Parent Council Meeting 27.3.2015
In attendance: Bridget Manton, Julie Doran, Vicki Hunt, Gill Lilly, Emma Johnson and Sally Esom.
Apologies: Zoe Chapman, Clare Bigham, Sam Angel.
- Toilets for years 2&3 & dining room.
Are they going to be refurbished please?
Dining room toilets to be refurbished this summer. Plus extra toilet being installed elsewhere. Years 2&3 probably to be done at Christmas.
-Parent View.
Can parents please go to the Ofsted website and fill outthe survey:
Suggestion that laptops could be set up at school for this on occasions such as the Quiz Night.
- Tell me Tues.
Discussion with Sally Esom about a proposed listening project that the Parent Council could action. Potentially called “How do you feel Friday?”as Friday seems to be the preferred day. This would use a mixture of pupil and parent responses to a weekly statement to find out how well the school is doing and what we need to be better at. There would be scoring buckets and counters at the school gate and using a scale of 1-5 where 1 is strongly disagree and 5 is strongly agree, parents would be asked to score on a statement, for example: "How happy are your children to come to school?"Agreed that this would happen every other week and on a rota basis with Parent Council members. Full details will go out to the school in due course.
-Emailing Parent Council minutes to parents.
Decided to keep minutes on the website but to make sure a text reminder goes out.
-Year 2 teachers for next academic year.
Request for class who currently (in year 1) have NQT... Please can they have a more experienced teacher next year?
Recruiting teachers in Hertfordshire is currently a huge problem. The school has a rigorous recruitment process, which lasts all day and includes interviews by staff and pupils. We will always do our best to recruit good quality teachers. NQTs work very hard and bring with them new skills and enthusiasm. Having said that at the current time we don't have any NQTs joining us this September. We will endeavour to ensure that all children have a range of teachers throughout their school career. Also we are very fortunate to only have 18 children in these particular classes allowing them the very best attention.
-Traffic collisions, near misses in reference to pedestrians.
On going issue recently brought up in newsletter via Bridget. Once more can we please ask that drivers be more pedestrian aware. In response to specific incidents and school traffic, drivers are reminded that pedestrians have priority on footpaths and please can drivers be more courteous towards pedestrians... E.g. allowing people to cross roads etc. We will also say again: Please don’t park on the dropped curb at the top of the road opposite the school gates. It is inconsiderate and makes it very difficult for parents with buggies.
-Bridget's signage campaign.
This is an on going issue, which involves asking for clearer signage around the school and village to make our school journey a safer experience. Bridget has asked for a meeting with David Lloyd and Mike Penning after regular emails with Peter Wright from the highways agency. We have had various letters in response from Mike Penning. Also, the yellow zig zag lines outside school were due to be repainted, so we need to chase that up.
-Reports from parents to say the new school gates look great.
-Proposed new Secondary School in Harpenden.
Bridget attended an open meeting regardingthe proposed new school. Harpenden Schools trust is now to make the decision on where the location is actually going to be.
-Balloon race environmental issues.
Questions were raised about the environmental impact of the balloon race.
The balloons, string and cards are all fully biodegradable.