PTA minutes 01.10.07.pdf - Challney High School for Girls

Challney Girls’ High School Association
Monday 1 st October 2007
Present: Mrs Saheli Hussain (mother of Wasima Hussain 8E), Mr Safder Iqbal (father
of Naila Safder 9B), Mr. Mohammed Saghir (father of Iman Saghir, 7A), Mrs
Minnette Quinton (parent), Alan Palmer (Assistant Headteacher), Patricia Morris
(Head of Year 9), Indu Kaushal (Teaching Assistant).
Miss Arthur, Headteacher, welcomed parents, thanked them for their attendance and
wished them a profitable meeting. Miss Arthur then left the meeting.
AP also welcomed parents to the meeting and all were invited to introduce themselves
to each other.
1. Context
AP explained the desire of school staff to work on improving communication
and relationships with both parents/carers and the wider school community
with the most important aim of helping our pupils maximise their potential.
2. Links with Challney Girls’ High School Association
AP explained that there was already in existence a parent-teacher association,
called the Challney Girls’ High School Association which had not met for
some time. The last annual return in the possession of the Charity Commission
was for 2004. CGHSA has charitable status, which remains current, and a
constitution.
The meeting agreed
a) The name of Challney Girls’ High School Association, and charitable
status, should be retained
b) The CGHSA constitution (copies were circulated to all present) should
be considered at the next meeting
c) AP should make best efforts to contact the trustees of the CGHSA,
who remain liable, and secure their consent for current staff and
parents to assume that responsibility.
3. Aspirations
All parents present wished for more opportunities to be involved in the life of
the school and their daughters’ education. They asked that the school make
more effort to invite parents into the building and help them feel more
welcome. A change of culture towards parents/carers is needed to one more in
line with that at most primary schools. More direct invitations should be
issued with sufficient advanced notice of events, around one month. It was
suggested that parents/carers should be invited to events such as Sports Day,
Fundraising Week and Certificate Assemblies. The invitation of parents of
pupils in Year 7 to the Certificate Assembly last July met with approval.
Parents encouraged the continued use of Truancy Call to get around the
problem of girls failing to take messages home and approved of messages
being sent home in different languages. The Challney News should include an
acknowledgement slip for parents/carers to indicate their receipt of it.
4. Times, days and dates for future meetings

Preferred times and days were considered. It was agreed that the day of the
meeting should vary from meeting to meeting and that early evening was the
best time. The next meeting will be at 5.00 pm on Wednesday 14 th November
2007 in the Whitbread Room at the school
5. Any other business
The issue of confidentiality was discussed. It was agreed that the business of
the meeting should normally be treated as open information.
The meeting closed at 6.10 pm