PC Meeting 24^th February 2025

Attendees

Gerry Carlton, Amy Ferry, Mrs Farrell, Emma Murdoch

Katrina Ballie, Kevin McIntyre, Janine Reid, Lorna Anderson, Lynn McKechnie, Gillian Hoyle, Ross McReight

Welcome

Kevin thanked all attendees and explained that the parent council are hoping that online meetings will allow for better attendance numbers from parents.

Head Teacher Update

Staffing

Mrs Chisolm aiming for a phased return to the school from next week. Mrs Murdoch will continue to support with P5/6 and Mr Carlton will continue to support P7. Mrs MacGregor is expected to also return soon.

Christmas Fair

This was another great success with lots of good feedback received from families. An engagement survey highlighted many positives including the well-received choir performances. Potential areas to improve are considering one way system to ease congestion, increased variety of stalls and a review of the prices for both entry and food. This feedback will be used when planning the 2025 fair.

Children in Need Day

We raised a total of £1700 for the PC fund.

Pupil Voice

The Pupil Voice  has met to discuss plans for a new curriculum rationale that represents Dargavel. Children have given their suggestions, and these will be published around May time.

The eco rights committee and pupil rights committee have also met to discuss their ideas to improve pupil experiences.

Annual pupil reports

These will be improved and streamlined this year focusing on general progress, health and wellbeing, friendships and literacy/numeracy.

Nurturing Relationships

Amy Ferry continues to be the lead for ‘Renfrewshire Nurturing Relationships’ program. The next submission is June for the school to work toward accreditation focusing on the principle of nurturing. This involves working groups across the school as well as using data from parent surveys.  Action has been developing quiet space at playground. P6/7 are leading this to organise resources and will be rolled out at assembly next week.

Other Events

P5 are excited to be working on Nemo for this years  Disney school musical. The Dargavel school choir will be taking part in the Glee School Challenge event.

Recent Investments

8 x picnic benches have been  purchased based on feedback from pupils wanting more places to sit. These cost £135 each.

Wellbeing resource ‘Playback Ice’  has been recently purchased and still to be launched. This is a move on from ‘Paths’ to help drive more engagement. This includes digital resources, lesson plans etc along with options for wellbeing surveys for the children. This can be analysed by central team and results given to SLT to help drive actions and next steps. This will be launched over coming weeks. PEF budget used for this.

P1 – Mrs Farrell

Transition plans are currently underway for the 75 P1s joining the school in August. 50 are siblings of current children. 12 feeder nurseries school are working with the school to support the transition. 3 x transition events will be held including a ‘family fun’ afternoon. Enhanced transitions are also being offered. A calendar of these dates will be shared shortly.

Parking

The school is receiving daily calls and emails from parents and local residents raising their concerns about unsafe parking. The school team are phoning wardens or police regularly particularly on bad weather days. Plans to have pupil committee spread a message via video to encourage parents to park safely.

New car park

Works are out to tender and aim is to begin works in spring.

MUGA resurfacing

This was originally planned for Easter time and should take around 4 weeks – however this is being moved to summer break to lessen the negative impact on pupils.

7^th and 8^th of  May

A ‘mini inspection’ will be carried out at the school. A council review team will spend time with staff and pupils.

Acceptance and Inclusion event.

Gerry led a discussion on the highlights of the recent Acceptance and Inclusion event and also a look at why attendance numbers were so low. Potential reasons discussed were the difficulty of parents making themselves available along with potential misunderstanding of the invite target audience.

Treasurer Update

Christmas Fair  and Dance a thon total raised - £7163. The PC will reach out to parents to gain input on what this money should be spent on. Considerations include whether we should repeat the full school pantomime trip this year or invest in other areas such as increased digital devices, library books or playground equipment.

AOB

PC is also getting regular messages about parking. Head of Roads for Renfrewshire, Gerry Hannah is involved and we are getting as much as support is available with wardens etc.

Leavers dance will be organised and funded by school and will include ceilidh.

Bishopton Day – no plans for float this year but we will still do a bottle stall.

Stall will need to be organised with enough time to get volunteers. As well as time to collect/store bottles etc.

Next PC meeting date will be end of May

14th Nov 2024 7pm -8pm

Attendees: Kevin McIntyre, Gerry Carlton, Alastair Blain, Ann Marie Fraser, Gillian Hoyle Louse Farrell and Amy Ferrie.

Head Teacher Update 

Term 1

• First Green Flag The eco committee has been working hard and have received their first green flag for Eco Schools Scotland. This was presented to the School  a couple of weeks back.
• Maths week Scotland went well 
• Decathlon successfully raised around ~£5k with the proceeds going to the kids Pantomime trip in December
• They had world of work week which went well 

Term 2

•  P3C and P3D organised some activities for Children in need and raised £500. Pyjamas day is tomorrow (15th Nov) and the school hopes to raise more money for Children in Need. Pudsey Bear visited the classes and the kids loved it. 
• The school is hoping to get a shout out on BBC Scotland's Children in need show. 
• Road Safety week starts W/C18th Nov along with vaccinations and Book week

Pupils voice 

• new groups have been set up to allow all kids to have they say on what the curriculum looks like 
• The house elections for house captains are taking place

Parents night

• the school is trailing 2 sessions on the one night as it has worked at other schools, this will be reviewed after the parents night. 
  

