Parent forums

[Koolkingkong]

Hi, has anyone any experience of setting up or belonging to a parent forum or school council? Is it helpful? What are the pitfalls? Any tips?!! Any info gratefully received!! Thanks

I was a member of the Parents Forum that the school set up. It was handy for being in the know for gossip and chatting to other parents. But basically it was a box-ticking / going through the motions exercise so the school could claim that they communicated with parents or summat like that.

I have just become a member today.
There was nothing much to see and there is nothing to allow an anonymous name, it's a small school and I wouldn't want people to identify me as asking the stupid questions. You have to log in and immediately your name is displayed.

If you could have nn like here I can see how it would work as all schools are different. Sometimes, you just need the right information.

Oh, what sort of forum are we talking about? I was talking about physical bodies in a conference room, not an internet thing.

Oh, sorry it's me. I've only ever heard of internet forums.

What Senua said, not useless but not highly useful either. It didn't suit me because I had to bring a toddler.

Thanks, thinking of setting one up!! Basically school communication is pretty poor and having met a few parents for the first time at a sports event last term, despite DS having been there for two years, seems they feel pretty similar, so guess I'm looking for support in numbers and a way of linking parents (who would like to). There is a PTA but it's just for fundraising rather than dealing with "issues". I was thinking there's should be some kind of online link too as obviously we are all busy and to physically get to meetings (especially with younger kids) can be a bit of a nightmare. I have a meeting with the Head next week to discuss. But I want it to be parent led rather than controlled by school but want it to be a positive thing rather than some school bitching group if that makes sense. Thanks for feedback - generally looking to do research on how best to move forward.

Under the Education and Inspection Act 2006, schools have "a duty to consider parental representations" so you are pushing at an open door. Whether the school takes any notice of or acts on the representation is entirely another matter.
Good luck!

Sorry, jumping in, does anyone know whether schools legally have to have parental representation among their governors? Can schools have a policy of no parent (or teacher) governors?

As far as I'm aware they do - have a look at the guidance on DfE - look at publications

Yes (answering OP) - I've been involved in parent forums in 3 different schools (well, 4 if you count the one when I was a teacher rep - the other 3 were 3 schools my dc attended).

All quite different.
All valuable.
There is no point though, unless you have a senior manager there who can
a) take ideas from parents back for discussion and
b) explain to parents why the school does something this way, or isn't able to do something that way.

Some have 'reps' - perhaps one per class - I presume that must be where there are a lot of keen parents. All the ones I've been on, every parent is entitled to attend, but it ends up with half a dozen, unless there has just been a controversial change or OFSTED report when they swell to about 45 people turning up.

The Primary school one used to have one each half term, on a rotating basis of 9am (once dc had gone in to school but you were up there anyway), then the next meeting was at 2pm (so finishing as the dc came out), then the next one was at 6pm so folk who work outside the home can come.

The (better) secondary one also did a lot by e-mail - only people who had shown some interest, but it was helpful when you could only make occasional meetings.

I think all were useful to some degree.