What is the Parent Council?
The Parent Council is a group of parents selected by members of the Parent Forum to represent all the parents of children at the school. Parent Councils are very flexible groups and the Parent Forum can decide on the type of group it wants to represent their views. Parents might decide they want a representative from each year group in the school. The might want to include pupils, other teachers at the school or parents from a feeder primary or secondary school. This flexibility allows parents to choose a Parent Council which reflects their school and will encourage parents to get involved.
The type of things a Parent Council could get involved in include:
- Supporting the work of the school
- Gathering and representing parents’ views to the Head Teacher, Education Authority and HMIE
- Prompting contact between the school, parents, pupils, providers of nursery education and the wider community
- Consulting with parents and reporting back to the Parent Forum on matters of interest
- Fundraising
- Organising events
- Receiving reports from the Head Teacher and Education Authority
- Receiving an annual budget for administration, training and other expenses
- Improving home school partnership and facilitating parental involvement
- Taking part in the selection of senior promoted staff
Members of Parent Council’s, on a voluntary basis, may also have an advisory role in decisions on placing requests by parents in respect of those in situations where the number of placing requests for a particular school or for a particular stage in a particular school exceeds the number of places available.
All parents will be duly notified when the Parent Council election is due. Details of how many parent representatives needed will be included. Any parent who would be interested in becoming a Parent Council Member is encouraged to make his/her interest known to the Head Teacher. If there are more parents interested than places available, balloting of parents will follow. Elections are usually held every 2 years in September. The head teacher has a right and duty to attend all meetings of the Parent Council. Meetings of the Parent Council are open to members of the public.
Current Office Bearers:
Chair: Lindsay McCallum
Vice-Chair: Marieclaire Allen
Treasurer: Syreeta Gunn
Secretary: Kelly Grant
The Parent Council can be contacted through Facebook on St Helen’s Primary School, Parent Council Cumbernauld.
