Trinity Primary Parent Council

May Fair

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2012-05-12T17:44:03+01:00

Congratulations to everyone involved in the May Fair today. The weather was fantastic and the day was a great success.

Hopefully everything about the gentlemen who look like they’re on the way to a stag night will be revealed soon!

New After School Club Website

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2012-04-25T21:38:03+01:00

Congratulations to the After School Club on the launch of their brilliant new website which is available here.

It’s well worth checking out as there is a great selection os useful information and downloads on the site and you can also sign for the After School Club newsletter.

Victoria Primary Website

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2012-03-30T21:10:57+01:00

Victoria Primary school has a great new website which has all sorts of information about the history of the school and the work of their Parent Council and PTA. Victoria is our neighbouring school and is also the oldest working school in Edinburgh.

Letter to Director for Education

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2012-03-16T18:13:12+00:00

You may have read in the most recent newsletter that the Parent Council are writing to Gillian Tee, the Director of the Department of Children and Families, regarding the large P1 intake anticipated for this year. The text of the letter is reprinted below.

Dear Gillian,

I write with regard to the 2012/13 P1 pupil intake numbers for Trinity Primary School.

Currently, the number of in-catchment children registered to attend the school is 88. This number will certainly fall, as parents settle on
final options elsewhere. Our experience of last year showed that the initial 75 in-catchment applications became 66 pupils actually attending Trinity, a reduction of 12%.

If we assume the drop-off rate for this year will be between 10% and 15%, we are then looking at pupil numbers for the start of the new term of between 75 and 79. The school are using a working number of 82.

You may be aware that for the current 2011/12 P1 pupils, the school is operating a system on 'paper' which has 25 pupils taught by 1 teacher, and 41 team-taught by 2 teachers. In practice, they converted corridor space to allow 3 distinct teaching areas, where groups of 22 pupils use 1 space each, on a rotational basis, and have a named teacher per group. This system is working very well for all parties, with pupils, parents and teachers all happy with the approach.

The new 2012/13 intake will result in a similar situation, but will require a 4th teacher should the final pupil numbers be 76 or more. The
parent Council is very happy that maintaining this current approach for the new P1's will still work, regardless of whether the numbers require 3 or 4 teachers/groups.

However, we are concerned about the impact of large pupil numbers as they move through the school years and would welcome the opportunity to work with the Department to help develop long-term solutions that will address future local challenges.

The P1 numbers have remained at 66. Going into P2, this will require more creative use of space by the school, or adopting the 'paper'
approach that will see a class of 30 and another of 36, team-taught. If the 2012/13 intake is 79, in P2 this may become two team-taught classes of 38 and 39. More worryingly though, this number would allow a P2 class of 30, and a team-taught class of 49. Such a large, single class may force an alternative approach, such as composite classes being employed.

The latest national statistics show that the number of pupils entering the school system will remain at the current levels for the coming few years at least (see note below). While nothing is definite with these numbers, and indeed there will be pockets of variation, given the P1 intake for 2011/12 and now 2012/13, it would seem that Trinity will at least follow the national trend.

This will create real capacity challenges for the school as they operate with finite space. Some of the options that the Parent Council has
considered as possible means of addressing this are -

* Further internal space conversion
* Porta-cabins in the playground
* Building annexes to current exits
* Constructing a class in the free space at the front entrance
* Relocating some pupils to another, local site
* Re-drawing catchment boundaries to spread the impact
* Building another school and dividing catchment

These options range from the more temporary through to permanent solutions. They come with quite different capital costs. Some will
prove to be quite unpalatable to some parents.

No doubt many of these and others will have already been considered by the Department as you look to address this challenge on a city-wide basis. Whatever the best route(s), it is important that a clear strategy and appropriate funding is in place to address local
challenges. As such, the Parent Council would be very grateful for the opportunity to discuss this with your teams, providing a conduit to the parent body to keep them engaged and informed of plans.

I'd be grateful for your thoughts and feedback on how we could work together going forward.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Jeffrey
Chair, Trinity Primary Parent Council

(Note - Scottish Government Report 2010 on population growth shows projected 7% population growth through to 2033 (5.19m 2010, 5.54m 2033). Factors include net in-migration, increased fertility rates and longer life expectancy. Critically, birth rate has exceeded death rate since 2006, and is anticipated to continue.)

P7 show

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2012-02-09T23:00:12+00:00

Congratulations to everyone involved in the P7 show tonight. I was absolutely brilliant from beginning to end.

