Seven Hills – minutes of the meeting 7 July 2008

Who was there: Alys, Andrea, Bo, Federica, Jenny, Mike, Ursula

The meeting started with a thorough discussion of potential scenarios for next year’s education of children currently involved in Steiner education. It was decided to proceed as follows and to present a draft business plan along the following lines to the meeting on Wednesday the 9^th of July with the Tintagel House Trust and the Freeman College.

Children currently involved in Steiner education and potentially involved in the future too are, divided by age group, approx. as follows:

This shows the need to advertise in order to attract children aged 3-5 in order to increase numbers in these age groups.

Parent and Child groups: These are to continue as they are, with the expected change of venue in September to Longshaw for the group running on Wednesday afternoon. Ursula will prepare a draft business plan for that group. It was agreed that maintaining a lively set of P&C groups is vital to attract parents to Steiner education.

Activities for children aged 2-4: Andrea introduced the idea that from September onwards, she could, potentially with the help of others, act as a childminder for a small group of children aged 2-4. Children would have to be registered with her as a childminder. This ‘pre-School’ group could run in Federica’s house. It could have flexible hours, meet in the mornings and respond to the needs of parents whose children would have gone to the Kindergarten or who would like to consider this opportunity. In the next academic year, this group would form the core of the new Kindergarten, if suitable premises are found. Andrea will prepare a draft business plan for this group.

Activities for children aged 5-7: Alys and Jenny presented several ideas about what could be done with children aged 4-6. This is a big challenge as this grouping includes children who would belong to Class 1 as well as children who would still attend Kindergarten. Alys and Jenny will continue to develop ideas drawing inspiration from Steiner school in Nottingham, which foresees a T1 (transition 1)-Class 1 group. It could take the form of a T0 for 2008-2009 and a T1-Class 1 for 2009-2010. Alys will prepare a brief statement on how this would happen, while Jenny will prepare a draft business plan for the financial side of this activity.

Constitution: Comments were gathered on the draft constitution. Federica is to incorporate them and circulate the Constitution on Tuesday the 8^th of July. It will be taken that if no objections arise, then it will be considered adopted by Wednesday the 9^th of July.

Sister school: There was a brief discussion that York would probably represent the best ‘sister school’ for the initiative.

Formal roles: Formal roles were provisionally allocated as follows: