Thanks to all the class reps who participated on the 21 October in the first Class Reps meeting of this year. To prepare for it, we launched a call for questions and received 5 pages of questions! It was naturally not possible to answer them all, but the APEEE1 has asked the school for responses to them all and we share them with you in the document at the bottom of the article. The meeting was able to cover various issues: new policy on behaviour, canteen, policy on drugs, infrastructure and transport.
New policy on behaviour. With the escalation mechanism, School rules and weekly meeting with primary and support coordinators the school is confident that these measures would adequately address incidents. Additionally, more supervisors were allocated in the canteen, corridor and playground and sport teachers were also allocated in the playground to provide additional assistance to supervisors. Some incidents of bullying are still nevertheless being reported and parents were looking forward to some reporting on the issue.
Canteen. Class representatives suggested various possible improvements to the current organization of the canteen, including noise reduction panels, for example. It must be borne in mind that some of the changes/improvements would involve a price increase and this goes against many parents’ expectations in this respect. With respect to the sugar level of the deserts served in the canteen, parents were informed that menus are elaborated in respect of the Luxembourg ministry recommendations – and only 2 sweet deserts are offered every 16 meals. The current service provider will be serving the school for the next 3 years.
Policy on drugs. This topic was considered of utmost importance. The parents would like to have more concrete information on what the school policy on drugs is, what kind of measures are taken (police raids, locker sweeps, etc) and how culprits are dealt with. APEEE has directed parents to the Memorandum for parents (secondary section) for more information and confirmed that students caught are sent in front of the school’s disciplinary committee, which has a range of measures and sanctions that can be taken depending on the severity of the case. In a case that took place last year, the police were informed and a criminal investigation was conducted. As drug dealing is done off campus, the school regularly calls the police to do rounds. The school is working with the police and a specialized NGO called “Impuls” to revise its policy. APEEE1 will continue to discuss this issue in the context also of a general policy for the school on how to deal with, and communicate, tragic events to the school community.
Infastructure & Transport. The school will not revise their decision on closing ¨fishbowl¨. A possibility would therefore be to have parents volunteering to supervise the children for the 10 minutes between 8am and 8h10, official opening time of the school. The school might then be able to provide a space, possibly the playground, for this supervision to take place. Class representatives also discussed the current situation of the morning school access. It was commonly agreed that the behaviour of some of the drivers together with the arrival of a majority of pupils taking place within a 20 min time span participate in the heavy traffic every morning. Additionally, an increased number of illegal parking and stops in front of the school instead of using the possibilities offered around the school (Drop-off lane / Konrad Adenauer parking / Coque parking) is witnessed. In this respect, the importance of respecting parking and road traffic rules during those periods could not be more emphasized, not only to avoid accidents but also to better inform the root causes. Finally, APEEE1 was pleased to confirm that the Ville de Luxembourg bus timetable has been adapted (except for bus 83), from 1 November, to accommodate the new primary start time.
We would like to encourage parents to attend conferences organised by APEEE1 and the school in order to send a strong signal to the school that parents are interested and concerned about these topics. APEEE1 also would appreciate parents’ feedback on:
- Preferred time for meetings and conferences (18h seemed to be the preference for most in the room);
- Availability of parents to organise a rota for supervising children between 8h and 8h10, if the school accepts to open the doors earlier.