The P7 performers and the P6 choir were fantastic and everyone involved should be really proud of the final result.

Parent Council Meeting 18 January

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2012-01-18T21:11:02+00:00

Following the Parent Council meeting tonight minutes from the last meeting and this week’s agenda are now available on the website in the downloads section.

The website links page has been updated to include details of ParentLine - previously the Royal Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children (RSSPCC). Plus some new information on the role of Parent Councils.

There is now a link to the Edinburgh school dates for 2012 - 2013 and the proposed school dates for 2013 - 2014. The Council are currently consulting on this second set of dates, so if you do have any comments please contact us.

HMIE Inspection Report

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2011-08-23T20:37:34+01:00

Following their visit to the school in June, HMIE has issued the report on the inspection of the school and it is an extremely positive report. Receiving one evaluation of Excellent and four evaluations of Very Good means that this is an outstanding report and all of the teaching staff deserve huge credit for these results.

Steve Hodgson

CfE Factfiles

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2011-06-21T21:00:37+01:00

We’ve previously linked to a number of fact files on the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE).

The download area now includes a new fact file produced by the National Parent Forum an overview of key terms and features concerning CfE. If you want to understand more about some of the ways teachers talk about CfE (Experiences and Outcomes etc) then this might be of interest.

Steve Hodgson

HMIE Inspection

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2011-05-29T13:06:05+01:00

You will have received a letter advising of the school inspection that will be carried out by HM Inspectorate of Education starting from the 13 June. This blog post is intended to provide some more information on the HMIE inspection process, how you may be affected and what happens after an inspection is complete.

The latest information on this is available at the HMIE website which includes a set of FAQs, some of which are summarised below.

As a member of the Parent Council, how will I be involved in the inspection?

A member of the inspection team will usually meet the Chair of the Parent Council during an inspection. The Chair of the Parent Council will be asked to comment in confidence on a draft of the inspection report. On occasion, we will contact other members of the Parent Council to follow-up responses to questionnaires.

Are parents/carers involved in the inspection process?

Before each inspection we write to all parents/carers with children in the school letting them know that an inspection is taking place and that we shall be gathering their views about the school by issuing a questionnaire. The questionnaire is issued to all parents/carers or to a sample of parents/ carers in larger schools. Any parents/carers not included in the sample who wishes to complete a questionnaire may do so.

What happens after a school inspection?

Every primary, secondary and special school will receive a core inspection, followed by one of a range of follow-through activities. Follow-through can range from no further involvement with a school to a greater level of engagement if a school is found to need additional support.

May Newsletter

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2011-05-13T14:38:12+01:00

We have just released a newsletter for the new term highlighting the large P1 intake expected for the next school year. As the article discusses we have been communicating with the department of Children and Families on this issue and there is an archive of the emails available here.

You may have seen an article written by Edinburgh head teacher Rod Grant, head of Clifton Hall School on the use of team teaching in Edinburgh Schools. This article highlights the benefits of team teachers but also the risks that it can be used simply as a cost-saving measure.

Website Update

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2010-12-08T19:31:12+00:00

We have recently updated the design of the website and hope you like the new look of the site!

The school website has recently been updated and includes information about the school so some of the information on this site is less relevant than it was before. The information on school policies and the records of the Parent Council are all still available but through the Info tab rather than having their own section.

If you have any feedback on the changes, or the site in general, please email Steve Hodgson directly.

Curriculum for Excellence Fact Files

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2010-11-02T22:37:17+00:00

We previously posted a link to three Curriculum for Excellence fact files and these have now been joined by three more which may be of interest.

Health and wellbeing

Parents as partners

Supporting learners

The last two are likely to be of most interest as they focus more on providing advice to parents and provide links to other resources.

Steve Hodgson

Parent Council AGM

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2010-10-06T19:26:29+01:00

The Parent Council AGM takes place next Wednesday, the 13th of October at 7:00pm in the staff room.

All parents are welcome to attend. The agenda will include a report on the work of the Parent Council over the past year, discussion of issues that any parents wish to raise, and approval of the accounts and appointment of the auditor.

All Parent Council meetings are open to all parents/carers and new members are welcome to join the council at any time. We hope that as many people as possible are able to come along to hear about our achievements during the year and to find out a bit more about the things that the Parent Council are involved in within the school. You can also contact Paul Jeffrey, Parent Council chair on 0131 554 1091 or by email at mailto:mail@trinityparentcouncil.org.uk.

