Just In: Letter tonight to those who attended the meeting last Monday and for those who couldnt attend: Dear interested parents and carers and others, Thank you for attending the meeting on Monday the 13th January. We know from all your comments that you found the meeting informative and helpful. Since our meeting things have moved on at a pace as parents will know. We left the meeting with a decision to compile a list of questions to put to the school and to the governors. see the questions below: Carl Morris then took our questions to the Head and reported back on his meeting which wasnt very constructive to say the least. We also delivered the request to the Governors at the school asking for a parental delegation. We have not had any acknowledgement of our request or any response. On Thursday Carl received a response from the Head teacher (see to follow) which in sum said there was no need to answer the questions or to respond to our meeting. It was however relayed that the Governors would be making the final decision. On Friday we were delivered letters to say that 91% of those who have responded have opted in to the scheme and therefore the scheme will go ahead. We cannot properly express our feelings on this.... We have sent out the public response and as of tonight we have had 340 people viewing this post! As concerned parents we are shocked and dismayed at the news that Prince Henrys has today written to parents advising that the controversial iPad scheme will be implemented with immediate effect. Such a rush to implement this scheme is disrespectfully dismissive of the many genuine concerns of parents about the educational value and financial suitability of such a scheme for our childrens education. (see the list of questions sent to the school in a previous post and unanswered.) We as parents and indeed the local community desperately want to see Prince Henrys Grammar School continue to thrive as a successful and high ranking secondary school. Our school was founded in 1607 and is at the heart of our community and as such the concerns of so many parents shouldnt be dismissed offhand. We understood that the governors would make a final decision and had requested a meeting before they did. This was yesterday. Today the decision has been taken. We still think there is merit in meeting with the governors to express our concerns. The genuine concerns of us as parents will not simply disappear with the introduction of this scheme. We are now considering next steps to ensure those parents can make a considered and coordinated response without feeling pressured or fear that their children will be left out. where to now: once we have gotten over the shock of the imposition: •We intend to continue with a parental delegation. Even though the decision has been taken we believe it is important to speak to the governors about our concerns. •We will do a Freedom of Information Request to try to get the answers to the questions we have asked and in particular to understand when and how these decisions have been taken •We will hold another public meeting if you feel it necessary for you to answer the many questions that need to be answered. How can you as a parent respond to this imposition and what are your options and what if anything can we do collectively? •Importantly we think it is important that those who are undecided and opposed to the scheme are able to understand the options available to them and so we feel a need to discuss this as parents of concern. Do you feel such a meeting would be helpful? if so we are suggesting Wednesday 29th January at 7pm at the Otley Social Club again. Your views? Please send any comments and replies here. To follow are the list of questions and the response from PGHS In postscript : Mum asked Mollie of Look North what she felt about it and she said: Mum we lost to which Mum said No we didnt darling, we stood up for what was right. Yours, on behalf of the PHGS Parents for Democracy. Public Meeting 13.01.14 Questions for Prince Henrys Grammar School Management and Governors •The following are a list of questions posed by the public meeting held on the 13th January 2014. It was clearly requested that the school understand that as parents and carers we have our children’s education first and foremost in mind and feel that further information is required to make a considered decision. The meeting expressed a concern that we didn’t want to be perceived as trouble makers or for our children to be somehow affected by the concerns that we are expressing. It was felt that the consultation to date didn’t offer a real opportunity to question the proposed scheme’s merits and that further consultation should be provided. It was also requested that the school governors meet with a delegation from the meeting to discuss these questions further. 1.1. e-learning foundation: 1.1. What contributions does the e-learning foundation provide? 1.2. What is the administration fee for the e-learning foundation? 1.3. What guarantee is there about the sustainability of the e-learning foundation? 1.4. Does e-learning provide the equipment or the funds to buy the equipment or do they only act to facilitate the payments? 1.2. IT Equipment: 2.1. Why iPads as opposed to other devices? 2.2. Why iPad 2 as opposed to other models of iPad? 2.3. What applications will be used? Please list those already identified as likely to be used? 2.4. What training and resources have been given to the IT department and teachers? 2.5. How will ipads be integrated into schemes of learning (please provide some specific examples)? 2.6. How will the school ensure there are sufficient backup tablets? 2.7. Will the school be able to support the additional network provision necessary to have all these additional devices logging into the network? 2.8. Has the school increased resources in the IT department including staffing? 2.9. Has the school developed a platform that allows personalisation, monitoring, feedback, early intervention etc? 1.3. Finance matters: 3.1. Please explain the business model and provide indicative detailed calculations. 3.2. What is the breakdown of cost for each £360 ipad (including the cost price per ipad)? 3.3. Are these ipads being purchased directly from Apple and will the school receiv a bulk-buy discount for purchasing such a large number? 3.4. What does the insurance scheme for each ipad cover (i.e., type of damage or loss) and will the insurance cover the ipad outside of the school premises? 3.5. What happens if an ipad is damaged and needs repairing? 3.6. Are there any deadlines that the school has to commit to in relation to the commencement of this scheme? 