Report from the Chair, Jane Jørgensen:
"Welcome to everyone, CESPA members and to the school management. This meeting is an anniversary in itself – the 25th meeting of its kind! And in those days there were no more than a handful of parents and staff. However I am pleased to say that from those days we now have two parents, two CESPA members who were pupils themselves. The father of one of these pupils was the first head of this school, Derrick Hurd.
I shall try to keep my report now as short as I can and please feel free to come back to me later in the evening! I shall introduce those here at the front only briefly now but ask them to say a little more when we reach the election stage – a key reason for us all being here tonight!
Introductions…
When I took on the Chairmanship of CESPA 2 years ago I did so secure in the knowledge that I had a great and supportive team behind me. One of the things that I wish before anything else to say today is that that has remained the case – thank you! That aspect alone – that teamwork has proved invaluable.
So what about the year 2002/3!
Tonight I am here to review the year but I hope that you will forgive me if occasionally I refer to the past two years. Many of you may already know I have regretfully decided to step down this year and concentrate on some specific areas for CESPA, for families of this school that is! Therefore I cannot help but look back at some of the areas that this committee has focused upon for the past two years – where relevant that is!
As ever another year of highs and lows – some minor and some more dramatic (who will forget the Emergency Closure of the school last November when we had an electrical "scare" – a really good example of teamwork).
And for me again this year – sorry to be repetitive it was the same last year - the highest – and most emotional point – has been Bac ceremony. If I feel that emotional when others children are involved I cannot imagine what it will be like when they are mine! Anyway it is on that day that one sees this school and the education given to our children at its best and makes all the hard work – of teachers probably more than the rest of us – so worth it!
We have represented parents on all the usual committees – health and safety, conseils, etc. We have organised the Lost Property room, run the almost year old Primary Resource Centre. We have had helpful discussions regarding improvements in the canteen and transport where we have proved that the entire school community can at least share issues even if not solve them. I should especially complement our Transport Action Group (Marie and Maurizio leaders of same) for their work with the Ministry of Transport and Local Council regarding school transport issues – they have won "us" 5 days of free transport consultancy – let’s see what suggestions it brings forward.
Hanne Starling who organises the Extra Curricular Activities for us is not here tonight, she sends her apologies – we have given her a well deserved evening off! She continues to run tremendously successful activities for us – more than 440 pupil places this year (a 22% increase on last year). She has ever more swimming slots at the White Horse Leisure Centre to cope with the constant demand. She is always on hand (or at the end of a phone) to answer your queries. Thanks to Hanne.
Béatrice Munn has to be thanked for the Déjeuner Français and Deutsche Mittagpause initiatives – now into their second year and with the support and co-operation of parents, teachers and school management (thank you Miss Boyle!) this informal lunchtime session for conversation in L2 French and German has become a much appreciated part of the informal Primary school week for some of the 5th years – and is to be extended further down by a year I understand.
Another bumper fundraising year – Martina will tell us more about that later this evening but we will be looking for ways to spend this money and ask for your suggestions under Any Other Business.
The Website – a lot of hard work from a few people but now we have a fully fledged and useful CESPA website – huge thanks are due to Gill Brook our secretary in particular. See boards, take a card if you have not done so already.
Smoking and Drug Policy docs – these are areas where I take a particular interest because 3 years ago I helped form a Parents working group in response to the school initiatives regarding a Drug Policy document. Most important for me at least was the need for changes to the then school policy regarding Smoking. I am pleased to say that Smoking for pupils has now been phased out. As of this September there is no longer a smokers’ corner – at least an official one!
The Bullying Policy is under review at the moment and parents are represented within the group taking on this task.
The CESPA parents questionnaire of last spring, again a lot of hard work for a few with Martina Kaupp-Roberts, our Treasurer shouldering the burden, and continuing despite a fire in a post box destroying a ¼ of our blanks. You all worked hard as well – more than a 50% response rate was tremendous – thank you. Again copies to be seen on the boards and the results will be published in Europarent next issue as well as appearing on the web. The resultant statistics have already proven very useful in the area of support for this school in the investigation of how and where it will go into the longer term future.
And what of the longer term future:-
You will find an article in the next issue of Europarent which attempts to describe the current situation for the ES as it affects Culham. Please can I attempt to précis it here!
Most of you may know that the school was founded in 1978 to secure the education of the children of the employees of JET (Category 1). Hence the 25th anniversary!
In May this year, in response to a European Parliament Resolution of December 2002, the Board of Governors of the ES agreed to set up new Working Groups that would look into Future aspects of the ES. NB these Parliamentary initiatives ask the ES to look into the costs and organisation of the ES system in light of forthcoming EU enlargement.
Two apply to the system in general: I – Financial restructuring, II – Investigation of the wider availability of the European Baccalaureate (EB).
Another set of groups has been created on a school level for each "small school": Bergen, Mol, Karlsruhe and Culham, all schools with a low Category 1 (EU officials’ children) pupil numbers.
The brief for these 4 school Working Groups is "To conduct an evaluation of the situation of these schools and to report to the Board of Governors regarding the school’s continuing viability in the context of the decision of Oct 2000."
CESPA is pleased to be represented on the Working Group, ENB and JJ. We see this not simply as a challenge but as a great opportunity to give the ES Culham a sustainable future in the long-term.
Our first meeting for Culham took place here on 30th September. At the meeting the senior EC representative was frank when outlining the EC's concerns regarding the low Cat 1 numbers but genuine when she spoke of her desire and support to find a method of "transforming" Culham.
Two further meetings are already scheduled for November and December because all 4 small school Working Groups have been asked to present their conclusions to the Board of Governors at its meeting in January 2004. It is for this forum to debate the long-term solutions to the situation of all 4 small schools.
Phew – lots of Brussels speak there – but I feel sure that we will return to this later in the meeting.
Brussels now though leads me to briefly refer to the latest situation that I understand with regard to Cat 3 fees.
Fees – we were none of us happy to hear of the proposals in Brussels to make significant and abrupt changes to the fee increase plan for Category 3 parents (the bulk of Culham parents!). Parents, teachers, school heads were all against such large increases arriving from one year to the next. However despite all this went ahead and we can see that the intention now for the next three years will be to increase the fees again by about 11% + EU inflation rate. This will be discussed by the Board of Governors next week. Parents are not happy about this and the Interparent ES "umbrella" group of all the PA’s will make strong representation that this ongoing fee increase proposal in advance of other funding and structural system changes is a cause of grave concern to us all. We will continue to voice disquiet from Culham on these matters.
That has really brought us up to date and at this point I must stop speaking and leave the floor to you all and to the management who have so kindly joined us here tonight. Please can I take this last opportunity to say to everyone here (and include in that some who cannot be or are not here tonight) that it has been a great privilege serving you the parents of this school as CESPA Chair for the last 2 years. I would like to thank you as well as the committee for supporting me. I cannot say that every moment has been fun, there have been some less fun times but it has been very rewarding and challenging with plenty of time for laughs along the way.
And finally I would like to thank the school management for their help and support and interest in all that we and I have been doing and sharing. I have enjoyed a very good and close working relationship – thank you!
I would now like to invite all here this evening to present any questions that they may have for the school management who will be with us now for about an hour. My intention is to try and see that all wishing to have a chance to speak do so and therefore I shall sometimes intervene to shorten Question and/or Answer – you have been warned!
We shall elect the new committee after this – if you wish to add a written nomination to those we have already we have more copies of the nomination form at the front of the hall."
JJ/14.10.03
