Membership
The number of members
The size of the Parent Council is not prescribed and it can be as large/small as parents think it needs to be in order to fulfil the Parent Council’s role. The size might also vary according to the size, nature and diversity of parents of pupils at the school. It is for the Parent Forum to decide the number of members on the Parent Council.
It is a good idea to allow for a range rather than a fixed number, eg to set a minimum number of five and a maximum number of say 20 members, rather deciding on a fixed membership of 12.
If you have a small Parent Council, there may not be enough people to do all the work; if you have a large Parent Council, it may be difficult to run the meetings. However, it is worth remembering that it is unlikely that Parent Council members will be able to attend every meeting, so whatever size the Council is, most meetings will have fewer people than this attending. If you only have a small number of parents involved at any time, use this as a platform to build on.
What your constitution might say
The membership will be a minimum of three parents of children attending the school. The maximum size is (insert a figure according to the size of the school and as agreed by members of the Parent Forum).
Who should/could be members and how should they be selected?
Parents
The starting point is that members of the Parent Council should be drawn from the parents, carers and guardians of pupils at the school.
The headteacher
The headteacher of the school has a right and a duty to attend meetings of the Parent Council, or to be represented. The headteacher can play an important role in advising the Parent Council on all issues relating to the work of the school and what it does to involve parents, as well as general education matters of interest to the Parent Council.
Church representatives
If your school is a denominational school, then you must invite the church or denominational body to nominate a representative to be co-opted onto the Parent Council. This will need to be provided for in the constitution.
Some questions to think about in selecting parents:
- How do you identify parents who want to join the Parent Council? For example, they could volunteer or be nominated by another parent.
- Who are the parents of the school and what are their particular needs? How can they be included in the Parent Council?
- Do you want to have a representative of each year group at the school?
- Do you want to have more than one representative per year group?
- Do you want to appoint substitutes, to ensure each group is always represented at Parent Council meetings even if one member is unable to attend?
- If there is a nursery in the school, should there be a parent from this group?
Once you have made decisions about these questions, you then have to decide how the members should be selected.
The process of selecting the Parent Council members:
- What methods for selecting the Parent Council would make it easy for all parents to take part in the selection process?
- Once the volunteers for the Parent Council have been identified, what happens if you get more volunteers than there are places available?
Some questions to think about:
- How do you make a decision about which parents join the Parent Council?
- Do you want to run an election?
- Do you want to put all the names in a hat and have a draw for the most successful candidates?
- Can you still involve those people who volunteered but were not chosen for the Parent Council - for example on sub-groups?
- How long should someone be a member for?
- Will you have methods for parents becoming members of the Parent Council at any point during the year if numbers fall away or if parents express an interest in getting involved?
What your constitution might say
The Parent Council will be selected for a period of (insert one/two/three year/s), after which they may put themselves forward for re-selection if they wish.
All the parents of children at the school can take part in the selection by post, text or email. Parents will have (insert figure agreed by Parent Forum) weeks to select their representatives.
Or: Any parents of a child at the school can volunteer to be a member of the Parent Council. In the event that the number of volunteers exceeds the number of places set out in the constitution, members will be selected by (insert chosen method of selection).
Anyone not selected to be a member of the Parent Council may be offered the opportunity to be part of any sub-groups set up by the Council.
Or: The Parent Council will be made up of two representatives from each year group who will be chosen by the parents of children in those year groups.
Are there other people you would like to include in your Parent Council?
In addition to parent members, the Parent Forum can decide to co-opt other members onto the Parent Council.
School staff - teaching and support staff
If the Parent Forum wishes, and the school staff are willing, it can invite school staff (both teaching and support staff) to join the Parent Council. This picks up on the 'whole school partnership' idea. However, you will want to ensure that parents remain in overall majority on the Parent Council. A Parent Forum could decide, for example, that they want their Parent Council to be made up of two thirds parent members and one third co-opted teacher members to strengthen partnership within the school.
If school staff agree to participate in the Parent Council, they may decide they simply want to nominate representatives. Alternatively, there could be an agreed rotation among staff.