3.7. Why has the school sent direct debit forms out already? 3.8. What provision is made for those who are on variable pay or do not have bank accounts? 3.9. What will happen to those who opt-in but are unable to make payments at a later date? 3.10. What will happen to a child in Year 9 who opts in to the scheme now but leaves at the end of Year 11 (i.e., so is not present at the school for the full three years of the scheme)? 1.4. Gift Aid Scheme: 4.1. There are recommendations from e-learning about ensuring this complies with the gift aid scheme that do not appear to have been followed. How can the school ensure that the gift aid rules are applied so as to comply with the HMRC guidelines? Specifically the elearning guidance says the school should allow the devices to be available and to take these home regardless of capacity or willingness to contribute. 4.2. If contributions are voluntary what action if any will be taken if parents make only a nominal contribution? 4.3. Is there a right to fundamentally object to the scheme but also to opt in if the scheme goes ahead? 1.5. Consultation: 5.1. Why was there no representative from the school at the public meeting on the 13th January 2014 when the school was invited to send one? 5.2. Has there been consultation with the primary schools in the area? And if so, what was the nature of this consultation? 5.3. Has consultation occurred with teachers and what were the results? 1.6. Health and safety: 6.1. What risk assessments have been conducted and what were the results? 6.2. Has the school considered their obligations in relation to DSE Health and safety requirements such as employers are required to? 6.3. What other health and safety implications have been considered? 6.4. What security issues have been considered? 6.5. Will there be a secure lock-up area at the school for ipads when not being used? 6.6. Has the school consulted the police about security implications? 1.7. Research: 7.1. What are the results of the trial that took place at PHGS? 7.2. What research has been drawn upon (please provide specific references)? 7.3. What case histories have been considered? 7.4. It has been suggested that tablets are great for accessing content, but creating or writing material is more suitable with a desktop or laptop. Shouldn’t the ethos of the school be about helping them become creative producers rather than passive consumers? 7.5. Activate Instruction is a free programme in North America where schools have jointly developed a learning platform that allows teachers to personalise work for students using laptops, tablets and PCs. Anyone in the world can use this, is PHGS aware of this programme (or similar ones)? 1.8. What is the take up to date?: 8.1. How many parents have returned their initial forms? 8.2. How many have not yet returned their forms? 8.3. How many has the school telephoned to get a response? 8.4. How many have opted in? 8.5. How many have opted out? 8.6. How many have said they need to or will pay less than the suggestion donation of £10per month? 8.7. How many are yet to return their forms or provide a response? 8.8. What is the exact number of opting in needed to go ahead with the scheme? 8.9. What provision has been made if either parent/ carer has a different view from the other? 8.10. Will parents who opted out have an opportunity to opt in if the scheme goes ahead (i.e., to prevent their child being marginalised)? 8.11. Do parents and carers with more than one child in KS3 get counted more than once when determining uptake? 8.12. How will the school handle children who transfer to the school after the inception of the scheme? STATEMENT FROM CARL MORRIS FOLLOWING HIS MEETING WITH THE MANAGEMENT OF PHGS 15.01.14: Hello everyone. I just want to update you on the meeting I had with Ms Sheriff and Deputy Headteacher Mr Rowbottom this afternoon. Can I first say that I very much went with an olive branch and a positive how can we work together attitude. This has been a difficult past few weeks, but I strongly feel we need to find a way to avoid tensions being inflamed even more. We may disagree with how the school has handled this, but it helps nobody if we cant find a way to work constructively with them now and in the future. Ive presented the list of questions to the school and asked them to provide full and detailed answers - I hope they might be able to allay some of your concerns by answering these questions. Leonie will share the final list of questions with you all later. Not much of substance came from the meeting - they didnt want to share where theyre at with the current opt-in rate, but hopefully other questions will be answered when they look at the list. They did state that parents will be given another opportunity to opt-in if the scheme does go ahead. Lets see what happens now. It seems that the governors will make the final decision, so the idea of a parental delegation to the governors is even more important if you feel that your concerns have not been taken on board. I hope this has done something to help matters... its really tough with such a controversial and important issue where people feel strongly on both sides of the debate!! PUBLIC STATEMENT FROM PHGS PARENTS FOR DEMOCRACY 17.01.14 1. As concerned parents we are shocked and dismayed at the news that Prince Henrys has today written to parents advising that the controversial iPad scheme will be implemented with immediate effect. Such a rush to implement this scheme is disrespectfully dismissive of the many genuine concerns of parents about the educational value and financial suitability of suc...h a scheme for our childrens education. (see the list of questions sent to the school in a previous post and unanswered.) We as parents and indeed the local community desperately want to see Prince Henrys Grammar School continue to thrive as a successful and high ranking secondary school. Our school was founded in 1607 and is at the heart of our community and as such the concerns of so many parents shouldnt be dismissed offhand. We understood that the governors would make a final decision and had requested a meeting before they did. This was yesterday. Today the decision has been taken. We still think there is merit in meeting with the governors to express our concerns. The genuine concerns of us as parents will not simply disappear with the introduction of this scheme. We are now considering next steps to ensure those parents can make a considered and coordinated response without feeling pressured or fear that their children will be left out.
Posted on: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 23:04:59 +0000
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