While we are interested in any new members, we would particularly welcome parents with children who have just started in P1 or are new to the school.

We hope to see you there.

Andromedababe's Blog

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2010-09-07T17:35:23+01:00

As parents of primary school children this blog may be of interest to you. It’s a general blog written by Melanie Blackburn, an Early Years teacher from England, but also provides provides useful advice for parents on children's education and what help we as parents can give them.

http://andromedababe.wordpress.com/

Curriculum for Excellence Fact Files

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2010-08-27T20:54:18+01:00

Welcome to a new school year at Trinity Primary.

You might be interested in three new Curriculum for Excellence fact files produced by the Scottish Government and available here to help teachers and education staff talk to parents and learners and about current changes in Scottish education.

The first provides general background on CfE, the second deals with assessment and the third will be of interest mostly to those with children at secondary school, particularly this year's S1 intake.

Fact file: background and benefits

Fact file: assessment and qualifications

Fact file: the secondary experience

Steve Hodgson

CfE Explained

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2010-06-25T22:17:02+01:00

The City of Edinburgh Council has produced a guide to the Curriculum for Excellence. It’s available as a download through the downloads page.

Additional In-service Day, Session 2010/2011

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2010-06-21T18:31:06+01:00

The Scottish Government has allocated an additional In-Service day for Curriculum for Excellence Assessment during the 2010/2011 school year. This will mean a total of 8 In-Service Days for Session 2010/2011.

You may recall that additional in-service days have already been allocated for May this year, August this year and May next year. The additional date is proposed for Monday 21 February 2011 and school will be closed to children that day.

The City of Edinburgh Council has asked for feedback via Parent Councils on this proposal by Monday 28 June. If you have any views on this please email them to us either through the contact page or by email at mail@trinityparentcouncil.org.uk.

Edinburgh Learning Festival

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2010-05-29T17:21:30+01:00

Today four children from Trinity (2 from P7 and 2 from P1) spoke at the Edinburgh Learning Festival which took place at the Hilton Grosvenor Hotel.

The children spoke about their view of Curriculum for Excellence under the topic What Will Curriculum for Excellence Mean For Us as part of the the introductory session, along with the Adviser to the Scottish Government and the Director of Children and Families in Edinburgh.

All four children were confident and eloquent in their contribution to the festival and were warmly congratulated by the ‘professionals’ on the panel.

Well done to all involved.

In-Service Days

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2010-03-28T17:09:18+01:00

Thank you to all who responded to the survey on the proposal for an additional in-service day in August 2010 for Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). The result of the survey was a clear majority in favour of the additional day and this was reflected across the city. Many respondents recognised the need for staff to come to work together to implement the new CFE effectively and that an additional in-service day would facilitate this.

The Council has now confirmed that there will be an additional in-service day on 18 August. This, and other school dates, can be found here on the website.

Among those who opposed the additional in-service day, there were a variety of views among some parents about the number of in-service days allocated during the year. There were also some comments about the school shutting on Friday afternoon. We felt that it would be worthwhile explaining to parents the purpose of these in-service days and also how Friday afternoons are spent by teaching staff during term time. We thought it would be good to try to demystify the work done by teachers when the school bell sounds.

I think most of us agree that the staff at Trinity primary work exceptionally hard to ensure the best possible educational experience for our children. For what it is worth, as a parent and teacher with experience in both the state and private sector, I can vouch for the sterling work teachers do during teaching contact hours and well beyond.

As many of you know, when the school bell goes on Friday, teachers continue with their work either planning for the following week, in meetings or training sessions with other staff members or at special courses elsewhere. Teacher’s commitments are not just to plan, prepare, teach and mark their classes work and to communicate with parents but also to be involved in the development of any school or council initiatives. This may involve attending courses, implementing courses for other teachers, trialling and giving feedback on new ideas. You will be aware of the number of developments that have taken place at Trinity recently with regard to the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence. All these ideas have to be discussed and agreed as the first part of a long process of change.

In addition, many teachers at Trinity Primary give freely of their time and are involved in running after-school clubs and groups during the week, going away with children on camp, organising the P7 show etc.

The introduction of the Curriculum for Excellence is a new initiative that requires careful management and implementation and I am sure all parents will support the teaching staff to start the year well informed and ready to go once the term begins.

