Morrinsville Primary School

The Board has consulted with the school families in October 2009.  The Board also consulted with its school community in respect of the Education Review Office Report July 2009.  This strategic statement reflects the position of the ‘then’ Board.  While a new Board will be in position for most of 2010, the Board believes there will be sufficient continuity in Board membership to support its strategic position for the 2010 school year.  This statement will be adopted by the Board at its May meeting.  New Board members will be present.

The Board, following discussion in respect of changes to the NAGS, i.e. inclusion of National Standards, is concerned that the impact this will have on the children and their families will be a negative one.   The Board does not accept that the Standards meet the needs nor wishes of its families and will be harmful for their children’s learning as it could narrow the emphasis staff give to providing a broader type school learning programme.  The Board is opposed to the imposition of these National Standards on the children of the school.  The Board will work with its families to ensure their wishes in respect of these Standards are respected and supported.  To this end the Board will formally consult with its community on this matter once the new Board is in place.

The Board is aware that parents are highly supportive of the school and have high expectations for their children’s learning.  They want their children to be happy and achieving well.  The Board’s view is that all children should be able to read and write to levels appropriate to their age.  The members also recognise that children are unique, with different skills and abilities and should be treated accordingly, and have the opportunities, challenges and space where they can belong with their fellow classmates and within their school.

The work set by their teachers should suit their needs and adequate support should be available to ensure the children have every chance to learn.

The Board is keen that the staff maintain the PE sport and outdoor education programmes.  The Board is committed to supporting the staff in providing the extra curriculum programmes which develop character and confidence in the children.  The children should be encouraged to appreciate their environment and the world in which they live and they should grow up being respectful of others and develop a caring attitude.

This year the Board will also address the recommendations made by the Education Review Office in respect of strengthening relationships across its parent communities.  The board is committed to developing strategies and opportunities for families to engage with the school to ensure their children achieve success in learning.  The Board adopts as its reference document Ka Hikitia : Managing for Success.

The Board in its governance role will support those initiative which assists its staff in implementing programmes which will achieve these goals.

Brett Johnstone

Chairman                                     

25 May 2010

PRINCIPAL AND STAFF

Our School’s 2010 curriculum will continue to be a broadbased and developed from the NZ Curriculum document.

As a staff we will maintain the impetus arising from the LPDP 2 year Professional Development Programme (2008/2009).  We will consolidate features of the Writing and Reading Project over the year.  We will maintain a Literacy Leadership Group to support teachers in the classrooms while we establish children’s literacy learning needs.  Children will be assessed early in Term 1 and a needs analysis and moderation of the information will be completed in time for the first Parent Reports evening – end of February.   Our Literacy Leaders will be supported in developing their skills and practice in guiding staff and improving the pedagogy and practice within classrooms.

It is intended that the leadership group attend five one day seminars facilitated by Alison Davis.  We will also continue providing 3 days inservice training courses (Gaye Byers) for as number of teachers.  In effect most staff will, by the end of the year, have exposure to external Literacy Trainers as well as being supported within the school.

The teaching staff have identified key literacy targets in Reading and Writing and will monitor progress against these targets over this year (Ref Targets 2010).

We will continue developing and upskilling teachers in approaches to DAT, building vocabulary and word meaning in the context of sentences.  An early analysis of assessment data in reading indicates there are significant needs in sentences and paragraph comprehension.  Teachers retain broader outlines of needs around target information and teaching strategies will be devised to move the children forward and improve their understanding of how paragraphs are structured both for the purposes of reading and writing.  Key strategies for developing children’s writing will be based around developing the deeper features in their texts.  The staff will continue working with children on figures of speech, and progressions in writing development.

The tools used in assessment practices will be STAR, AsTTle, and PM Benchmarks (Revised Addition).  In addition PAT Vocabulary, Listening and Comprehension tests will be used for comparative analyses over the year.  Senior classes will also use Probes for assessing reading comprehension developmental needs of older children.

The specific literacy targets based around the 2009 outcomes and information collated from assessments completed across the school in February/March 2010 have provided teachers with useful information on which to base planned programmes.

The junior classes writing data indicate low achievement, with 93% of new entrant to Yr 1 on or below 1.i level in writing and 32% of Year 2 on or below the same level.  The evidence available in February/March (Reading Wedge Graph) indicates that the Yr 0 (New Entrant group) is well below the national language pattern of children at school entry.  There is little pre-reading knowledge skills evidenced in all but two of these children.

Improving the achievement of this group will be a critical goal for juniors.  Additional teacher aide and part time teacher support will be directed to assist and accelerate development with this group.  Classroom organisation and the structure of the learning environment will need to encompass a strong developmental and holistic approach.

There are evidential differences in language development in children in their first two years.  Noted improvement was made with the Year 2s during 2009 where significant gains are seen in reading and writing (Ref to Report Against the Targets 2009/2010).

