Traffic and parking problems around our schools appeared as a major issue at Council’s last meeting. We need your help to understand the problem better so that we can be effective in bringing the issue to the attention of government. Please complete our online school traffic survey and encourage other parents to do so.

The Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY) would like to hear from parents about what you think makes for a good partnership with your child’s school and the things you do to help your children learn. Please spend a few minutes to fill out the short survey.

The ACT Council of Social Services (ACTCOSS) is running a morning workshop on writing grant applications on September 17. Our member P&Cs can enter P&C Council as their Company / Organisation on the registration form to get the member discount price of $90.

To help you manage your canteen efficiently and successfully and understand governance issues around operating your school canteen as a food business, the Healthy Kids Association is running Canteen Business Advice Workshops in Canberra. The workshops, for Association members (all ACT P&Cs were joined up by Council), are on Thursday 18 September:
Workshop One (Canteen Managers): 4 - 6pm
Workshop Two (P&C/Managing Bodies): 7 -  9pm
Venue is yet to be advised. Email the Healthy Kids Association for more information.

 

The "Food for Sale" guide mentioned in the last Communicator (because it includes a two page guide to marketing healthy foods and covers a lot of issues raised at Council's Canteen Working Group Meeting held in June) is available to primary schools who are part of the ACT Health Directorate's "Fresh Tastes - healthy food at school" program. High schools and colleges who wish to get a copy of this useful guide can email freshtastes@act.gov.au or phone Naomi Lee on 6205 1452. Interested primary school canteens should approach their school principal about joining the Fresh Tastes program. 

The Healthy Kids Association recently created a new section on their website for parent associations, with information on managing the canteen, fundraising and a range of downloadable canteen posters. 

August 24-30 is enviroweek and schools can get involved with green challenges to discover that everyday action really counts for our natural world. Enviroweek challenges are student-led, benefit the whole school and include home extension activities.

We strive to provide information of interest to all school parents in the Council Communicator. If you think any of the items above are of interest to parents at your school, please pass them on via your school newsletter or whatever other means you wish. We would be grateful if you would share our school traffic survey, in particular.

We now have a template page for school newsletters to make it easier for you to cut and paste items to submit to your school newsletter under the P&C Council banner if you wish to share the information with your school community.