Sarah Robinson

Trinity Primary on BBC News

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2010-03-23T22:17:42+00:00

Trinity Primary was on BBC News today, used as a location to film an item about the rise in school placing requests in Scotland.

The clip is available on the BBC Scotland website.

School Session Dates 2010/11

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2010-03-19T15:07:29+00:00

School Session Dates for 2010/2011 have now been confirmed by the Department of Children and Families and are available on the website calendar page.

The Council has also confirmed that there will be an additional in-service day in August this year on August 18 to provide training in Curriculum for Excellence.

Steve Hodgson

Reduction in proposed budget cuts

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2010-02-06T21:32:31+00:00

You may have read the news on Friday that the Children and Families department announced that the 2.5% budget cut for 2010/2011 has now been reduced to 1% and this sands a "clear message that schools are being treated as the highest priority".

There's no doubt that a 1% cut is better than a 2.5% cut, but this is the second year that the Administration have claimed a victory for backing down from a large proposed cut which they themselves proposed only a few weeks earlier.

This 1% is still a cut, on top of the existing 'efficiency savings' of 1.5% and schools will still have to find extra money to fund these and the additional costs of maternity cover, water, refuse collection etc which have been transferred to the school. Please continue to write or email our local Councillors voicing your opposition to school budget cuts.

Interview on Budget Cuts

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2010-02-03T07:23:11+00:00

You might be interested in this interview in which Gavin Corbett, chair of Craiglockart Primary School Parent Council and one of the founders of the Edinburgh Parent Councils Network, speaks to Andrew Hynd, radio journalist and parent at Bruntsfield Primary about the impact on our children of proposed cuts to the education budget.

The interview is hosted on the Bruntsfield Primary Parent Council website.

What this brings out is why we should all be concerned at the proposal for three years of cuts and how schools may be affected and what services might be lost. Please write to your local councillor and fill out the iPetition.

Curriculum for Excellence Parent Toolkit launched

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2010-01-28T22:37:48+00:00

The Curriculum for Excellence Parent Toolkit - an online and print resource designed to help practitioners speak to parents with confidence was launched on Wednesday 27 January 2010 by Michael Russell MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning.

The Parent Toolkit hosts PowerPoints, a core script, parent questions, leaflets, film clips and images and templates that you can use and customise. In print, there is a quick guide for you and your colleagues to keep handy, posters for your school and leaflets that parents can take away from events or meetings. The leaflets and film clips take best practice examples from the Curriculum for Excellence website — one each in nursery, primary and secondary — and bring them to life for parents.

There is a link to the site on the links page.

Budget Cuts

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2010-01-26T21:03:20+00:00

The City Council is prosing to cut the budget to our schools by 2.5% for the next three years. This is on top of 1.5% embedded “efficiency savings” and additional costs that have been passed on to schools as ‘back-door’ budget cuts.

This would mean a budget reduction of around £50,000 for Trinity Primary in 2010/2011. It may mean losing all the things that help our school live and breathe — for example new books and other materials, and extra activities special to the school. Across Edinburgh, Head Teachers estimate that it would mean the loss of 75 full time posts.

Please check the Parent Council website and see how you can help campaign against these cuts.

Steve Hodgson

New Members

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2010-01-21T20:40:58+00:00

We are delighted to welcome three new members to the Parent Council.

Kate Gooding has joined the council and Sarah Barlow and Vikki Spence have joined as community members from Fort Primary.

The support and expertise of Sarah and Vikki will be very valuable in the next few months leading up to the transfer of the children from Fort to Trinity

Fort Closure

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-12-26T20:57:04+00:00

The City of Edinburgh Council has voted to close Fort Primary School and offer all the Fort children a place at Trinity Primary School. Trinity’s Parent Council is very disappointed at the Council’s decision to merge Fort and Trinity. We strongly believe it is the wrong decision for all our children and was not taken in their best interests. It is very disappointing that all our Administration Councillors (Steve Cardownie, Elaine Morris, Marjorie Thomas and Rob Munn) chose not to vote in accordance with their constituents’ wishes but for their own political convenience. We are sure that parents will remember this.

However, this is not the time to go over the arguments again.

What this campaign has shown is what a strong parent body we have. You have helped to run an excellent campaign and we have worked hard to ensure that Trinity’s case was as objective as possible and backed by strong, independent research rather than misleading statistics, omissions and spurious comparisons. The letters and emails which you and Fort parents have written to the Council and local Councillors challenged the Council’s position and forced the politicians to take our concerns seriously. Many of you attended the public meeting at Trinity and witnessed the weakness of the Council’s position and were articulate and passionate in defending our children’s educational needs. We came very close to succeeding.

