Parent Councils play an active role in supporting parental involvement in the work and the life of the school, while also providing opportunities for parents to express their views on children’s education and learning.

The Parent Council, as a statutory body, has the right to information and advice on matters which affect children’s education. The school and the education authority must consult with the Parent Council and take their views into account whenever decisions are being taken on education provided by the school.

The Parent Council is a group of parents selected by members of the Parent Forum to represent all the parents of children at a school. Parent Councils are very flexible groups and the Parent Forum can decide on the type of group it wants to represent their views. Parents might decide they want a representative from each year group in the school. They might want to include pupils, other teachers at the school or parents from a feeder or secondary school. This flexibility allows parents to choose a Parent Council which reflects their school and will encourage parents to get involved.

The type of things a Parent Council could get involved in include:

• Supporting the work of the school
• Gathering and representing parents' views to the headteacher, education authority and HMIE
• Promoting contact between the school, parents, pupils, providers of nursery
• Fundraising
• Organising events
• Being involved in the appointment of senior staff.

The main features of Parent Councils are:

• The Parent Forum decides on the type of Parent Council and constitution that is right for the school.
• The Parent Council should establish a written constitution, detailing such information as aims, purposes, membership and meetings.
• Only parents of children at that school can be members of the Parent Council.
• The Parent Forum can agree that the Parent Council constitution allows other people to be co-opted onto the Parent Council of a denominational school.
• The Parent Council chair must be a parent of a child at that school.
• The headteacher or their representative has a right and a duty to attend Parent Council meetings, unless the parents and headteacher decide otherwise.
• Schools can choose to set up a Combined Parent Council which would cover more than one school.

 

Below are three videos in a series about Promoting Parental Partnerships. These videos were made by Learning and Teaching Scotland.

Learning outside school

Home/School Partnerships

Parent Councils

Parent Zone - a major resource for parents
Parent Councils - resources for parent councils
Parents - Get involved in your child's school
Parents - as partners in their children's learning
Parents - Scottish Schools online