The Elmgreen School held its very first parents and carers council meeting on Thursday 14 of January. Over 30 parents attended to give feedback on a variety of issues. Parents expressed thanks to all teachers for the hard work done in moving into the new building and creating an atmosphere where their children were happy and enjoying their learning. Parents’s expressed thanks to the staff for keeping the school open during the big freeze and appreciated the effort made by all staff. Some helpful suggestions were tabled about ILPs, communication and family conferences and these are written up below.

Presentation on Parent council in action (structure)
PCA briefed parents on the structure of the Parent’s council. Council would be open to all parent’s and carers of TES students. The council would act as an advisory and consultative body to the school but all strategic decisions are made by governing body and the senior team. It was agreed that council would meet on a half termly basis so that issues and matters arising could be quickly raised and ultimately resolved.

Difference between PPF and parent’s council
KSC spoke to the council about the PPF and explained the role of the PPF to the inception and running of the school. PPF has a wider participation remit as members do not need to have students at TES but can be from local community.
Parents present at meeting were encouraged to join the PPF as another forum for involvement and supporting the school. PPF also organise a range of events throughout the year which are targeted at parental education.

Family conferences and subject evenings.
Parents and carers happy with the family conferences held in November and December. Some tutors have not reported on follow up actions promised. PCA to send out reminder to staff.
Parents wanted a report of how students were performing before the March family conferences. PCA assured them that this would happen as reports were due to be published in the week of family conferences.
Format of subject evenings explained to parents and all were reminded to contact school at any point in the year if they felt there was a matter arising that had to be dealt with. PCA informed council that JWI would be sending out a letter with arrangements and key dates.

ILP
• Many parents voiced appreciation for the quality and hard work put in by staff in producing the ILPs.
• Parents needed a letter explaining the process and clear hand in dates as lack of this information caused a lot of stress at home for parents and students. Letter could also make it explicit that ILPs were replacing homework’s.
• ILPs are good measurement for improvement if both children and parents are communicated effectively with regarding results.
• Too many ILPs negatively impacted on family life.
• Students enjoyed the research part of ILPs but some did far too much cutting and pasting so some research skills could be covered in PLS sessions.
• Ultimate deadline should be written on front of ILP.
• Student could be given an ILP planner.
• Some ILPs could ask for handwritten work to help support hand writing and other literacy skills.
• Subject areas could set cross curricular ILPs to reduce the number of ILPs issued.
• Year 7 students should be given special consideration as they received same number of ILPs as older year groups and didn’t necessarily have skills to deal with this volume.
• Some parents are ultimately not active in children’s education, and so extra support measures for differentiation need to be put in place to support these children, perhaps a study buddy scheme could be put in place to help weaker students.
• Some ILPs had too many website links and students felt that they had to visit all of them.
• Lack of BME parents at council (perhaps ILP support session for BME parents?)
• Each ILP to include a team task/presentation- so that it is not all written and word processed work.
• The ILPs were good in theory but one parent admitted to helping students all the way with completing projects so wasn’t really independently done.
• Concern over some of the Maths ILPs which had tasks that GCSE students failed to understand.
• Communication needs to go back to parents and carers when marking has been done as a lot of effort has been put into ILPs.
• PCA assured parents that a letter was on its way to notify parents and carers of students with 5 or more ILP concerns.
• LRC did not have sufficient numbers of books as books were on loan when some students went to borrow them.
• One parent felt that some ILPs were abstract from the class room learning. PCA stated that this was one way of the school extending the curriculum thus giving more breath to the offer from TES

Communication (newsletter, journals, email and telephone)
• All parents who had logged on to the new website were happy with it and found it very easy to use.
• Everyone present happy with the newsletter but felt that year 7 parents need to be told in some way to look out for newsletters as often left in school bags over weekend.
• One parents raised a concern over style and language used in newsletter and felt that it was aimed at students and not parents.
• Some disappointment over the Disco as many students were turned away and Parents had not been aware that they had to buy tickets before hand to attend, some parents would have been happy to support teaching staff on the night of the disco.
• Newsletter could be clearly divided into a news and notices section to help Parent’s and carers when reading it.
• Text messages a good idea and system working well.
• Some requested notification from teachers by email.
• Parents do not get to see students work books so unclear about presentation and writing skills.
• Suggestion made to have some year 7 only activities at lunch times so that they get a chance to mix with their peers.

Time and dates for next meeting.
All parents were happy to meet once every half term and so next meeting was agreed for Thursday the 4th of March 2010. Parents were happy with the start time of 7pm as it game them the time to attend meeting after their working day.
Meeting ended in a very positive manner and some parents and carers stayed after the meeting to network.