SOEID Discussion Documnet "Parents as Partners"
Results and Analysis of SSBA Questionnaire

In February 1998 SSBA issued a questionnaire, associated with the government's discussion paper "Parents as Partners", to all Local Authority schools in Scotland. This report summarises the returns received by SSBA and attempts to analyse these responses.

The Association received 379 responses: 250 completed questionnaire forms from School Boards, 84 from individual people and another 45 responses, usually in the form of copies of the submission made by the School Board to SOEID.

It is important for the Association to take particular note of the comments made by the School Boards and the individuals who did complete the questionnaire.

It was considered by a number of people to be too long and requiring too much time to complete.

New School Board members sometimes found the questions too complicated and felt that they did not have enough experience to give responsible answers to some of the questions.

In both responses from School Boards and from individual people it was quite common to find that not every question was answered. Hence the answers for any one question often do not add up to 379 (100%) responses.

On the whole School Boards wished to approve school policies such as those relating to discipline, bullying and attendance, communicating with parents, and the monitoring of those school policies, but were reluctant to get involved in school management issues.

Respondents did not wish to be required to approve School Development Plans or Devolved School Management Budgets.

Respondents did not wish to be involved in functions currently not delegated to School Boards.

Respondents preferred to limit their involvement in staff appointments to senior appointments in schools as at present. They did not wish to be involved in staff discipline, nor in staff salaries.

On the whole, respondents did not express any great enthusiasm for involvement in decisions about the curriculum.

The responses showed a small majority in favour of Nursery Schools being given the opportunity to have separate School Boards.

There is a small majority in favour of making School Boards compulsory. [more] .....[1] [2]