Introduction

In 2007/8 the Scottish Executive decided that the old system of School Boards and Parent Teacher Associations needed to be changed, in order to help parents become more involved in their children’s education and improve relationships with their local school.They recommended that a new group called the Parent Council be set up in each school made up of parents, the head teacher, teaching staff and a representative of the archdiocese who would represent and report to all parents, referred to as the Parent Forum.

The Parent Forum

As a parent of a child at this school you are automatically a member of the Parent Forum. The Parent Forum is composed of all the parents and carers of children at the school. As a member of the Parent Forum you can expect to:

• Get information about what your child is learning.
• Get information about events and activities at the school.
• Get advice/help on how you can support your child’s learning.
• Be told about opportunities to be involved in the school.
• Have a say in selecting a Parent Council to work on behalf of all parents at the school.        
• Be invited to identify issues for the Parent Council to work on with the school.

The Parent Council

St Maurice’s High School set up a Parent Council which has been working in the school since 2009. Its main functions are:

• Supporting the work of the school.
• Representing the views of parents.
• Consulting with parents and reporting back to the Parent Forum on matters of interest.
• Promoting contact between the school, parents, pupils, and the wider community, parishes,nursery and other providers.
• Fundraising.
• Taking part in the selection of senior promoted staff.
• Receiving reports from the head teacher and education authority.
• Receiving an annual budget for administration, training and other expenses.

All Parent Council meetings are open to all parents/carers and dates of these are given in the school news letters. Once a year, the Parent Council invite all parents/carers to attend a Parent Forum meeting in order to hear about ongoing work, to give parents an opportunity to highlight and discuss issues and to help support the group.

Members of the Parent Council can be contacted through the school.

The Parent Council is also active in fund raising with all of the money it raises used to benefit our young people in the school. Some recent examples are buying new football strips for the school teams, financing food/lunches for young people during Easter School and providing book tokens for the annual award ceremony. If you have any ideas, expertise or sponsorship opportunities that might help the school provide additional resources to benefit our young people then please get in contact with the Parent Council through the school.