ESK PA COMMITTEE MEETING REPORT 04.11.09

Wednesday, 4 November 2009

Cindy van Velzen thanked everyone for being present and excused the fact that she had a cold. The main objective of this evening was to prepare the General Assembly and she thanked Sarah for all her hard work preparing the invitation leaflet and poster. There were now three language version and the Committee went through checking and making a few amendments. These would be put on the website and e-mailed to the Upper school the next day. Only for Primary school would the leaflets be printed and distributed to every child on Friday.

The agenda was also discussed to ensure that it corresponded to the Statutes and to ensure that the General Assembly fulfilled its obligations to discharge the Committee of its actions the previous year by adopting the Annual and Financial Report. Regarding the election of candidates, the Committee finalised the breakdown of the 17 members: 12 representing the three language section (2 primary + 2 Secondary per section) and 5 floaters (Treasurer, Swals, Communications, Canteen and Transport) who could come from any section. Cindy would ask Claudia Pap to introduce this item so as to ensure objectivity. It would be important to get the statutory part of the meeting over quickly so that members could go on to discuss this year’s objectives and any other issues of general concern.

Everyone hoped that there would be a good turn out as every effort had been taken to ensure this – first with the leaflet invitation and also by informing the class reps. That morning they held a very successful meeting with Class Reps and there would be another tomorrow night. From these meetings, it was clear that the Canteen and the extra 10 minutes were going to be issues. To keep these discussions more structured, Cindy would ask Scolarest to give an overview so far of the functioning of the Canteen and suggested recommendations for improvement and the school for a written explanation regarding the extra 10 minutes.

The evening would start with a drink while new members were signing up. It had to be made clear that only members could vote. Michel and Cindy would organised refreshments for the evening and also for the Christmas drinks which were only a few weeks away.

The next meeting would have to take place as soon as possible so that the newly elected Committee could define their composition and start to distribute the tasks for this year. As the heavy agenda showed, there was a lot of work to be done and we needed as many parents involved as possible.

Cindy van Velzen
President
PARENTS ASSOCIATION

IDEAS AND EVENTS FOR 2009-2010

New Year Dinner – Friday 29 January 2010
Last year, the Parents Association invited all teachers and admin staff and class reps together for a dinner which was a great success and one we would like to repeat this year but a New Year dinner and dance theme. So please be our guests and let us know which Friday 22 January 2010. There will be a special Tombola only for those who attend with great i-prizes (1 ticket = 3€ and 2 for 5€).

Project Days Activities
To help encourage and contribute to their activities which enhance the school community through cross-section, cross-curricular and inter-school exchanges, the Parents’Association invite teachers to submit ideas and proposals for an activity and the PA will financially contribute towards making it happen. We have earmarked 2,000€ towards this. Why not stage “High school Musical”. All the kids know the songs. There could be work on stagecraft, auditions, rehearsals and the final day could be the performance. We encourage teachers to check out for competitions that the project days could be used for to prepare submissions. For example European Youth Debating Competition, European Essay Competition, etc.

Open Day prizes
The Parents’ Association would like to award 20 prizes to celebrate academic excellence. The Maths Prize, the History Prize, the Library prize, the Siemens Prize, the Sport Prize, etc… We invite teachers across the sections to together nominate 5 pupils for each subject, taking into account all the best qualities we are looking for in our students – team work, creativity, etc.. You know better than us.

InterSport – EuroSport partnership
The PA learnt a lot last year and in particular from their involvement in EuroSport (see our Open Letter to Mr. Hoyem, June 2009). This year, the PA has begun a partnership with InterSport and the first event will be in November when the Karlsruhe Basketball team will give a basketball clinic for our two Eurosport Basketball teams.

Permanence room
The Parents’ Association would like to offer 200€ for quick facelift to the in order to buy educational material on the walls, maps, the periodic table, posters of famous people, historical timelines, language tips, etc..

Your school activities
Please let us know as soon as possible and if we can help in anyway, not least by announcing them on our new PA Website. Also can we help?