Poor functional oral language remains a problem for our young children.  Similar to 2009 teachers will focus on building up word banks and providing strong language experience type learning activities which focus on language use and reading for meaning.  Alphabet knowledge, sight word recognition, letter sound identification need to be taught regularly over the year.  Teachers will reference the Curriculum Progressions document in planning their programmes.  The Literacy Leadership team will monitor progress mid year to assess what gains are being made.

The Literacy Y3-Y6 2009 assessment results have shown very positive outcomes for children, including the target groups during that year.  It is particularly noticeable in the gains in understanding texts and vocabulary knowledge and at the levels gained in writing (ref to Reporting Against Targets and Analysis of Variance Annual Report 2009).

Teachers in these classrooms have identified cohorts of children in need of additional support (2010).  Probe testing shows quite a number of children working at or below their readability age.  Children are struggling in the Year 6 with inferences and evaluation and responding to text.  Many children scored poorly on Vocab (STAR and PAT) and paragraph comprehension is generally low.  50% of the Year 6 children have low achievement in vocabulary understanding.

In writing there are globally identified weaknesses in language resources and grammar, and in meeting with purpose and awareness of audiences.

These classes will have teaching programmed organised to address shortcomings noticed.

The middle school groups show low attainment and understanding in sentence comprehension and paragraph comprehension.  Target groups have been identified for specific support.  Teachers will focus on DAT and developing Vocab understanding and sentence structuring.

The levels of gains in numeracy across the school during 2009 are pleasing.   The Analysis of Variance (2009 Annual Report) showed target groups advancing levels.  There was a visible move towards the upper stages of the ENP/ANP within profiles.  Targets have now been set for 2010 and teachers will present instructional work to progress their at risk and high achieving students.

The goal is to achieve at least one Stage gain from where the children are in March.  There is also a goal to move higher achievers to Stage 7 to 8 ANP and show percentile/stanine gains against March PAT results (Ref Targets 2010). 

The staff will continue to extend the children in Physical Education, Health and Education, Sport and Outdoor Education.  There will be a further emphasis on increasing children’s physical and aerobic fitness with specific programmes developed for teachers to work with the children.  This work aerobic will be supported through specialist senior teacher leadership. 

The school’s annual PE and sport etc. programme of activities will be maintained along similar lines to 2009.  There were significant gains made last year in swimming across the whole school.  The introduction of an MPS swim club and the employment of swim coaches who worked with all children alongside their teachers was a very successful strategy.  A similar plan will be in place in 2010.  We will continue to maintain our school’s FAST outlook. (Fitness Agility Skills and Team Environment). 

The Breakfast Club initiative will continue in 2010.

Our camps and other education beyond the school programmes will continue.  The Board’s ongoing support ensures that most of our traditional programmes will run again this year (Ref Final Newsletter 2009).

We will support high academic and sporting achievers through extension and specialized programmes. We will provide additional programmes and extension and learning activities in Maths, Science, English, Music, PE and Kapahaka.  Our assessment programmes will assist in identifying these children’s needs across these curricula.

The community involvement in our school life is very high, featuring around children’s activities while at school, e.g. camps, trips, excursions, team sport, tournaments and bush walks.  The Board’s representative involvement has been very successful in 2009.  We will continue to work along these lines for 2010.  We will implement initiatves in respect of development stronger relationships with our Maori families (Ref ERO Report 2009). 

The Board’s goal of ensuring children have opportunities to experience learning beyond the classroom will be achieved through camps and learning activities such as pond study, bush walks, kayaking etc. We will continue to promote these aspects of our charter intent with sufficient resource allocations and personnel to maximise both children and family involvement.

Families have indicated high levels of satisfaction with the school’s inter relationships.  We will continue to actively promote consultation and open dialogue to access opinion and feedback from our families relative to our school activities, and interests.  The intention is to maintain conversations at the practical and informal level, pursuing networking and a commitment to building and maintaining relationships.  We will work with families to establish a Whanau Support Group.

We found the strategies used for building the ‘family feel’ about the school based on fairness, respect, sense of belonging and active listening and consideration are working well.  The increased interaction, improved reporting, information sharing, and relationships building at class level effectively contributes to building this rapport.

Conclusion

The majority of parents provide us with feedback which indicates that they want to be involved and participate with the school in their children’s learning. The attitude is a supportive and well meaning one. The families indicate that there is a high expectation by them for their children to be “well taught” and the general view is that they perceive that “their child’s teacher” ought to achieve this for them.  We will continue to focus attention on managing this relationship by providing opportunities for parent teacher interaction and inter-relating, and in providing a strong teacher professional development attitude in the school.  The staff culture is one of collegiality and commitment to supporting one another in creating a school where everyone feels comfortable to be part of.  This is manifested in action as we work as a team in meaningful, genuine, sincere and caring ways.

Shay Noonan

Principal