Parents Representatives

The legal status of GISA is a ‘Limited Liability Company by Guarantee’ (with not-for-profit, charitable status) which applies to an association (‘Verein’) such as our school. In terms of governance, this means that in General Assembly the parents (as its largest group of members) elect a school board which governs the school on their behalf. All major policy decisions regarding the school and the association are put before the members for approval during a General Assembly meeting. The daily management of the school is in the hands of the headteacher and management staff, who are appointed by the school board. In accordance with the statutes of the school, at the beginning of each academic year, the parents also elect a representative for each class (or combination of classes) that their children attend.

The resulting group of Parents Representatives has two main functions:

1. To act as an intermediary and facilitator between parents, teaching staff and the school leadership in communication about different areas of the school, such as pupil development and learning, class and school management, school culture and development, and facilities and resources.
2. To act on behalf of the parents as facilitator of dialogue and as advisor between the board of the school and the parent-members of the association, and to follow-up on progress regarding decisions made in the General Assembly (which is typically held only once per year).

Simply put: the Reps function as the ‘eyes & ears’ of the Board and the ‘mouthpiece’ of the parent-members.

The main tasks of the Parents Representatives therefore are:

• To receive from parents information on any issue of satisfaction or concern, which is related to the class their child attends or to the school in general. These issues can vary widely, for example from relatively simple issues like hygiene in class, quality of school lunches, homework or comprehensiveness of information for parents new to the school, to more complicated issues like playground behaviour, language support in class, provisions for children with special needs, or the school’s longer-term development plans.
• To inform parents about and assist with going through the appropriate channels for bringing issues they may have to the attention of teachers, management or the school board.
• To liaise (if necessary) on behalf of parents with class teachers about class-specific issues and with the headteacher and/or school board about more general issues, and to communicate the results back to the respective parents.
• To assist staff and school leadership in finding solutions to issues of concern, to follow up on actions taken and to contribute to the ongoing development of the school.
• To represent on occasion the parents to visitors from outside the school (e.g. school inspectors)

One of the Parent Reps is also a member of the School Board. The Parent Rep group meets at least three times per half term (6x per year), although it may do so more often depending on any further need for communication with and involvement of parents. By the end of each academic year an annual report of the group’s activities will be disseminated among parents.