OBJECTIVES
2009/10

3 C’s
Canteen − Priority last year was to improve the quality of the food and service with a new provider Scolarest and to get a clear picture of the functioning and financing of the Canteen Committee. This year efforts will continue on both fronts. On the Scolarest front, by keeping an eye/overview as to the quality and functioning of the service. The quality of food was good, technical hitches still to overcome and clearly a greater than anticipated number of kids to be taken account of. Conclusions could not be drawn in the first week, or even the first month, of the new service as there were too many variables at the moment. With regard to the Canteen Committee, the current fiscal and legal status had to establish urgently. Work would begin in order to see how the framework would look in the future.

Communication − Priority last year was on improving the main channel of information from us to everyone with a focus on providing the main three vehicle languages and our new website. We also started to work on improving internal communication with our representatives, class reps and School Management. This year we will continue efforts on both fronts. On the website front, by making it a place where information can also be exchanged not just presented. New services such as a parents forum, parents support group, links to Karlsruhe for new families, Boutique ordering on-line, post it notes for small ads, etc.) were in the pipeline. With regard to internal communication, by establishing a clear framework for communication between us and the class reps, section reps and School management. The school should send all their dates for the Calendar and we would link to their information.

Community − Priority last year was to re-connect to the school community at large. We began by hosting a dinner in February for all staff, teachers, class reps and a few of the student reps in order to introduce ourselves, present our ideas and provide an informal opportunity for everyone to get to know us and each other as well. Later in the year, EuroSport was an excellent opportunity to work together bringing this community spirit truly alive as well as giving everyone a sense of belonging to the wider European Schools. It was also an occasion for reflection on the need to build partnerships outside the school. This year we will continue efforts on both fronts. On the school front, with the Welcome Back Party, Open Day/Project Days and other events emphasising cross-curriculum, cross-language section and cross-year class synergies with project activities such as Lego, health and fitness, art and performance arts, debate, handicrafts, science projects, dance, world issues, economic games, etc...With regard to the wider European school community, by playing a stronger role in Interparents and encouraging inter-school experience such as MEP and why not EuroCulture? With regard to outside partnerships, by enhancing the school’s core values through sport, languages, multimedia programme, IT, etc.

OBJECTIVES 2009/10

3 L’s
Languages − The issue of languages is complex with obvious tensions as to the handling of mother tongue, dominant language, host country language, bilingualism, second language, section language, other languages, non-native students, language acquisition, parental choice, reduction of hours, differentiated teaching, language support. Mother tongue teaching as the cornerstone of the European school, as is diversity. Already at the end of last year we had looked at providing more after school activities to help with languages and this year even more so. We would like to see a real reflection on how best to improve harmonisation between sections, rates of repeating and emphasise the need for amongst others, increased, timely, learning support.

Lost hours − The question of teacher absences and days lost to the Baccelaureate have come up regularly over the years. We are conscious of the reasons why and applaud steps taken by the school to keep these to a minimum, replace teachers when they can, give out worksheets and permas. However, when confronted by parents’ legitimate expectations and complaints, explanations alone fail us. We would like to see a real reflection on how best to improve this on the basis of concrete information and emphasise the need for data protection.

Ligne directifs − Policy guidelines/procedures/FAQs on school issues like drugs, SEN, learning support, school rules, discipline exist in various forms and formats, varying from official BOG documents to accepted practices. These are complicated enough for those who understand the system but totally mystifying to many parents particularly recently arrived ones from other educational systems. Nor is it enough to cite a regulation as often these are broad policy lines with the implementation procedures varying from school to school and even from Section to Section within a school and worse still between one family and another. We would like to see a real reflection on how best to improve information to parents and students on these issues and emphasise the need to have clear, transparent procedures. 

Message from the President of the PA

As was the case with the 3C’s, having identified these issues, time and reflection was needed to see how best to achieve the objectives in the medium and long term. We look to you all to contribute to our efforts and to get involved with the work of the European School Karlsruhe. Our Welcome Back Party is a good time to join in the fun, find out more and get your voice heard in the school community. Our General Assembly will be on the 18 November put the date in your diary. See you there.
Cindy van Velzen, President