Parents’ Association Forum

30^th January 2020

Many areas were discussed:

·         Correspondence;

·         Child Protection;

·         Building Report;

·         Health and Safety;

·         School Events;

·         SSE and School Planning;

·         Teaching and Learning;

·         Posts of Responsibility;

·         School Trips;

·         Finances; and

·         Policies for Review.

§  Additional Educational Needs Policy;

§  Wellbeing Policy; and

§  School Owned Assistive Technology Policy.

·         Issues that came up for clarification are as follows:

§  Further discussion in relation to the Parents Association contribution to the memorial garden now that construction work has commenced;

·         Principal will liaise with the PA around memorial monument and / or tree.

§  Traffic Congestion around the School;

·         Principal is liaising with Meath CoCo and the Bus Inspector. Some disagreement around the best approach to take.

§  TUI Strike on the 4^th February 2020

7^th November 2019

Well attended meeting. Many areas were discussed:

·         Correspondence;

·         Child Protection;

·         Building Report;

·         Health and Safety;

·         School Events;

·         SSE and School Planning;

·         Teaching and Learning;

·         Posts of Responsibility;

·         School Trips;

·         Finances; and

·         Policies for Review.

o   Teaching and Learning Policy; and

o   Attendance and Participation Policy.

Issues that came up for clarification are as follows:

·         Parents Association contribution to the memorial garden when construction work commences;

o   Principal will liaise with the PA when we get to that stage.

·         Traffic Congestion around the School;

o   Principal is liaising with Meath CoCo and the Bus Inspector with a view to putting measures in place to alleviate the situation.

10^th October 2019

Well attended Parents Association AGM.

Parents’ Nominees to the Board of Management were elected – John Hetherton and Julieanne Walsh.

PA Officers were elected to required positions – Chairperson: John Hetherton, Secretary: Leslie Gleeson, Treasurer: Stephan Quinlan.

Many areas were discussed:

·         Correspondence;

·         Child Protection;

·         Building Report;

·         Health and Safety;

·         School Events;

·         SSE and School Planning;

·         Teaching and Learning;

·         Posts of Responsibility;

·         School Trips;

·         Finances; and

·         Policies for Review.

o   Child Safeguarding Statement;

o   Admissions Policy;

o   Code of Behaviour;

o   Critical Incident Management Plan; and

o   Visitors Policy

Issues that came up for clarification are as follows:

·         Refunds of School fees deposit;

o   Principal explained that LMETB requested that the school discontinue the approach of collecting and refunding deposits around school books. This had been complied with. If particular parents had deposits that had not been returned, they should inform the school office and progress would be made

·         Traffic Congestion;

o   Concerns raised around traffic congestion outside the school. Principal agreed to contact both the Bus Inspector and Meath CoCo with a view to addressing the issue. Poor planning and design around traffic management at the root of this legacy issue.

2^nd May 2019

Well attended meeting. Many areas were discussed:

·         Correspondence;

·         Child Protection;

·         Building Report;

·         Health and Safety;

·         School Events;

·         SSE and School Planning;

·         Teaching and Learning;

·         Posts of Responsibility;

·         School Trips;

·         Finances; and

·         Policies for Review.

14^th March 2019

Well attended meeting. Many areas were discussed:

·         Correspondence;

·         Child Protection;

·         Building Report;

·         Health and Safety;

·         School Events;

·         SSE and School Planning;

·         Teaching and Learning;

·         Posts of Responsibility;

·         School Trips;

·         Finances; and

·         Policies for Review.

Issues that came up for clarification are as follows:

·         PA’s thanks for the school’s support of the 20k Drop fundraiser.

·         School fees for 2019-2020

o   Agreement that a standardised approach across year groups of €200 school fees would be a simpler approach.

§  Principal agreed to proceed with this approach.

13^th December 2018

Well attended meeting. Many areas were discussed:

·         Correspondence;

·         Child Protection;

·         Building Report;

·         Health and Safety;

·         School Events;

·         SSE and School Planning;

·         Teaching and Learning;

·         Posts of Responsibility;

·         School Trips;

·         Finances; and

·         Policies for Review.

o   RSE Policy; and

o   Admissions Policy.

Issues that came up for clarification are as follows:

·         There were no issues at this meeting.

1st March 2018

5th Year Irish

2^nd honours class using a pass book.

• This has been the practice for a number of years.
• The Irish dept. made this decision as the feeling is that the book is too difficult for the ‘lower’ honours class.
• There are plenty of sections of the ‘pass’ book that they can dip in to.
• Equally, the teachers would be supplementing with their own notes / PowerPoints etc.

Supervised Study

• I checked with Ms Farrelly, similar to myself and she isn’t aware of an issue with disruption in study.
• We have a staff meeting today (05.10.2017) and I will highlight this issue to ensure that there is consistency across the board.

Prefects

• I personally met with the prefects-elect and explained the situation and rationale for our decision to them.
• A number of them were not aware that they were automatically selected for the position next year if they want to occupy it.
• They all seemed happy that this was the case.

18th October 2018

• The Principal addressed the area of ‘free classes’ and the approach adopted to them.
• In any busy second level school you will have classes supervised by other teachers.  This is the ‘trade-off’ that has to made in order to facilitate all the extra-curricular activities that are taking place – sports; trips, meetings, training etc.
• In these situations, where it is a planned absence, there will be work given to the class the day before by their teacher or left with Senior Management, to be given to pupils by the supervising teacher on the day.
• In other situations, where a staff member is out due to unforeseen circumstances (sickness etc) – getting classwork to students would be more hit and miss.  On some occasions, staff would be in a position to email work in. This is then given to the pupils by the supervising teacher. But this would not happen in all cases.