There will be some difficult times ahead; however if we all work together as we did during this campaign, Trinity will continue to be a successful school for all our children. Trinity will welcome all the Fort children who choose to come here. The staff of both schools will work hard to ensure the merger takes place as smoothly as possible and the children receive the best possible education. The two Parent Councils have worked closely throughout this campaign and will continue to work together to support the integration.

Thank you for your continuing support.

2008 Attainment Results

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-11-11T17:24:59+00:00

Congratulations on Trinity achieving another very good set of attainment results last year in reading, maths and writing, 91%, 92% and 96% respectively.

Such success deserves to be celebrated, and for those that did not see the Evening News article, Trinity achieved the best results of all the primary schools in Edinburgh for writing - and was up among the best for reading and maths.

I know that there is much wider achievement in many forms at Trinity, but wanted to draw the Parent Council's attention to this.

On behalf of the Parent Council, I would like to thank and congratulate all the staff, pupils and parents on an excellent set of results.

Andrew Macmillan

Parent Council AGM

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-10-19T18:25:06+01:00

The Parent Council AGM took place last week and has seen some changes in the Parent Council.

A number of members who have served on the Parent Council for the last two years have stepped down and we would wish to thanks them for all their efforts and support over the last two years. Margaret Mortimer who has served as community member on the School Board and then the Parent Council has stepped down and we would also like to thank here for many years of service to the school. Margaret is replaced by Tom Kerr from the Trinity Community Council.

With 6 members of the council stepping down we would like to invite any parents interested in joining the Parent Council to become new members. Parent Councils were recognised in law in August 2007 and have the following roles:

Support the school in its work with pupils
Represent the views of all parents
Encourage links between the school, parents, pupils, pre-school groups and the wider community
Report back to all the parents in the school

If you feel you could help the Parent Council or would just like to be more involved in your child's education please get in touch via email to the Chair through the contact page or by emailing Steve Hodgson.

We would particularly welcome parents from the P1 year group as well as any other parents who are interested.

SNP Leith Residents' Survey

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-08-11T21:11:31+01:00

You may have received a survey form from Leith SNP this week asking you to complete it and return it them via freepost. Among the questions they are asking for our view on they specifically ask “Are there any issues in Leith that want tackled”.

If you are concerned about the proposed closure of Fort Primary and the transfer of all the children from there to Trinity in 2010/2011, this my be a good opportunity to raise this issue with the party who form part of the coalition in control of the city council. This is, of course, the same party that previous made an election commitment to significantly reduce class sizes. The commitment they made to P1 class sizes of 18 seems impossible to reconcile with the anticipated P1 class size of 38 at Trinity if this proposal goes through!

Steve Hodgson

New campaign Website

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-08-06T17:57:30+01:00

We have just launched a new website specifically to deal with the proposal to close Fort Primary and transfer all the children to Trinity. Any news about the proposal and the consultation will be posted there, along with links to news stories about the proposal and updates about the Fighting for Fort campaign.

The site includes a timeline of events since the proposal was announced, news of key public figures such as our MP and MSP who are supporting the campaigns and highlights many of the reasons why this proposal is bad for Trinity and makes little sense financially.

Finally, we need your help with this campaign! The parent councils of both schools recognise that this proposal is not in the best interest of the children from either school but it’s also important that we demonstrate that there is widespread opposition to the proposal. Please check the new website periodically to see how you can help.

Steve Hodgson

Website Updates

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-07-19T20:39:48+01:00

As a result of the Parent Council website moving to a new server, you will need to update the RSS feed if you use this to receive alerts on updates to this blog. The URL for the RSS feed is available here.

The website has also been update to include a new contact form to allow messages to be sent directly from the website.

Steve Hodgson

Fighting For Fort Website

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-06-22T20:53:42+01:00

You may be interested in a website that has been set up by parents from The Fort primary school as part of their fight to have the proposal to close Fort dismissed. If you are on Facebook they have also set up a Facebook Cause.

The website makes a number of extremely good points about the proposed merger and it will certainly be worth keeping an eye on the site for news from the Fort’s campaign and also to see how the closure will affect them.

