Summary of Office Bearer Roles and Co-opted Roles: Key Responsibilities

Elected Office Bearers

Chair

Chairs Parent Council meetings (6 per year) and AGM.

  • Ensures good governance of the organisation.
  • Oversees Parent Council funding applications including managing a transparent funding process ensuring compliance with all guidelines and adherence to insurance requirements.
  • Acts as initial point of contact for other members of the community or external organisations and liaises with other Parent Councils / umbrella organisations to share best practice and collaborate on areas of mutual interest.
  • Acts as primary point of contact between the Parent Council and school Head/SMT, external stakeholders (including CEC Councillors and Officers), wrap around care providers and the local community.
  • Attends the regular Locality meetings (or appoints depute) and when relevant the CCwP and Education & Families Committees.
  • Provides regular updates to the parent community on broad education issues identified at above meetings.
  • Welcomes new families and explains the role and function of the PC at the P1 introduction meeting in June and August and as agreed with school SMT.
  • Liaises with the media (very occasionally)
  • Acts as second authoriser for financial payments (as required).
  • Oversees the production of independently verified accounts in a timely fashion for the AGM.

Vice Chair 

  • Deputises for the Chair where necessary on above activities.

Secretary

  • In liaison with the Chair, sets dates for the Parents Council meetings (6 per annum) and the AGM.
  • Drafts agenda for each meeting/ AGM and liaises with the Comms Officer to distribute these to all Parents/Carers at Bruntsfield Primary.
  • Writes-up minutes for each meeting and liaises with the Comms Officer to distribute these to all Parents/Carers.
  • Oversees any changes to the constitution as required.
  • Ensures relevant spaces/ venues are in place for Parent Forum activities.
  • Acts as second authoriser for financial payments if required.
  • Supports the Chair person with funding applications where required.

Treasurer (Events)

  • Keeps a record of income and expenditure.
  • Arranges floats for events.
  • Banks the takings from events.
  • Settles expenses by cheque eg reimburse parents who purchase equipment for an event.
  • Arrange payment for funded projects or purchases supported by the parent council/ community (eg playground maintenance, Primrose Fund, and approved funding applications).
  • Liaises with the external accountant who prepares the yearly consolidated accounts.
  • Reports to the Parent Council at Parent Council meetings.

Comms Team (Co-opted)

The Comms Team advertises PC events and activities across all our channels, liaising closely with the working groups to ensure consistent communication.

Class Reps

  • Facilitates dialogue and conversation among the class reps.
  • Updates and maintains class reps and office bearers contact list and makes this available to reps as well as to office bearers.
  • Gathers monthly feedback from the class reps.
  • Emails raised issues to the headteacher and PC office bearers for preliminary responses, which are communicated to the reps via the Google Doc. Where necessary, these responses will also be addressed or further elaborated in the Headteacher’s Blog or at the meeting proper and, in turn, in the resulting minutes.
  • Liaises with Communications and Events Coordinators to circulate relevant messages to parents via the class reps.

Newsletter

  • Maintains the PC Mailing List and MailerLite account.
  • Sends out newsletters and updates to the PC mailing list as required.
  • Acts as a general point of contact for the PC, passing any specific enquiries on to the relevant PC members.

Website 

Manages the content for the PC website, including:

  • Regularly updating News, Key Dates, Events pages as and when new information arises (Clubs Tech Support manages the Clubs pages). 
  • Uploading information for each PC meeting to the website, including the agenda and any supporting documents, in liaison with the PC Chair and Secretary.
  • Liaising with the Special Interest Sub Groups to upload new content/ create new pages as and when required. 
  • Making sure the rest of the website is kept up to date, e.g. if anything changes.

Note: This is not a tech role. You need to be familiar with using WordPress, or an equivalent CMS, but no web development experience beyond that is required.

Facebook

  • Manages the Bruntsfield PS Parent Community Facebook page.

Graphics 

Working Group Reps (Co-opted)

Each working group nominates a rep, who has a vote on the Parent Council.

Regular Voting Members

As well as elected or co-opted office bearers, the Parent Council also includes a number of regular members. The number varies depending on the number of co-opted office bearers and whether any of the office bearer roles are shared, but there are usually between 12 and 14 regular member. We strive to have at least one Regular Member from each year group.

Like all Parent Council members, Regular Members have the right to vote on any funding applications, and they generally try to attend meetings (of which we have two per term) to ensure we are quorate.

Regular Members also have the opportunity, depending on their interests, to:

  • Represent the Parent Council at community or locality meetings
  • Take a lead on special interest sub groups
  • Deputise for officer bearers
  • Help shape our annual events programme and fundraising activities

The time commitment for Regular Members can be as little as an hour a month, or more depending on your interests and how much you want to be involved. If you’d like to be more at the pulse of the Parent Forum, but feel you can’t commit to an office bearer role, then becoming a regular voting member may be perfect for you!

Last updated: 25 October 2024