The 2020-21 session has been a year like no other. Schools were able to return in August 2020, but under challenging conditions. Increased ventilation, (throughout a Scottish winter!) wearing face coverings for prolonged periods, and self-isolation were just some of the challenges our children and staff faced on a regular basis. Home learning continued, for some more than others, and above all, schools and parents had to find ways to ensure our children's learning and safety was not impacted.
As a parent council, our focus this year has been to support all parents and the school as much as possible, in ensuring all our young people were able to learn and to achieve their potential, despite the barriers posed by Covid-19.
We continued to hold our monthly parent council meetings via Google Meet, and welcomed several new parents in doing so. As expected, many parents had worries and concerns over their children's safety and learning, and we hope we helped them air their concerns and find reassurance. Mr. Reynolds and his staff have communicated tirelessly with parents to try to keep everyone up to date with what sometimes appeared to be rapidly changing guidance.
For most schools, parents have not been able to access school buildings, and effective communication with parents has been vital. We have continued to increase our audience on social media (@RossParents on Twitter, or Ross High School Parent Council on Facebook), and have used these accounts to feed all the communications being issued from the school, to ensure maximum awareness. We found that not all parents were receiving or reading the emails, but did respond to social media posts, and we used this to feed concerns back to school. We worked with the school staff to increase Parental Engagement, ensuring more parents were being reached when emails were being sent out, especially families where parents live at separate addresses.
Parent Consultations for all year groups took place via Google Meet, and we consulted with parents to get their feedback on this. The vast majority of parents preferred this format, citing childcare, privacy and calm as the main reasons for preferring this format to the traditional face-to-face meets. Any glitches or concerns were fed back to school and we're confident they can and will be overcome.
We've taken part in focus groups with Education Scotland, National Parent Forum Scotland information sessions, Connect Scotland information sessions and online Q&A sessions with the Scottish Government, in order to convey the concerns facing parents this year. East Lothian Council's Head of Education held additional meetings for the chairs of parent councils across East Lothian - including a specific one for secondary schools, relating to this year's Alternative Accreditation Model proposed by the SQA, and we participated in all of these - which were really helpful and much appreciated.
As it has been for many parent councils, fundraising has been almost impossible, but we're made of strong stuff! We launched our Ross High School Parent Council lottery - part of the East Lothian Community lottery. Our predicted annual income from this is over £4,600, but we need to work hard to maintain (and improve on) this number - we have lots of ideas on how to spend this money to improve the school experience of all our pupils. We started the ball rolling with applying for charitable status, but, in view of all the other more pressing issues facing our parents this year, we decided to put this to one side for the moment. We'll pick it up again when times are brighter. We hope this will allow us to receive charitable donations and perhaps apply for grants/funds only open to charitable organisations.
As we look back on this challenging year, I would like to thank all parents and carers who have attended and contributed to our meetings. Your feedback helps the school understand what parents are facing, and it does shape their decision-making. Thanks too to our hard-working councillors who always support us and act swiftly whenever they are able to help. A huge thank you to the unstinting efforts of all the staff at Ross High School. They have continued to go above and beyond what could be expected of school staff. Teachers have worked tirelessly to adapt and create new materials, and support children when required. Non-teaching staff have also been there for our children and to maintain the links with parents - all under the leadership of Mr. Reynolds. Our fantastic SQA results are testament to their dedication. Finally - thank you to all our fantastic pupils, who have risen so well to the challenges thrown at them since the outbreak of this pandemic. They are a credit to the school and to their parents.
What's ahead for the Parent Council in 2021-22?
As we hopefully start to emerge from the worst of the pandemic, we enter a 'recovery phase', where much work still needs to be done. 2021-22 is the 'Year of the Rebuild' at Ross High School and as a Parent Council, we will continue to support the school with all this entails. We want to reach out to all our parent members and ensure Parental Engagement is key in the life of the school. We will also work with the school to help achieve the School Improvement Plan.
What is the Parent Council?
We're just parents! We voluntarily come together to act on behalf of all parents and carers with children at Ross High School. We want to support the school and influence decisions which affect our children at school. We aim to represent the views of all parents and carers.
What do we do?
We hold monthly meetings, to which all parents are welcome to attend. Mr. Reynolds attends and sometimes other staff members too. Our local councillors attend as many meetings as they can and are valued contributors, as they know our communities so well. We (try to!) stick to an agenda and cover any issues that are relevant to our school and its pupils. Parents can submit questions in advance and Mr. Reynolds will help answer them.
The most important thing we do is to support the school and strengthen the link between school and parents. The school often uses us as a sounding board for new ideas/developments to get feedback from a parent's perspective, before they are implemented across the whole school. All parents' views are valid and listened to.
By giving the school a parent's perspective, we help them engage with parents and carers; involving them in their child’s learning, and in the life of the school. This also improves links within the community.
Parent council meetings allow parents to engage with the school, but also to listen to and engage with other parents.
How can you get involved?
Just come along to one of our meetings! Any parent/carer with a child at Ross High School may become a member of the Parent Council, and we want you there! We meet every last Tuesday of the month, at 7pm. Meetings are currently being held on-line via Google Meet - just email parentcouncil@ross.elcschool.org.uk and we'll add you in, or you can contact us through our social media pages. You won't be roped into a job you don't want, and we don't do endless amounts of fundraising. We just want you and your views on your child's education.
We know not everyone can make our meetings, so if you can't make it, or would rather not, you can send us a DM through our Facebook or Twitter pages and we can raise any concerns on your behalf.
Like our Facebook page and/or follow us on Twitter. We regularly post on communications from the school and our wider community - we always have a lot to say!