1. Denby Dale First and Nursery School Parents Forum Meeting 10 th March 2016

2. Welcome  What is a Parents’ Forum?  What would it do?  What can’t it do?  Discussion – our school  Next Steps

3. What is a Parents’ Forum?  Parents meet once a term  Talk about issues chosen by parents (e.g. homework, sport, travel to school, bullying)  Share ideas  Link to Governing Body and School Leadership Team  Gives parents a voice – contribute to decisions

4. What would a Parents’ Forum Do?  Improve children’s learning – children learn better if parents and families are involved in school  Improve communication between parents and school  Build our school community – ways of working together  Tackle things we would like to make better

5. What about….?  PTA?  Fund Raising  Social Events  Parent Governors?  Strategic – Overview  Not day to day issues  “Insider knowledge”

6. What Can’t a Parents’ Forum Do?  It’s not a magic wand - - we still have limited resources  We can’t talk about individual children – confidentiality  BUT- we could achieve a lot by working together!

7. Discussion  What do we like about our school?  What would we like to change or improve?  What new things would we like to see?

8. Parents’ Forum or Parents’ Council? Parents’ Forum  Less formal  Any parent or carer can attend  Could be different people each time – less continuity Parents’ Council  More formal  Representatives from each year group attend each meeting  Continuity and responsibility

9. Discussion  Which option do you prefer?  What would be your top three topics to discuss at a future meeting?  More information: www.parentcouncils.co.uk