What is it?

The Parent Council is a body of parent representatives that meets regularly with school staff to represent the Parent Forum.  The Parent Forum replaces what was previously the School Board since the introduction of a new law in August 2007.  Under the law, a Parent Forum is automatically each and every parent of a child that attends a particular school. 

What is it’s relationship with the Parents’ Association?

At Gracemount, we’ve been fortunate to have a very active and valuable Parents’ Association.  Under the new structure, the Parents’ Association will continue in the same way as before and is formally recognised as a ‘sub committee’ of the Parent Council. 

What does it do?

The Parent Council takes action on a range of different things that affect school life.  Its job is to listen and respond to parents’ views on the things that matter to them.  Over the past few months we’ve been writing to the Council and trying to get other interested parties involved in doing something about ongoing problems with the school’s heating system and the general fabric of the building. We’ve been looking at road safety around the school, particularly with the plans for the new housing development. We’re talking about what might be the best ways of communicating with parents regularly and are working with school staff on ideas around a Pupil Award.  We’ve also met with the Pupil Council and are looking at different ways in which the two Councils can work together.

Who’s involved?

There are regular representatives and a list of who they are is given below.  You can also find their names and photos on the school notice board just outside the front office.  Its important to remember though that each and every parent has the right to be a member of the Parent Council.  Its purpose is to represent parents as a whole and the more members there are, the stronger a voice we can have.  Being a member doesn’t mean coming to every meeting.  There are lots of different ways of becoming involved and coming along to just one meeting to find out more is one way.  Planned dates of future meetings are:

Thursday 19 March 2009

All meetings are held at 6.30pm in the school library.

 Ideas Box

If you’ve got an idea, want to raise an issue or express an opinion about any aspect of school life, that you want the Parent Council to do something about, you can post it in the Parent Council Ideas Box outside the front office.  Just note down what it is you want to say along with your name and a contact phone number or email address.  You don’t have to give your name if you’d prefer not to but bear in mind that this would mean the Parent Council can’t contact you directly to give you feedback!

Parent Council Members

 Nigel Sanderson                    Parent member (Chair)

John Sode-Woodhead            Parent member (Vice Chair)

Jamie Thin                              Parent member (Treasurer)

Neil Robertson                        Parent member

Michelle Hume                        Parent member

Lynn Sinclair                           Parent member

Yvonne McCue                        Parent member

Hussein Ezzedine                   Parent member

M Halshami                             Parent member 

Rose Islambolipoor                 Head Teacher

Ish Chavasse                          Co-opted member - Teaching staff