Canterbury Public School
P&C Meeting
Wednesday 20 May 2015
Venue: Staff room
Present: Berlinda Cook (Principal), Sascha Jenkins, Kim Santarossa, Tom Gordon, James Iliffe,
Genevieve Ginty, Kaye Warren, Steven Tuften, Chris Trimmer, Phillippa Talbot, Kate Harper, Annabel
Kain (late), Amanda Barker (minutes)
Meeting opened: 7: 35pm
Agenda
If you could do one thing for your school this year what would it be?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Welcome to new parents and citizens and apologies
Approval of minutes from previous meeting
Action items from previous meeting
President’s report
Focus topic
Principal’s report
Sub-committees; questions arising from reports
Finance report
General Business
Agenda Item
1. Welcome to new
parents and citizens
and apologies
2. Approval of minutes
from previous meeting
Minutes
Apologies: Suzanne Trimmer
3. Action items from
previous meeting
New gates for the enclosure
Three quotes have been obtained for extra gates to be added to the
enclosure, on the side of the school hall. Berlinda offered for CPS to cover
50% of the cost. Tom moved that the P&C fund 50% of $1672; seconded
by, James.
Moved by James Iliffe, seconded by Genevieve Ginty
Action: Berlinda Cook to send Chris Trimmer copy of invoice for
completed work. Chris Trimmer to transfer 50% of costs to Canterbury PS
World star gazing event
A world star gazing event will be held at CPS, aimed for August 21. It will
be run by Mt Stromlo Observatory, who hopes to see two world records;
one for the most number of people in one location; the second for the
most people stargazing at multiple locations, CPS being one of them.
Details are yet to be established but you may have to be looking through
a telescope to be counted. Tom advised Canterbury Boys High School will
donate the use of their telescope. It’s planned that it will be fundraising
event for the school, and a possible partnership with Scouts will be
investigate.
Action: Tom to work with Cate Lyon-Crews to plan as social and
fundraising event
Funding proposals
Tom has drafted a funding proposal document where people can advise
what they think the P&C should spend our money on. A survey is to go
out via email, with hard copies available too. Responses are due the
week before next P&C meeting. Tom will finalise the document based on
comments made and it will be redistributed
Action: Tom to edit form and circulate through Parent reps and staff
4. President’s report
Part 1
Correspondence
A letter has been received suggesting the P&C is about to lose our charity
status; Sascha will investigate and advise further at the next meeting.
Action: Sascha to follow up
Fete wrap-up
Deferred until later in the meeting, when Annabel was present.
Constitution
The P&C needs to have a Constitution; we used to have one however
details can’t be located. Sacsha distributed copies of the Standard P&C
Association Constitution, and it was agreed that we may be happy to
adopt this, but the opportunity should be provided for members to read
and consider it before deciding. This will be an agenda item for the June
meeting.
Action: Sascha to include in papers for next meeting and add to the
agenda for discussion
6. Berlinda’s report:
Part 1
P&C membership fees
Steve, who manages membership fees, pointed out that you need to be a
financial member to vote. The annual membership fee is $2. He queried
whether people can vote on the same day that you’ve joined the P&C.
Sascha motioned that as long as you’re a paid member you can vote on
the night. Seconded by Chris.
Walking buses
This item was addressed before our focus topic as Year 4 student Hugo
Ceran-Jerusalemy was present, along with his father Patrick.
Hugo has been conducting an investigation into walking buses for our
school, and his research has been supported by Ms Santarossa. A walking
bus is where you have a group of children walking to school with two
responsible adults, one at the front and one at the back of the group.
More children join the group as you pass their home. A walking bus is a
safe way for kids to walk to school; it keeps you fit and healthy, it doesn’t
create greenhouse gases, you make friends and it costs no money.
Everyone is encouraged to complete the survey that is in the current
Canterbury Tales and that will also be in the next one. Hugo hopes the
5. Focus topic
6. Berlinda’s report:
Part 2
P&C will support walking buses, and he hopes he’s able to come back to
discuss it further.
School uniform
There is a uniform policy that sets out what has been agreed to by the
school community: Berlinda personally considers it important that
uniforms are clean and neat and likes to see blue and white clothes and
blue hats, but is not overly concerned if clothes don’t have the CPS logo.
There is a lot of interest in the school community in having cotton shirts
at least and perhaps cotton ‘bottoms’ as well, and Genevieve is very
interested in having a uniform comprising natural fibres. Following initial
discussions at a previous P&C meeting she has made an initial order of
collared shirts to meet current demand. Variations for cotton skorts were
passed around. The local company will price match what we’re currently
paying, and will make long pants too, although a sample was not
available.
The following were discussed:
 should we offer alternative girls pant to unisex; agreed no.
 Microfibre shorts, Genevieve spoke to Lisa Wright, who says they’re
best and she’s going to promote them to parents.
 There are lots of rugby navy shorts in sizes 12 & 14. Genevieve will
investigate if it’s possible to sell some to other schools at cost price
 Decision made by committee to phase-out gabardine navy shorts
and move to cotton only.
 Decision made by committee to only stock cotton tops
 Box pleat skorts cost $17 and culottes cost $27; Genevieve suggests
we phase out the culottes and this was agreed.
 The fleece jumper and zippered jacket were discussed and it was
agreed to keep both. Genevieve will explore other options as it was
suggested that the jacket isn’t very warm.
 The microfibre navy track pants will be phased out.
 The bucket hat will be phased out so the two options remaining will
be the surf and legionnaires hats. Genevieve will look into sourcing
a hat with a drawstring around the crown.
 Genevieve had prepared a detailed spreadsheet showing varying
pricing options. One where no profit will be generated, one where a
medium profit would be made, and one where a small profit will be
made that will likely mean in reality that no profit is made once ad
hoc expenses occur. A vote was conducted and the latter option
agreed to.

