Woollahra Public School   P&C Association

Meeting Agenda     

13 May 2008             8:00 – 9:00pm           Staff Room

1          Welcome   /   Apologies

 2          Attendees – please sign the book

 3          Confirmation of previous minutes - unavailable

 4          Business arising

 5          Reports

5.1 Principal’s report from acting principal, Ross Newman:

- Two new teachers this term are: Petra Armstrong who replaces Michael Jones. Petra has worked with gifted and talented children and music experience. The second is Dave Halloran, who is replacing Ms Wicks in year 1, and also has music experience.

- School Hall: There were 10 submissions received and forwarded to the government architects. Commencement date for the hall has been moved from July 08 to early 09.

- Synthetic turf in the bottom playground is being enjoyed by students. Sand is yet to settle in. Cost was $27,000 including preparation.

- ‘Nat Plan’ tests have started for years 3-5. These replace state-based tests, and also inform school strategies by identifying weak areas.

- May 26-30 is Education week: Activities include Tuesday & Wednesday, choir will sing at East Gardens shopping centre.

Wednesday – Principal for a day is an executive of Fairfax  who will talk to kids about the media industry, and classrooms will be open to parents about 12 noon.

Thursday is sport and again parents are invited to attend.

Friday, the school’s 2 bands will play at East Garden and dance groups will attend the regional dance festival.

5.2 Treasurer – treasurer unavailable; report held over

6          Other Items

6.1 Parents Cocktail Party & Fundraiser:

This event raised  about $15,500. Many thanks go to organiser Kate Kelly, Bill Granger and Natalie Eliott, Mary Ellen Bard, Angus Corbett and Ken Butterfield and many, many others.

6.2 Riding a bike to school (Stefan Jarnason):

A national program which encourages children to ride to school by providing information and resources could be used to encourage cycling to WPS. WPS hasn’t so far encouraged it because of local traffic safety issues and lack of space for bike storage, but it is a healthy option compared with driving to school and would at least keep some cars away. Students are allowed to ride on the footpath and would need a parent to accompany them. Stephan will get the information and circulate it and pursue the idea with Cliff Hoey. It was suggested that parents who were interested in children cycling could be offered relatively safe routes from different areas.

6.3 Playground safety:

– loose stones (Arlene Cochrane). Milton will be asked to tidy the loose stones in the bottom playground

- Also  precarious branches (Nicole Abadee) are a problem and could be better maintained. It was suggested that P&C could fund an arborist and arborist’s checks could be most valuable if timed just before the beginning of each term. Nicole will get some arborist’s prices and also liaise with Woollahra Council.

6.4 Soft Drinks at school fundraising events (Jessica Whyte) – re school and wider community functions (eg election fairs) and also the annual fundraising Year 6 drink stand.   Jessica and  others have researched health values ( eg sugar, preservative, colouring, added Vit C content) of some drinks which could be alternatives to soft drinks.

For the Year 6 drink stand, she suggests getting Year 6 more involved in creating the drinks for sale by making their home-made lemonade, slushies using juices  and without high levels of colours and preservatives and sugar . Commercial juicing machines were considered but at a cost of about $2,000 each for good models and, with potential problems resulting from infrequent use or insufficient cleaning, were  decided to be unsuitable for a handful of school events a year. Perhaps parents could loan juicers for a day?

For events generally, Jessica’s group found bottled water, and milk and sparkling apple juice with low-sugar/colour/preservatives or other additives were preferable to soft drinks. The common popper-pack brands juices were found to be full of flavours, preservatives and useless added Vit C. Offering soft drinks at occasional, wider community events such as election fairs would leave the school with the problem of leftovers – which would not still be good by the time of the next community event. Points which were brought up by the meeting included:

- soft drinks do not make any more money than any other drinks sold at these events

- parents should be able to take control here

- children need to have a few occasions where they choose and learn to make healthy choices

- children have faith in the school and what it teaches and so the school needs to model the right choices. If the school encourages soft drinks at any events it is sending mixed messages to kids who learn one thing in class (re nutrition) and something else – contradictory - at the drinks stand at school events.

- Soft drinks go against the DET’s Healthy Choices program

- the school and the P&C needs to show leadership and reinforce what is taught about nutrition in class

Bronwyn Ridgeway moved that the meeting vote on a trial, for one year, of not selling soft drinks at all events held at the school including wider community events. In favour 8; against 6; a handful abstained.

6.5 Damp under kindergarten building (Charlotta Ward) – not covered

 6.6 Before School care – (Deborah *) and Vacation Care (Nicole Wright)

Some parents need before school care before 8.30 drop-off time. At 8 am there are at least a dozen children at WPS unsupervised, which is a liability for the school and unfair to kids. Points raised were:

-          Woollahra After School Care (run by Camp Australia0 needs a minimum of about 30 kids before it is viable to run before-school care. The last survey was about 2 years ago

-           before-school care could be specialised activities. Clovelly school has a different languages taught every week morning before school

-          Space could be a problem for some activities such as art classes

-          Nutrition needs to be considered if kids are leaving home at 7 to get here at 8 and recess is not until 11 am – parents would need to send an extra snack with their children.

-          Activities could be organised by P&C - the less administration by the school the better

It was decided a survey would ask parents what was wanted – including times and whether Camp Australia’s services were needed or activities/lessons.

Vacation Care (Nicole Wright)

Many parents are stuck for child care at holiday time; in my child’s class alone, 14 of 20 parents were interested in vacation care. Camp Australia says 15-20 kids per day would make it feasible. Schools such as Clovelly include excursions for $39 a day.

It was agreed that the survey on Before-school care also include Vacation Care needs. The survey should be done through the following avenues:

-          class parents

-          in hard-copy newsletter

 on P&C web site

 6.7 After school activities (Alice Evans)

Few are offered at WPS though it’s a really big school. Acting principal, Ross Newman, advised that WPS adopted a policy of few after-school activities due to lack of space. Camp Australia has use of Chisholm Hall in case of rain as well as its usual space, and there is drama one afternoon a week. The school would be happy to look at it again when the new hall is built in a couple of years.

 6.8 New School Hall – see principal’s report

 7          Correspondence

Mitchell Rice Brady is representing  WPS at the AFL carnival this weekend at a cost of $160. Sari Lemmetty moved that the P&C pay the $160 cost – seconded by Bronwyn Ridgeway.

 8          Other business

 9          Next meeting

Tuesday 10 June     6:45 – 8:00 pm Community Forum followed by 8:00 – 9:00 pm P&C Meeting