If you have not already written to or emailed Gillian Tee and your local councillors, it would be a great help if you could. Even if you have already completed the survey or don’t feel that you won’t be adding anything new, it will be a great help for our councillors and council officials to realise that there is widespread opposition to these plans. Contact details are available on the downloads page.

Proposed Fort Closure

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-06-14T20:36:03+01:00

Like all parents, we were surprised to receive a letter last week about plans to close Fort Primary School and for all pupils to be offered a place at Trinity. Details of the proposal are available at the Council website.

This has not come as a complete surprise as it has previously been proposed that Fort and Trinity should merge and Fort has been under capacity for some time. The previous proposal for a merger was dismissed as without any merit and there is a long history of the council proposing school closures and mergers in this area.

The council’s proposal is that they want to remove surplus capacity from the school estate to provide best value for money by closing those schools where the current role is significantly under the notional capacity and making savings by the sale of the land. They acknowledge that the school population will start to grow again in the future but that there will be pockets where there are too many school places.

It’s important to highlight that this is not the case with the proposed Trinity/Fort merger. The council’s own report anticipates that the school population in this area will grow by as many as 150 places due to developments in the harbour area and it is proposed that Fort is re-opened to accommodate this growth. This means there will be no capital raised from sale of the land and probably costs involved to convert the building to a Children and Families area office in north Edinburgh as proposed.

What would be the impact on Trinity?

It is proposed that all the children currently at the Fort will be offered a place at Trinity. This means that Trinity’s roll would increase from around 337 at present to around 438 on current numbers. Trinity’s notional capacity, on the Council’s own figures, has been 415 for a large number of years. In the Council’s recent paper on the closure, this has jumped up to 456, providing a further 41 notional “spaces” at Trinity.

How has this been achieved?

The Council has, while carrying out a survey for energy performance, reassessed Trinity and, without advising the school or Parent Council, decided that it can now accommodate 15 classrooms, rather than the previous 14 rooms
This may mean losing the science room, support for learning room and current library and IT suite or the possibility of children being taught in temporary accommodation such as Portakabins.
How has this been achieved with no investment at the school when both Trinity's and Fort's roll have increased since 2008.

This would lead to Increasing class sizes to their maximum in most or all year groups including even larger classes with team teaching. Using the council’s own figures from 2008, if this proposal goes ahead Trinity will become the most overcrowded school in Edinburgh.

The newsletter also highlights a number of other potential areas that would be affected in addition to the level of overcrowding.

What can you do?

You will receive a newsletter containing more detail about this proposal from the parent council this week. Please make other parents aware that this is coming out (we would love it if everyone read this blog and subscribed to the mailing list but this isn’t the case) and take the time to read it.

There is a survey included in the newsletter to get feedback on this proposal. Please complete this and send it back to the Parent Council ℅ the school office. It you oppose this proposal it’s really important that we hear back from you.
Please email or write to the local councillors and MPs. Contact details are available on the downloads page.
Contact the parent council to let us have your views. A big response from parents would itself be a good message to send to Edinburgh Council.

Additional In-Service Days

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-06-07T20:58:17+01:00

You might recall that there was recently a consultation exercise on the additional in-service days proposed for Curriculum for Excellence. The Children and families department have announced that the additional In-Service days will be on 19 May 2010 and 25 May 2011. The school will therefore be closed to children on those dates.

These two dates have been added to the calendar on this website.

Steve Hodgson

Newsletter from the Parental Involvement Unit

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-05-15T21:44:27+01:00

The latest newsletter from the City of Edinburgh’s Parental Involvement Unit has just been issued and is now available on the downloads page.

Proposals for new new national body representing parents

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-04-16T20:25:08+01:00

Today’s edition of the The Herald carries an article and an editorial on proposals to set-up a new national body to give families a stronger voice on school issues. The proposals for a new body appear to have the backing of Scotland's education secretary, Fiona Hyslop. As one might expect, there have already been a number of alternative views expressed regarding this proposal from bodies that may be affected.

The Scottish Government will next invite representatives from all of Scotland's parent councils to attend a conference in June to discuss how they can make the creation of a national parent body a reality.

Steve Hodgson

European Elections

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-04-06T20:01:57+01:00

Trinity Primary will be shut for the European elections on 4 June 2009.

Steve Hodgson

P7 Show

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-04-06T20:01:09+01:00

The P7 show was held in Trinity Academy last week and all the Parent Council members who attended very much enjoyed it. Thanks to all the P7s who put on a great performance.

