Welcome to the Westlake Girls Parents Forum
This year, as requested by several parents, we have reactivated the “Westlake Girls Parents Forum”.
We form a link between the school and the community and are a volunteer, non-profit organization. Joining us is a great opportunity to get to know more about the school, to meet new people and form friendships. You can be involved as little or as much as you like and we would like to welcome any parents to come along. We are under the umbrella of the NZPTA and a registered as a Charity. A morning tea will be held during the second last week of term 1 to introduce the PTA.
Who are we?
The current officers and members are:
Chairperson: Barbara Scholten
Secretary: Bridgette Ferguson
Treasurer: Beth Porteous
Wendy Calder, Tania McDonald, Petra Praschnig and Penny Meads
Students representatives: Eliza Mackay, Kristina Kim, Annuska Menoita and Julia Vencatachellum.
Mission Statement PTA (set by NZPTA)
To encourage the parents involvement and participation to assist all children develop their talents, self esteem and character, to ensure they have the ability to lead a full and productive life. We will reflect the WBHS mission statement in “fostering the pursuit of academic, sporting, cultural and personal excellence".
Our goals (set by NZPTA):
- To promote the welfare and education of the students through nurturing relationship between parents/whanau, teachers and wider community
- To liaise with other organizations for the benefit of NZ students (such as PTA WBHS) and their families
- To work in co-operation with the BOT
- To facilitate networking and information sharing between parent, teacher and organization
- To encourage parents to become member of the WGHS PTA
The Parent Forum's (PF) role is to support the teachers, management and (BOT if required), while providing a voice for parents. This includes information sharing and parent consultation, hosting social and school events and involving the wider community in school activities. It may include fundraising as well.
How do we do this?
PARENTS:
A “welcome” for the new parents in order to support them and to help them to build the necessary relationships. This event will be held at the beginning of the year, we’ll be serving tea and coffee and all parents will bring sweets and savouries.
MANAGEMENT:
Important school events: The Parents Forum will receive from the school a yearly calendar with all events and will be informed of each event that needs parent support. The calendar will be provided by the end of 2011 for the year 2012. A teacher representing Senior Management will liaise between the PF and the Senior Leadership team.
FUNDRAISING:
The PF will not have a main fundraising function.
TEACHERS:
From next year on, a Teacher Morning will be organized to thank the teachers for all they have been doing for our girls. We know that many activities run at Westlake are only possible because of the extra hours the teachers spend with our girls. As the future gets more and more competitive, more will be required from the teachers as well as from the students, in other words we need to work together to educate the girls, give them all the opportunities to be able to develop themselves to turn into successful and righteous young women.
Website and Westlake links:
We’ll work closely with the IT department by providing them with the latest news in order to keep the parents updated.
Additional suggestions:
- To have students on the Parent Forum in order to better the relationships between them and parents and for leadership purposes.
We will meet once a month. The dates will be updated on the website.
Meetings for 2012 are on every fourth Monday of each month.