Christmas 

• Pantomime - A lot of parents have already phoned the school to help on the day. The school will be in touch with these parents when they have confirmed numbers.
• 12th and 13th Nov will be the School nativities, priority will be given to the Primary 1 parents 
• The school Choir will be singing at Glasgow Airport again this year. 

Christmas Fayre

• Most items are now sorted for the Christmas Fayre but we need volunteers to help on the day. To sign up click here
• There will be some new stalls this year along with the following:
  • Rolls and Sausage - run by PC and School 
  • Hot dogs
  • Bottle stall - we now have enough bottles, next own clothes day the school will ask for other items for the Fayre. 

Website/Socials

• New website is up and being regularly updated. 
• Possible additions:
  • the relationship policy
  • The school notices

Facebook

• All posts require approval after some strange posts in the past
• There are 3 admin users who can approve posts 

16th Oct 2024 7pm -8pm

Attendees: Kevin McIntyre, Alastair Blain, Laura Forrest, Gillian Hoyle, Janine Reid

Halloween Disco

• DJ has been confirmed as of today and he will not charge us a fee.
• Bottle to be arranged as a thank you gift for him to give at the disco
  • Kevin to arrange 
• Volunteers sign-up sheet has been issued today to parents. Good response so far and we will push again at the end of the week to aim for 6 to 10 volunteers. Toilets, corridors and first aid volunteers need PVG
  clearance.
• Snacks and drinks already arranged by Kat. Snacks will be given out at the end of the disco so that parents can check for allergies.
• Plan to set up the disco the same as Easter disco, classes lined up per class using laminated signage. Children’s names ticked off on a register on entry.
• Kevin plans to record a video of what volunteers will need to know and this can be sent to volunteers via text or whatsapp.
  • Kevin to arrange

Christmas Fayre

• The whole school pantomime trip is the day before the fayre so this should help set up. Vendors from last year have all been contacted and any new requests for a stall have been responded to by Kevin.

• Space for 14 – 16 stalls in total and still a few vacant so this will be communicated.

  • Kevin to communicate

• New idea to raise funds with a giant football card replacing last years silent auction for football strips.

  • This should be easier to organise, £5 charged per team with half funds raised going to the school and half going to the winner.

  • Agreed by PC.

• Kat has plans for other fund raising games like guess how many sweets in the jar etc.
• We need to push for good prizes to be donated for raffle – need to reach out to local companies by sending letters.

• Idea to create printed raffle rickets that can be sent home with the children for parents to fill out rather than raffle books. Cost should be similar and will be easier to manage.

  • Agreed by PC.

• LF requested that we aim for more volunteers than last year as last year was busy and put pressure on volunteers that attended.

  • Agreed by PC

• GH suggested P6s and P7s are invited to design a stall and run it giving them enterprise experience.

  • Kevin asks that Kat brings this idea to Gerry for his thoughts.

• Burger stall last year was expensive

  • Kevin to explore if there is any opportunity to use school kitchen instead selling rolls with sausage or potato scone to generate income.

Pantomime

School trip costing just under £12k. Dance-a-thon raised £6k to contribute towards this cost. School budgets tightened this year by Renfrewshire Council. PC will review if this is something that can be repeated in the
future.

Future Goals

Library within school is future goal for funding. Area at the top of the stairwell could be used for school library now that acoustic works are finished. Raising funds for resources will be a priority for the PC to support.

GH raised that engaging with businesses that focus on corporate responsibility could help raise funds and resources for books.

Outdoor learning classroom and potential to use the space at the back of the MUGA has been costed at approx.£6k - £8k. This is an area that future PC funding could support.

Communication of PC Actions and Activity

LF highlighted that communication and engagement with parents and families is crucial to maintain and grow support for PC.

PC website and social media presence is an opportunity for improvement and something that PC are committed to enhancing. GH will be working on the PC website to improve engagement and make our goals and achievements clear.

PC will aim to seek feedback from families regarding website and social media using online surveys or polls. Potential to gather feedback and Christmas Fayre from families that attend.

Current PC website landing page is unclear and parents can be confused and often send the wrong requests or information to PC.

Plan needed for relaunch and potential to ask Gerry if he can communicate in his newsletter once new website is live.

Gillian to work on website communication

Future Meeting Dates

• 
  14th Nov, 4th Feb and 13th May. Currently planned to be at the school but PC considering online approach to increase attendance.

AOB

AB mentioned that Baru school wear supplier are offering to give vouchers if the school can promote their store. PC discussed that the school cannot favour one supplier, but other ideas are being reviewed by the school if there are financial benefits.