It was good to see so much self-confidence and enjoyment on show. Many thanks also to all the teachers and helpers for all their hard work.

Andrew MacMillan

Minutes of most recent meeting

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-03-13T08:33:12+00:00

Draft minutes of the most recent Parent Council meeting are available on the downloads page. These will be reviewed at the next meeting in May.

Steve Hodgson

Learning and Teaching Scotland

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-03-12T22:43:30+00:00

Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) provides advice, support, resources and staff development to the education community throughout Scottish education. They also have a daily email news service on education matters and you can subscribe to this by emailing enquiries@LTScotland.org.uk.

Steve Hodgson

FACe Newsletter

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-02-25T17:57:43+00:00

The latest issue of the FACe Newsletter is available on the families and Children website and may be of interest to you. The newsletter is available through the Edinburgh Council website.

The topics in this issue include a brief update on the proposed 2% budget cuts that have now been withdrawn, local youth forums, a charity supporting children who are troubled or unhappy at school and the proposal for additional in-service days starting this May.

You will have received a newsletter from the Parent Council, through the school, about the proposal for additional in-service days. Please be aware the the deadline for comments to be supplied as part of the consultation process is this Friday, 27th February. Comments may be sent directly to Graham Douglas at the Children & Families department or through the Parent Council email address. We will collate all responses and provide feedback to the council on this issue.

Steve Hodgson

Mailing List

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-02-12T18:14:48+00:00

To allow the parent council to communicate with all parents more rapidly, we have set-up a mailing list via Google Groups. It is possible to join this group by using the link at the bottom of the home page.

The benefit of this service is that it allows the council to communicate directly with parents who have signed-up, and this can be done more rapidly than is the case when printed material needs to be prepared and distributed via the school. We don’t anticipate that all parents will sign-up for this service so the Parent Council will continue to issue newsletters with updates on our activities.

The way a Google group works is that messages sent to the group are forwarded to all members. In practice this will probably mean that it will be used to send out mailings similar to the move to email that the school is undertaking. We would urge you to sign up for this initiative too as is uses less resources and also reduces the need to distribute material via school bags.

With Google groups, messages sent to the group are usually sent out to the whole membership so the Google email address is not the best one to use for feedback or queries. Those types of messages are best sent to mail@trinityparentcouncil.org.uk. At the moment the service does not allow all members to post messages but this may change if there is sufficient demand for this facility.

As always, your feedback and queries and welcome. Please email mail@trinityparentcouncil.org.uk.

Steve Hodgson

Additional In-Service Days

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-02-10T18:09:35+00:00

We have received a letter from the City of Edinburgh Council asking us to seek parents’ views on one additional In-Service day in each of the next 3 years. These have been proposed to aid the implementation of the new Curriculum for Excellence.

The days proposed are as follows:

Wednesday 20th May 2009

Wednesday 19th May 2010

Wednesday 25th May 2011

You may already be aware that there are number of holidays in May already for the May Day holiday and Victoria Day. There is currently an in-service day scheduled for Tuesday 19 May 2009 and this new proposed date may require that parents take an additional day of annual holiday to cover a three day break from the 18th to 20th of May this year.

Please let us have your views on this proposal and the proposed dates by 25 February 2009 by emailing us at mail@trinityparentcouncil.org.uk or by writing to Andrew Macmillan ℅ Trinity Primary School.

Steve Hodgson

Welcome

Steve Hodgson (hamrun@gmail.com) — 2009-02-09T18:24:23+00:00

This is the first post in a blog that will allow the Parent Council to provide more regular updates on parent council activities within the school and education matters effecting our children’s education. More formal material such as minutes of meetings and records of agendas is available already but this blog is intended to provide a less formal records of what is happening within the parent council.

The blog is also available as an RSS feed which means there is no need to check the page for updates - if you wish you can use an RSS reader and automatically see updates to this page. Subscribing to an RSS feed is simple. You may subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking the RSS icon at the side of this page. This link allows you to create a new subscription fed into software normally called a 'RSS Reader', 'Feed Reader' or 'Aggregator'. Usually an RSS reader is free software program running on a PC, such as RSSBandit (Windows), FeedDemon (Windows), NetNewsWire (Mac) and Thunderbird. You can also subscribe to RSS feeds on the Internet using Google Reader.

Please do provide us with feedback or queries on the website or on the blog content. We welcome any comments, suggestions or criticism you may have.

There always has to be a first blog post and this is it!

Steve Hodgson