Minute of St Joseph’s Parent Council Meeting held on Tuesday 10th September 2013 in
the Library of St Joseph’s College
Present
Peter Bulmer (Chair), Bernadette Jones (Head Teacher), Amanda Armstrong, Trish Clyde,
Gerry Donnelly, Fr William McFadden, Dawn Perkins
Apologies
Kyla Asher, Kate Huxtable, Claire Johnstone, Gwyneth Jones, Bill Milven, Eva Milroy, Gill
Stewart, Samantha Thomson, Jennifer Walker
In attendance - Angela Douglas
Guest Speaker – Jo Cochrane, Lead Officer Parental Involvement
1.
Welcome and Prayer
P Bulmer welcomed everyone the meeting, introducing Jo Cochrane, Lead Officer Parental
Involvement who agreed to facilitate discussions on the Role and Remit of the Parent
Council. He also welcomed Fr McFadden who has joined the Parent Council as the RC
Church Representative. Fr McFadden then offered a prayer.
2.
Parent Council Review of the Role, Remit and Future Priorities
P Bulmer confirmed that the focus of this meeting was to review and evaluate the way in
which the Parent Council currently operates. He stressed that this was not because of any
issues but in light of the forthcoming AGM and also the Authority’s review of Parent
Councils it was a pertinent time to carry this out. He then passed over to Jo Cochrane to
facilitate the process. Taken from the Note of the Meeting provided by
J Cochrane and P Bulmer the following was discussed and agreed.
J Cochrane explained that, unlike School Boards, Parent Councils are free to operate very
flexibly and that their main role is to work with the school to enhance the education of
children and young people. There were few rules surrounding the operation of Parent
Councils and these operate differently from school to school. Some are more traditionallike school boards in their approach while others operate more flexibly - by having meetings
at different times and having single issue meetings.
To facilitate discussion members were put into two groups and asked to discuss the
following: The Role of the Parent Council and Working with the Head Teacher.
Role of Parent Council
The following questions, based on the aims and objectives of St Joseph’s Parent Council
were discussed:
a.
How well does the Parent Council work in partnership with the school to create a
welcoming school which is inclusive for parents?
b. How well does the Parent Council promote partnership between the school, its
pupils and all its parents?
c.
How well does the Parent Council develop and engage in activities which support
the education and welfare of the pupils
d.
How well does the Parent Council identify and represent the views of parents on
the education provided by the school and other matters affecting the education
and welfare of the pupils
Working with the Head Teacher
With reference to supporting the Head Teacher, the following questions were discussed:
a.
What expectations does the Parent Council have of the Head Teacher in supporting
the role of the PC?
b. What expectations does the Head Teacher have of the PC in supporting the school?
c.
What is the most effective way of delivering these expectations?
Feedback and Outcomes
The feedback from the discussion was positive and the main points included:
 To a large extent, the partnership between the Parent Council and the school works very
well and includes organising the uniform shop, providing hospitality for most functions,
supporting events and meetings.
 The Head Teacher’s report at PC meetings was discussed and it was generally agreed by
those present that it was useful however it was important that the information provided
was cascaded to all parents.
 The objective identified, through discussion, as being least well done, was the way in
which the Parent Council ‘identified and represented the views of parents on the
education provided by the school and other matters affecting education and welfare of
the pupils.
 Suggestions for improvement included:
o Introducing ways to enable parents of current pupils to feedback their
experiences to new first year parents;
o Using some Parent Council meeting time to act as a focus group for
discussion about individual issues and pertinent etc.
Action
The following action was decided:
a. The Parent Council should make more use of the School’s newsletter to
communicate with the parent body;
b. That the outcomes of this meeting would be discussed at the Parent Council AGM
where any agreed changes to either the operation or agenda structure could be
ratified and
c. That communicating and engaging with the wider parent forum and also
representing their views would be a priority for the Parent Council
3.
Minutes of the Last Meeting and Matters Arising
The minutes of the last meeting were approved by T Clyde and seconded by P Bulmer. The
Clerk agreed to accept payment for services to the Parent Council once a year.
She also agreed to send, with the minute of the meeting, an Electronic copy of the
Constitution.
4.
AOCB
There was no other business and the meeting closed at 20.58. The AGM and the next
meeting will be held on 5 November.