest this.
Netball
No parent had come forward in response to Mr MacMillan’s request for somebody to run a netball
training session. It would be great if there is somebody willing to take this on. There was talk about
trying to get this set up for next year. With the change to the Alford Academy timetable in August there
was a suggestion that maybe one of the older pupils might like to take this up. It could fit in with their
Duke of Edinburgh and volunteering?
Diary Dates
Dunecht Dash – Sunday 10th May
DSPC meetings
Tuesday 3rd March 2015
Tuesday 5th May 2015
Tuesday 9th June 2015
Tuesday 15th September 2015 - AGM