Kim Santarossa was given the task of updating the anti-bullying
policy; due to a change in terminology this is now to be known as
the anti-bullying plan. The plan was written not only for parents
and teachers, but for students too. It needs to cover students on
and off school premises. Kim conducted a survey; it was completed
by teachers, students (48) and parents (30). Teachers could think of
no instances of bullying. What bullying is had to be clarified for
some students as they weren’t all clear what is. Many parents didn’t
know of the school’s anti-bullying policy or hadn’t read it. There
were many keen on preventative measures being employed. A most
important aspect of bullying program is to highlight that an active
bystander plays an important part in stoping bullying. Kim has
produced a brochure as well as the updated plan document.
Action: Plan will be distributed widely and people should email Kim
feedback. The updated plan will be voted on at next the next
meeting.
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
7. Sub-committees
8. Finance report
9. General business
Part 1
The annual school report has been published
The parent handbook has been formulated. Berlinda welcomes
feedback.
 The school’s finance committee has a new parent representative,
Cathy Phuong
 School photos - a new photographer has been booked. Two
different styles of presentation are available and feedback from
parents is required on which style is preferred. Parents voted to
keep the usual format of photos.
 The building works on the special education project is underway.
Some savings will go towards sensory garden.
 School Excellence Framework is now available, this involved a selfassessment as a school executive team.

Details of the National Consistent Collection of Data of students
with disability were made available.

Security lighting will be upgraded in an interim manner; further
work with lighting will be done next financial year.

Lisa Wright has relinquished Stage 2 supervision and Bryony Herbon
is the new team leader for Stage 2.

Community lease request has been received from the Assembly of
God. It would entail an ongoing commitment with use on both
Saturdays and Sundays that could bring in $350 a week in revenue
for the school. Currently we have karate and a dance groups who
lease space. It was agreed that each request should be considered
on merit. There were a range of objections raised, including
concerns with the school being seen to be aligned to the church,
signage, access, implications for local residents and parking. The
request will be rejected with the primary reason cited that the
school is utilised a lot on weekends and we have considerable
freedom with using it that would cease if this lease request was
agreed to.
There were no questions arising from reports
Chris tabled his Finance report
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

A NAIDOC celebration will take place on Wednesday 15th July 4.307.30pm; this is the same night as the P&C meeting and it was
agreed this shouldn’t be a problem
The Canterbury men’s shed is building potting benches for our
garden
The canteen needs volunteers; please make contact with Suzanne if
you can help.

4. President’s report
Part 2
9. General business
Part 2
The school’s involvement in the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen
Garden Program is progressing.
Fete wrap-up
Annabel was presented with flowers and a massage voucher as a thank
you for her commitment to our school fete and all the time she put in to
ensure it was yet another huge success.
A fete document was tabled. The drop in profits is largely due to the
lower number of people in attendance with the poor weather conditions.
Stall holder summary documents are important to assist with planning
for the next fete, in two years.
Annabel will compile the details for 2013 and 2015 fetes into a booklet.
It was agreed that there’s no doubt how great the fete is for the school
community.
Playground supervision
Glenn Smith and Anne Tiedemann prepared a paper that was made
available with the agenda and sub-committee reports. The limitations
placed on physical activity and location of activities during recess was
questioned, with the request that they be reviewed and brought into line
with current lunchtime arrangements, which are fully supported.
Berlinda advised that the Teachers Federation recommends teachers
have a continuous break of 30 minutes (minimum). At CPS it’s only
possible for teachers to have a 25 minute break, and then only if
recess/breaks are 25 mins. As a consequence recess is now 25 minutes
duration and the two halves of the lunch break are each 25 minutes.
There have been concerns about “big ball” games being played because
of the potential risk to younger/smaller students. Following discussions it
was agreed that ‘big ball’ games, such as basketball, can now be played
at recess and appropriate supervision will be provided.
Meeting officially closed at 9.50 pm.