Interparents report of the highlights of meeting Brussels 3rd October 2011 - 4th October 2011

Future Interparents Meeting dates
The next Interparents meetings will take place 4th December 2011 - 5th December 2011 in Frankfurt. Please note that the meeting starts on a Sunday afternoon, as this is the only time available to adequately prepare for the Board of Governors’ meeting on the 6th December.
Then Interparents AGM is scheduled for 6th and 7th February 2012 in Brussels III. The Joint Teaching Committee meeting will follow this on the 8th and 9th February.
These two Interparent meetings are primarily to prepare the Parents’ interventions at these Brussels Committee meetings.
New president, treasurer and secretary positions will be elected at the Interparents AGM. Candidates are invited to put themselves forward.

Report from Ana Gorey on the Extraordinary Board of Governors’ meeting.
Mr Kivenen was elected as the new Secretary General for European Schools.
The Brussels schools admission policy was discussed. Due to the over demand for places it is clear that a 5th school in Brussels is urgently needed.
Although the limit of 30 pupils per class was only a temporary measure it is clear that a reduction to 28 is not possible at this time. This will stand for all ES schools.

Discussion points
All schools are employing the vertical and horizontal re-structuring strategies to maintain courses as well as in some cases a reduction in teaching hours to meet the requirements of the new rules for creating courses and classes. All Interparent reps are requested to survey their school and if possible do an analysis of the current situation compared to previous years.

Details of the retrospective cuts to budgets that have already been discharged have been sent to the Ombudsman who have contacted the European Commission for comment about the legal basis for reclaiming money from last year’s budget. The Commission has a month to reply. Interparents have sought legal advice also on the issue of lack of legal authority, non-conformity with the BoG decision while decisions concerning the Board of Governors are not within their remit. Also the unauthorised change by the Commission of a “balancing budget” to a “closed envelope budget” which has a fixed ceiling for European Schools.

Parents are invited to look closely at the Cavada Report on European Schools and analyse the contents so that at the Interparents meeting in Frankfurt, a strategy can be established for the best way for Interparents to continue their fight for a properly funded european education according to the founding philosophy.

It was proposed that Interparents ask that European schools are transferred to the Director Generals department for Education and Culture, as this has more relevance to today’s European school system than their current position in the Director Generals Department for Administration.

A new network has been set up to offer help, support and advice to Type 2 and Type 3 schools. Mrs Karin van Vrede (ex vice president of Interparents) will be involved in this programme, to ensure that parents are consulted and involved.

New ES Alumni association initiative
ex students from Brussels II gave a presentation on their new initiative - Alumni Europaea. This is a web-based association that will offer old students a way to keep contact with other ES students.  Costs will be kept to a minimum as the principle is based along the lines of current social networking sites, and users will be expected to keep their details up-to-date themselves. Each school is expected to have their own website coordinator and the various website will then come under the umbrella of the Alumni Europaea (Association).  This will also allow existing networking ex-ES students to link their sites into a larger framework for all the schools. Data, eg experiences in university, can be used by schools or parents associations for various projects or for older pupils in school for general information on higher education or life after school.
It was requested that each PA donate €100 towards the start-up costs in support of this excellent initiative.

Treasurer’s report
As IP is an “international association” there are very tight regulations about the movement of money (to avoid money laundering and other illegal monetary transfers). The problems causing the delay in the reimbursements have now been resolved, and the IP bank account has now been “un-frozen”. This means that all outstanding reimbursement requests will be honoured as quickly as possible.
The current travel expense forms are not logical or fair and urgently need reforming. All IP reps are requested to send their proposals for the new rules by email to Rachel within the next few weeks.
There is also request from the President of Interparents for a donation of €150 this year from each parent association to cover a de bono payment to the lawyer who is giving legal advice on many of the ES issues that Interparents are fighting. This legal advice is being given free of charge, and the money is just a token payment in recognition of his time and efforts. On part of Interparents, this lawyer will be recommended to any parent who wishes legal advice in respect of actions against the ES system, as he has much experience, and is very familiar with the way that the schools administration works.

Notes of the preparatory discussions for the Joint Teaching Committee.

