Mid Yell Junior High School Parent Council 17.03.15 – 6.30pm.
Present- J. Irvine, G. Hughson, M. Lawson, M. Morris, M. Coutts, K. Hannay
1.Apologies – J, Guthrie, Steven Coutts,M. Thomason, T. Fraser, Anne Smith.
2.Minutes were agreed by John Irvine.
3.Matters arising – to be discussed within the agenda.
4.Mid Yell JHS consultation –
The council recently voted to cease the consultations in Mid Yell and Whalsay and postpone the consultations on the other 3 high schools. A discussion took place amongst the group on this decision. The parent council supports the chair in his attempts on our behalf to achieve a 5 yearmoratorium.
Catriona Waddington, who was the chair of the Baltasound Parent Council , has been accepted on the Rural Schools Closure Panel which is good news for the Shetland schools under threat.
5.School Grounds Committee – The foundations for the second polytunnel have been dug out today and also the allotment area. This area will have a drainpipe that goes through the middle of the allotment with a chip path covering it. Next they will scrape out the area from the polytunnel to the road to make it more accessible.
6.Head teachers report -
-School Improvement Plan – possible actions
-Introduce 2nd language as part of our core curriculum from Primary 1
-Participate in the numeracy Hub development, improving numeracy across our cluster
-Ensure that our GIRFEC systems and accompanying paperwork are embedded in practice
-Develop the use of ICT in order to make learning accessible to pupils with additional support needs
-Developing Secondary nurture groups and activities/ethos
-Introduce the Confucius classroom – taking forward the teaching of L3 language and culture
-Developing the use of the Glow network across our school – Learning & Teaching, sharing practice, moderation, professional development and self evaluation.
-Further develop outdoor learning spaces
-Introduce Geography to National 4/5 level
-Establish practical tracking and monitoring systems across departments
-Ensure there is smooth progression between Level 3/4 work and National 4/5 courses
-Vertical Registration – Lead Teacher responsible for 1st line guidance of a group of pupils from S1-S4
-Further develop pupil profiles and the quality of pupil/staff discussions
-Staffing
-Nursery – Recent changes – still changing – recruited new Early Years Teacher– should start in April – Kerry Nicholson
-Alison Martin is now our music teacher – Primary and Secondary
-Social Studies Teacher – Indre Sasnauskaitenow in post, being supported by Liz Gott and Graeme Callendar – Geography trained
-Jennifer Nisbet appointed into our Pupil Support PT post
-Lal Lindley is on maternity leave and has given birth to a peerie girl – Lindsay Tonner has been covering her post.
-Potential changes in other area as and when staff move / leave posts
-Impact on timetable flexibility and potential difficulties with continuity across classes.
-Pupil Council
-Busy meetings with lots to discuss, from footballs to foodstuffs
-Use of phones in school – policy review
-Swapping teachers for a day
-Environmental impact of all our water bottles
-Health and Safety – trip hazards, sanitary bins, cattle grid, bike access to school
-Activities/ trips and tournaments to happen more often
-Curriculum
-Several changes have been made to S4 courses following last year’s pupil experience
-Changes at authority level – expanded choice at end of S2
-Subject development groups – making progress towards moderation, sharing practice, focus now on new higher courses, important to keep developing BGE and Nat courses.
-Difficulties in offering full choice of courses in S3 & S4 due to staffing issues and other restrictions
-Looking to embed a new planning structure into the school to reduce the paperwork involved but still share important L & T and assessment information
-Creative use of staff time and class organisation to maximise pupil choice despite reductions in staff teaching time.
-Changes to ASDAN/Lifeskills curriculum – moving towards SQA wider achievement awards – meeting next week
-Better ‘outdoor’ learning spaces opens up wider curriculum for all ages
-Blueprint on Education / Strategy for Secondary education
-Schools Re-configuration board has now stopped – final report to be written based on the council decisions from February meeting.
-Various Learning partnership groups set up
-School Comparison project on-going
-Budget reductions due on clerical staff, potentially classroom assistant time and ASN allocations – swimming/instrumental instruction and all other non-statutory items will be looked at.
-Erasmus Project
-20 Children from Spain and La Reunion will be visiting here in June
-Help needed in the organisation of events, hosting of children, etc
-10 of our pupils will be visiting La Reunion in Nov 2015 and Spain in May 2016
-Weekly links made with these pupils
-Project is funded by the British Council
-Focus on sharing learning about environmental issues, etc
-Some fundraising may be required to supplement some aspects of the trips (depend on future prices)
-Approached other sponsors
-Edinburgh Trip
-Transport and accommodation booked
-Draft Itinerary in place
-Staff allocated to support
-Fundraising on-going
-Links to P7 transition project
-Confucius Classroom
-Application was successful in partnership with Sandwick Cluster
-Teacher from Tianjin will be arriving in Shetland in August
-Budget set aside to create a Confucius classroom in Shetland (Sandwick) with a space also created in our school.
-We will be welcoming the HT and staff from our partner school in April/May of this year as they visit Scotland/Shetland
-Launch event for the project will be in October/November 2015
-Draft Proposal is that Primary 4 – 6 pupils have blocks of mandarin teaching and learning about Chinese culture during two terms
-Opportunities for our S4 pupils to go to China for an immersion course at the end of S4
-Opportunities for staff to participate in educational visits to China and to participate in Scottish events alongside the other Confucius hubs.
-Budgets
-Have been tight this financial year but we have used resources carefully and managed to put some budget aside to purchase new resources to support national 4 & 5 courses and other elements of CFE
-Fundraising has been important
-Grants from Climate challenge fund, British Council and other sponsors has totalled more than £50,000
-It is important that we continue to source funding from outside sources and push the school forward for various projects
- Other Items
-S2 winners of Enterprise award for region – Coke a Cola – attended finals in Edinburgh
-Shetland young writer award won by Megan Nisbet
-Lots of sporting success in badminton and netball
-Music Festival – secondary pupils attending this week
-Young ambassadors have planned a dodge ball tournaments for primary and secondary classes – next week
-S3 have organised and will run our Easter quiz next Friday morning
-Fit for Girls project is ongoing – attracted a sum of money to support activities
-World Book Day – school raised enough to purchase a Shelter Box
-Eclipse activities – speaker coming on Thursday to explain all about it and then to join us on Friday, glasses will be supplied to each pupil.
-Bowls taking place every Friday – tournament to select our reps will take place at end of term
-S4 pupils took part in PISA assessments representing Scotland in a European wide assessment – very positive feedback from assessor
-Up –Helly- Aa – Pupils organised and performed squads while the Jarl Squad visited our school on the Thursday afternoon and we took primary 5 & 6 to Cullivoe to take part in the procession and visit the galley shed on the Friday morning.
-Other things to mention
-Potential setting of holiday dates in the future
-Moving to an a-symmetric week – 33 periods (as in Aith and Whalsay)
-6 National 4/5 courses available in S4
-Potential further reduction of subject choice due to changes brought about by learning partnership workstream 1 – common curriculum
-Lack of cleaners, difficulties getting applications and getting them processed.
Meeting closed at 8.25pm