Committee Meeting Minutes:
| 8th March 2000 |
| 24th
January 2001 |
Present: Liz Fraser, Joan Begg, Paul James, Sue Richardson, Anne Durkin, Mary Fawcett, Evelyn Munro,
Apologies Claire Royce
Minutes
The minutes of the last meeting were agreed.
Management
Structure Response proforma
Hamish Vernal is understood to have received a number of our proforma
responses from parents. A parent
consultation meeting was proposed for 8.2.01, and it was decided to advertise
this to parents of school and pre school age children.
The Board’s proposed responses to the proforma were discussed, copies to be made available before the meeting.
Holiday
year
The Board has been asked to comment on the current school holiday
arrangements. After some discussion
a vote was taken and the current arrangements were taken as being most
appropriate of the options given.
SBBA
conference/ Consultative meeting
The SBBA annual conference is to be held in Aberdeen this year.
Volunteers to attend were requested and Sue agreed to attend on the
Board’s behalf. Mary Fawcett
agreed to attend the consultative board meeting regarding the academy.
Co-opted
members
Since there have been no other people coming forward as volunteers to
join the School Board it was agreed that it would be in order for the Board to
co-opt an additional parent member to the Board.
Helen Slattery is to be approached and the Board was unanimous in this
decision.
Ballet
trip
The recent upper school ballet trip had not gone as well as hoped.
The children had missed the finale, and had had neither food nor drink
from 11.30am to their return home, after 5.30pm.
Liz Fraser took full responsibility for the decisions taken, which had
led to this, and confirmed that the lessons learnt from this would be taken
account of in the future planning of trips.
The meeting closed at 9.00 pm.
Minutes of meeting 8.3.00: Approved at meeting of 17th May 2000
Present: Liz Fraser, Sally Bremner, Paul James, Sue Richardson, Joan
Begg, Mary Fawcett, John Loveday
Apologies: Keith Ingram
The minutes of the last meeting were agreed.
Budget Cuts
Sally informed the meeting that a letter had been sent to Nora Radcliffe on
behalf of the Board in relation to the proposed cuts in the Education Budget,
and that she had replied by e-mail.
John Loveday said that the Council was still fighting against the cuts, but that
the budget would probably be approved the following day. This will mean cuts of
£11M to fund for the next year. A lot of pressure is being applied to revise
the system of council funding. The new houses will take two or three years
before they hit the formula used to determine funding, and the raising of funds
by increasing council tax, actually counts against the funding by being
recognised as additional income. Although the formula used to determine local
authority funding is being looked at it is being tweaked. There had been an
expectation that Labour would revise the formula, once they were in power, but
this has not occurred.
School transport makes up a significant amount of the budget, because of the
rural nature of the area. There had been some consideration of revising the
limits down from 3 to 2 miles , and from 2 to 1 miles, but this would save only
around £175,000.
Liz Fraser asked about the competitiveness of tendering. John Loveday answered
that the Council had looked at the possibility of tendering the entire service
of school transport provision, since it is costly to administer, but that this
would depend on writing a strict specification.
Visiting specialists are again likely to be an area where cuts are made, and
music has been named as a potential area for cuts. Liz noted that this
particularly hits primary schools.
Michael White's retirement will result in some reorganisation within the
department of Education. Schools will probably remain under the department of
Lifelong learning, and the changes will be mainly changes of people.
Meeting of Aberdeenshire School Boards
Sally had attended the meeting held at Inverurie Academy on the 9th February,
and informed the Board that this had been well attended, and that the proposed
cuts had been discussed at length. The idea of a Head teacher covering more than
one primary school had been raised, as many small schools have 80 days of Head
teacher relief, 2 days a week, to cover the administrative demands of the job.
Liz Fraser said that this had previously been looked at by Price Waterhouse, and
because of the travelling and the need for assistant heads it was not viable.
It was concluded that the Board must make its concerns over the cuts known, and
that parents should be asked to write to Jack McConnell, Sam Galbraith and
Donald Dewar.
School Board Structure
Sally was congratulated on her new temporary appointment as P2 teacher. Paul
James read from the constitution to reassure the meeting that this did not raise
any difficulties in her position as parent member of the Board. It was
concluded, with much pleasure, that Sally would continue in her role as Chair.
Sally reminded the Board that there was a vacancy for a co-opted member, and
asked the meeting to consider this.
Road lay out
Refurbishment on Meldrum Primary. Paul James confirmed that the road system to be adopted was exactly as requested
by the Board, with a one-way system up the hill. John Loveday confirmed this
would now go ahead.
Other business
Mary Fawcett was keen to raise the profile of the Board, and suggested attending
the PTA meetings as a representative of the Board.
Liz suggested a joint termly newsletter form the Board and the PTA.
School board minutes are now on the website as well as the noticeboard, and it
was agreed that in future the agenda and time of forthcoming meetings would be
displayed in the window of the school. Names of members will be included on the
website, Paul was happy to include his 'phone number and e-mail address, but
teachers will remain contactable through school only. Liz will include this
information in a newsletter.
Mary also expressed her concern that section 28 had not been discussed. It was
noted that the SBBA had given their opinion, which was not held to be
representative, and it had been suggested that anyone feeling strongly should
write.
The meeting concluded at 8.40pm, having agreed to hold the next meeting on May
10th, (Now postponed to May 17th).