• Interparents wishes to remind the BoG that they have been granted a place on the new Languages Working Group when it is established.
• Procedures and timetabling of important meetings have in the last few years become illogical and are now ineffectual, as proper information, proposals, and reports are not available in time for relevant discussions at the appropriate levels. Often proposals are being put into place before there is an opportunity to ratify them in the respective meeting. This situation is unacceptable to Interparents, and urgent action is requested to rectify this situation.
• Document 2010-D-139-de-3. Interparents wish that Inspection reports be made available to all interested parties after each event, as this forms the basis for discussion and proposals for the School development plan in the SAC meetings. Allowing school management to decide on the way that reports are communicated is not enough assurance that this will be done universally across all schools. Interparents would like to see an indicator of the total amount of missing teaching hours, recorded in the whole school inspections and needs to be a criteria in the whole school inspection framework.
• Document 2010-D-49-de-2. Interparents would like to see some of the syllabi urgently up-dated. Some have had no revision since the early 1990s.Interparents request for an overview of the last 5 - 10 years of courses on offer to ES students. This will highlight new courses that have been added and those that have been lost in this time, and will give a better feel of the development of the subject ranges.
• Document 2011-09-D-48-de. Interparents are disappointed that there is no mention of the rejection of Document 33 by last year’s JTC (Joint Teaching Committee) in the Presidency’s report of 2010/2011. This is just one of many negative items left out of the report and Interparents feel that this kind of selective reporting is unacceptable as it is meant to be a true reflection of the year.
• Document 2011-07-D-13-fr-1 on the posts of seconded teachers for Secondary, Primary and Kindergarten is missing for analysis and therefore Interparents and other members of the JTC will not be able to comment on it and will request that it be withdrawn for this meeting.
• Document 2011-09-D-44-en. BAC 2011 chairman’s report. Also the document on the Report of the analysis of 2011 BAC is missing. This is on the agenda as an oral communication, but Interparents object that this important document is not available for discussion and request that this unacceptable situation be rectified. This document is also fundamental to SAC meetings as a basis for the annual school development plan.
• Document 2011-05-D-33-de-2. There are still issues that have not been addressed by this working group towards the reform of the European Baccalaureate. Interparents wish that the Working Group’s mandate be extended so that there is proper attainment of all the goals set, and a chance for thorough evaluation of results. Of special concern are: the transversal project to be piloted in class 5 OS has not been properly thought through, the lack of convincing safeguards in the dematerialisation of marking scripts, the benefits of introducing a new marking scheme at this time when there are other radical changes taking place in the examination process, and the steps needed to ensure that all national universities in Europe recognise the BAC. Interparents feel that it is important that the European BAC is included in the Europe-wide debate on education.
• Document 2011-07-D-11-de. Management staff structure and requirements: This is a topic that must be discussed in the Admin Board meeting so that they can be tailored for each school’s needs.
• Document 2011-09-D-50-de. Repeat rates: Despite the various measures taken, the differences between language sections persist and Interparents would like to know what are the root causes for this. Interparents welcome the inclusion of the ES into the PISA project. Interparents insist that there must be a leaving attainment certificated for pupils leaving the system after class 5 OS. It is important that this is not linked to repeat rates issues and the attainment certificate becomes associated with failure after class 5.
• document 2011-09-D-36-de-1 . The Career Guidance: proposes that parents pay €160 per child in class 7 to cover the cost of career guidance and university application assistance. This proposal is totally rejected by Interparents who believe that it is unacceptable for there to be a blanket charge irrespective if the pupil has need for such advice and support, and believe that this is an integral part of the school’s support programme for pupils moving into tertiary education.
• Document 2011-09-D-7-de. The continuing discrimination of category III pupils in terms of access to mother-tongue lessons, SWALS support learning support and SEN is regretable, and is morally wrong. Interparents will continue to challenge this decision by the BoG. All students who are experiencing difficulties in class, have a detrimental effect on all in that class.
• document 2011-09-D-32-de. Interparents support the Libraries Working Group conclusions and request that all directors act immediately on the recommendation in the report.

Please go to the Interparents’ Website (http://www.interparents.eu/) for further information and documents.

Sarah Winthrop

ESK PA Interparents’ Rep