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What's it all about?

The Scottish Executive has published proposals entitled "Making the difference - improving parents' involvement in schools". This draft Bill will replace School Boards with what the Scottish Executive describes as "more flexible and inclusive bodies to represent parents' views". These would be known as 'parent forums'. Each school would itself decide on the arrangements it wants for the parent forums. The parents at each school would decide how to appoint the members. There would be no more compulsory elections. Each parent forum would receive support from the education authority who could also assist with setting up the forums.

In summary:

You as a parent would have the right to:

- be directly involved in setting up a parent forum in your child's school in a form which reflects your wishes and preferences request and get advice and information from the local education authority on any matter relating to your child's school education
- complain to an education authority about how it carries out any of its duties in the new Bill.

Parents collectively (as the parent forum) would have the right to:

- be consulted on the education authority's Strategy for Parental Involvement
- be supported by their education authority
- have their voice and views listened to and responded to by the headteacher and education authority
- request and get information from the headteacher or education authority
- be consulted about schools' arrangements for consultation between parents and teachers
- continue to be involved with new appointments processes for headteachers and deputy headteachers.

Scottish School Boards were first set up in 1989 to bring together parents, teachers and members of the local community. School Boards are intended to encourage parents and others in the local community to co-operate with schools in the education of their children, and to provide a means for the expression of parents' interests and views. School Boards are consequently composed mainly of elected Parent Members, although Teacher Members play an active part, and others can be co-opted. Often the Headteacher will also attend Board meetings, though not as a member. School Boards have a number of rights under the law, including the right to raise matters with the school and the education authority, to receive advice and reports from the headteacher, to receive statements of the school's policies - and any changes to the policies - on the curriculum and assessment, discipline, rules and uniform, and to receive information from the Council about education in the area and schools expenditure. School Boards also have the right to veto the headteacher's proposals for spending on books and teaching materials, and to participate in the selection of senior promoted staff. In addition, Boards have a duty to promote contact between the school, parents and the community, to represent the views of parents to the school, and to report to parents at least once a year, and preferably more often.

The law relating to School Boards in Scotland is laid out in the School Boards (Scotland) Act 1988. A general description of the act, and information about how to order a copy can be found here and the text of the Act is now available on the internet here.

The full text of the Scottish Consumer Council's excellent 1990 booklet entitled Law of the School : School Boards is also available here by kind permission of the SCC and the HMSO. This is rather easier to understand than the legislation itself.

More recently, the powers of School Boards have been further amended by Sections 26-31 of the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Act 2000, which you can find here. The key provision of this legislation is to give School Boards an explicit responsibility to exercise their powers "with a view to raising standards of education in the school" and to "support the endeavours of those managing the school to secure improvement in the quality of education which the school provides".

The Scottish Executive publishes periodic reports on the operation of School Boards. Information about the November 2002 report is available here.

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