Pupils
Parent Forums, in taking account of pupils' views, may wish to do so in the following ways:
- There could be liaison, formally and informally, between the Parent Council and the Pupil Council
- There could be pupil members on the Parent Council
- The Pupil Council and the Parent Council might have the chance to send representatives to each others' meetings and when it is appropriate.
Further ideas for involving pupils are provided in Section 4.
Other co-optees
The Parents’ Forum can decide to co-opt others in addition to teachers, pupils and support staff onto the Parent Council. There might be people who could bring a particular area of expertise and skills or someone might help develop strong links with the local community. Under School Board arrangements, co-optees were invited to join by the board. The Parent Forum can decide if this is still the best system.
You don’t always have to co-opt someone onto the Parent Council to benefit from their experience. The Parent Forum or Parent Council can decide to invite people with particular expertise to attend meetings as and when it is necessary.
If the Parent Forum decides to invite co-opted members to join the Parent Council, the arrangements for their involvement should be set out in the Parent Council constitution.
The Parent Forum will also need to think about how many co-opted places they want to provide and for how long co-optees will serve. Once again it will be important to consider the impact co-optees will have on the overall size of the Parent Council and on the balance of membership.
What your constitution might say
The Parent Council may co-opt up to (insert figure as agreed by members of the Parent Forum*) to assist it with carrying out its functions.
*If your school is a denominational school add: “of which at least one must be a member of the church or denominational body in whose interest the school is conducted”.
or
Two-thirds of the Parent Council will be made up of Parent Forum members and one-third of the membership will be reserved for other co-opted members including teaching and support staff in the school.
The number of parent members on the Parent Council must always be greater than co-opted members.
Co-opted members will be invited to serve for a period of [insert one/two/three year(s)], after which time the Parent Council will review and consider requirements for co-opted membership.
Do we need to have office bearers?
There is no requirement for Parent Councils to have office bearers although there are clear tasks that have to be done. For example meetings have to be chaired, agendas set, minutes taken and the finances managed so you might find it helpful to have some clear roles within the Parent Council. It is good practice to have office bearers in a group.
The Parent Forum can decide to have a Chair and the person who chairs any meeting must be a parent of a child at the school. There is scope for flexibility about how the role of the chair operates. The Parent Forum could decide to share the role of the Chair with each parent member taking a turn at chairing meetings of the Parent Council. The Parent Council can decide to appoint a Clerk to provide administrative support and look after the Parent Council’s financial accounts.
Questions for parents to think about
- Do we need office bearers?
- If so, which office bearers do we need?
- Do we want to have one chair of the Parent Council or do we want to share chairing meetings around parent members?
- Do we want the office bearers to be agreed by the Parent Council, or by the Parent Forum?
Depending on the way you choose to select your Parent Council members, the office bearers can be agreed at the same time. Alternatively, the members selected to the Parent Council could choose from among themselves who should be the office bearers until the next selection takes place. If the office bearers are to be chosen by the Parent Council members, you may wish to ask the headteacher, or an independent person, to chair that part of the meeting at which this is done to make sure it is fair.
You will want to think about what you would do if the child of a parent who chairs meetings no longer attends the school. If you have a vice-chair, he or she could act as chair for the time being, provided they were a member of the Parent Forum. Alternatively you could share the role of the chair amongst the parent members of the Parent Council until the annual general meeting.
What your constitution might say
If the Parent Forum decides to have office bearers:
The Chair, Secretary and Treasurer of the Parent Council will be appointed by the Parent Council members immediately following its formation.
or
Office bearers will be re-selected by the Parent Council on an annual basis (at the annual meeting of the Parent Forum).
If the Parent Forum decides to have a Chair:
The Parent Council will be chaired by a parent of a child attending Anytown School. If the child ceases to be a pupil, a new chair will be agreed at the next meeting.
or
If the child ceases to be a pupil, the role of the chair will be rotated around the parent members of the Parent Council until a new chair is appointed at the annual meeting.