Charter 2008

Introduction

Education Act 1989, Sections 75 and 76

s.75 Boards to control management of schools –

s.76 Principals –

Governance

The Kaikohe East School board emphasises strategic leadership rather than administrative detail, has a clear distinction between board and staff roles, concentrates on the future rather than the past or present, and is pro-active rather than reactive.

Management

The board delegates all authority and accountability for the day-to-day operational organisation of the school to the principal.

The School and its Community

National Education Priorities

Kaikohe East School recognizes the government’s National Education Priorities: 

National priorities are:

 

The school integrates the National Educational Goals and National Education Priorities at governance and operational levels by giving them full consideration when planning school developments or school/class programmes.

Cultural Diversity

The Board takes all reasonable steps to provide instruction in Tikanga Maori (Maori culture) and Te Reo Maori (Maori language). 

When developing policies and practices for the school every endeavour is made to reflect New Zealand Cultural diversity and the unique position of Maori culture.

Te Reo

Parents may choose to enrol their children in the General classes, or the Bilingual classes.  The General classes have all their instruction in English. They also have some Maori Language instruction covering simple commands and greetings, and basic pronunciation.  Bilingual classes have up to 30-50% of their instruction in Maori.  A Kaiarahi i te Reo is also employed to support Bilingual class programmes.  Due to the high proportion of Maori students our school takes the opportunity to support and practise Maori protocol when appropriate and necessary.

Procedural Information

The planning year for the board will be from 1 January to 31 December. The updated charter and annual report will be lodged with the Ministry of Education by June 7 each year along with the consultation plan.

 

Strategic Plan

Vision

To be:

Core Values

We value the 4 Cs:

Goals

To create a community of learners with:

 

To create a community of Maori learners with:

Strategies

 

Annual Plan – 2008 Goals

Goal 1 - Literacy

By November 2008:

Assessment.

What is currently happening?

Reading

STAR results show only 5.6% achieve above the expected levels (stanine 7 – 9) in reading comprehension.  Year by year results show that, although pupils achieve closer to national norms as they move through the school, the movement is from “below” to “at expectations” level and the percentage above norm remains fairly constant.

How to improve.

What can we do?

room practice focus

 

Planning/ Implementation/ Evaluation Cycle

Data will be gathered twice a year with norm referenced tools

Monitoring and reporting.

Lead teachers to ensure all new teachers receive relevant induction to formative practice and effective literacy learning 

Teachers to be appraised on their use of formative practice and effective literacy learning  

Lead teachers and the principal will work collaboratively to ensure the professional development learning’s are implemented at the classroom level.

Writing

AsTTle results show a similar pattern in written language to reading. We have a fair percentage in the middle bands but far too many pupils in the “below” group and not enough in the “advanced” group.

Goal  2 - Numeracy 

By November 2008:

Assessment.

What is currently happening?

Appraisal

Teaching staff have indicated that the initial enthusiasm for maths that was so strong after the introduction of the numeracy project has cooled somewhat. At least half of teaching staff indicated a desire to boost their teaching of numeracy as an appraisal goal for 2008.

Pupil achievement

While “I can…” sheets are being regularly updated and reporting shows a greater awareness of children’s achievement and their “next steps”, comparison with data from 2006 and 2007 shows that since the initial boost, straight after the numeracy project, increases in pupil  achievement has plateaued.

While we have a significant percentage of pupils on track and few achieving significantly below expectations, we also have very few achieving above expectations.

How to improve.

What can we do?

Professional Development

We assessed the staff needs through the 2007 appraisal round.

We will plan up to eight staff meetings on maths.

 

Curriculum

Update all numeracy project resources 

Community involvement

We will hold a maths day or days to encourage parental and pupil interest in maths 

Property – resources

We will review current resources and renew enthusiasm and use of them.

 

Sustainability

Monitoring and reporting.

Have we been successful?

Appraisal

Numeracy will be a focus of class observations for the QA round and this will show;

 

Pupil achievement

Using “I can.” sheets to determine levels, results will show that the percentage of pupils achieving at or above national expectations will increase over the year. 

Reporting

End of year school reports to parents.

 

Charter Consultation Plan

The Kaikohe East School Board consults annually with the Maori community and wider community.   

Processes for consultation include: 

 

Annual Variance Report 2007-8

Goal 1 (Numeracy) To increase the number of pupils achieving above national expectations.

Assessment. How did we get on?

Appraisal

At least half of teaching staff indicated a desire to boost their teaching of numeracy as an appraisal goal for 2007. Because of the time taken on our literacy goals however, numeracy did not gain the emphasis it required. We have, however, made it a major goal for 2008 and a comprehensive in-service programme has been organised with TEAM Solutions.

Pupil achievement

While “I can…” sheets are updated regularly we are unsure of the consistency of assessment and one of the 08 goals is to ensure we have valid assessment data.

Our goal was to increase the number of pupils understanding above the expectations by 50% and decrease those understanding below expectations by 50%. This did not happen

Possibly through a better awareness of expectations, pupils were assessed at a lower level than a year ago. There is no evidence that our pupils have gone backwards in maths so we presume teachers are being more realistic when assessing a pupil as “can” or “cannot”. There is a clearer picture of what it requires for a child to be assessed at a certain level.

What did we do over 2007?

Professional Development

One new staff member went through the ENP programme. 

We held three staff meetings on maths. The last of these was based on data of pupil attainment. One was on Basic facts and one was on consistency in the taking of “I Can…” sheets. 

Very few teachers used any of their teacher release time to visit other classes or schools to look at maths programmes. Most teachers concentrated on oral and written language. 

The “Cross sector” maths focus group has met regularly and a Kaikohe Maths focus group is active. Member schools which include KES share goals, priorities, activities and, for 2008, a possible opportunity for teaching staff to up skill with a post graduate paper on maths. 

Numeracy is our major focus for 2008. We have a very comprehensive in-service programme planned in conjunction with TEAM Solutions for the year. 

Professional development

 

Property – resources

 

We have yet to find a better way to store activities and similar resources that make them more accessible. 

Monitoring and reporting.

Appraisal

Numeracy was one focus of class observations for the QA round and showed that, in general, teachers were using;

 

Reporting was evident through:

Goal 2 (Written Language): Increase the number of pupils writing  above the expectations and decrease those writing below expectations by 50%

Assessment (How did we get on?)

At least twice a year all children are assessed in written language using a comparison against the national exemplars.

Year 3 children are considered to be “on track” when writing at or between levels 1(ii) and 2(i).

What did we do over 2007?

 

Teacher Appraisal

QA visits indicated that teachers:

 

What next?

Year 4 children are considered to be “on track” when writing at or between levels 1(iii) and 2(ii).

The results show that while our teachers in the junior school are making progress in decreasing the percentage of children achieving below national expectations and we can be happy with the percentage working at expectation, we have yet to get a significant percentage of writers achieving above expectations.

It appears our pupils hit a brick wall around mid level 2. Only 2 pupils began year 6 assessed at level 3 with another 2 assessed as transitioning from level 2 to level 3.

A brief look at individual, analysed samples from year 5 and 6 indicates that it is probably the deeper features rather than the surface features that are holding our pupils from progressing beyond level 2P. Our literacy team will collect more data in 2008 to check on this assumption.

We will begin to use asTTle in 2008 so these graphs might not be as valid in 2009.

Goal 3 (Oral language):       To have teaching staff implement planned and focussed oral language programmes based on the pupils’ needs.

Assessment:

 

What did we do?

How successful were we?

 

What next?