Friday 25 May 2012

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So I was parked up at the end of the brick wall with my 3.00pm cuppa and a bright-eyed little five year old bounded up:

“I saw you in the paper!”

“No you didn’t,” I said, “that was my brother.”

“No – it was your face,” she persisted.

“He just borrowed it,” I explained.

Turning away to play, she said, “And I’ll have none of your silly attitude either!”  I just knew that she’d been on the receiving end of that line a few times herself: pure gold!

Class sizes…

The biggest single issue directly affecting kids is the pending increase in class sizes – the announced changes to teacher staffing ratios that will increase class sizes and result in the loss of 500 teacher positions every year for the next five years.

The New Zealand Principals Federation, the New Zealand Educational Institute, various academics; even Federated Farmers have publicly expressed alarm at this counter productive move.

It’s been obvious that the government has not been listening to any professionals outside of Treasury for quite some time Perhaps they’ll listen to parents because:

1     you’re voters (and kids aren’t – even though they are now full taxpayers if they’re working in after school jobs!)

2     there many more parents than there are teachers – they won’t want to lose your votes too

3     the most affected New Zealanders are your kids – and you are always their best advocates.

Letters addressed to Parliament Buildings do not require a stamp. If enough NZ parents write to Prime Minister John Key and Minister of Education Hekia Parata; we may avert yet another backward step being inflicted on the kids. Simply address your letter to either or both C/- Parliament Buildings, Wellington.

“Budget bombs”…

The rest of the press release from Paul Drummond of the New Zealand Principals’ Federation reads:

‘The plan for education outlined in today’s Budget comes directly from Treasury advice,’ said Paul Drummond, President of the New Zealand Principals’ Federation, ‘and will not  improve the educational experience for Kiwi kids in school,’ he said.

Making savings by cutting back on teacher numbers and increasing class sizes has been on the government’s agenda since 2009, but was not included in National’s 2011 election manifesto. Since the announcement, the increase in class sizes has drawn strong response from parents, teachers and principals alike. In particular it has agitated the parents of children who struggle with learning or have special learning needs.

‘Parents know it will be the specialist support programmes such as reading recovery that will be first affected,’ said Drummond. ‘That means that our most vulnerable kids, the ones we are told the government is most concerned about, will be hardest hit,’ he said.

Increases in class size will also mean there will be less opportunity for flexibility and innovation, and any school teaching intermediate level children, will lose their special allocation for technology teachers.

‘Technology sits at the heart of a quality 21st century education,’ said Drummond. ‘Children would be hugely disadvantaged if they lose access to these subjects,’ he said.

 ‘Today’s Budget is not creating an environment in which quality teaching can flourish,’ says Drummond.’ ‘Our parents and the profession are reeling,’ he said.

“Natural Standards”…

Brilliant…….. accurate…… real …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9d9ZBpg3sMo

Thanks!

Janice Tou (r) and Helen Moeke – two of the large team of supporters working their way through the large task of cross-stitching the large number of head and waist bands for our large kapahaka group Kotahitanga. We really appreciate the support, the time and effort the commitment requires; and the huge doses of goodwill that come with it: thank you – you are truly awesome people.

The Southland Times…

…used the kids in room 11 as models in their photo shoot for a marketing campaign for their Newspapers in Education (NiE) marketing campaign. Dressed in mufti so as not to be identified with any particular school (but we’ll know, won’t we?); the kids have genuinely using NiE resources anyway. Contrary to the rumour: Ms Kennedy the event was not connected to her being “awarded the title of the “Best Teacher in Invercargill”!”  There is no such thing – though we have no doubt she’d be a serious contender if there was!

Friday 18 May 2012

This week, life at Waverley Park continued at the same old hot pace – even if the days were cooler.  

Speaking of cooler; it is fair to say that the pre-budget announcement regarding impending bigger class sizes has caused varying degrees of consternation around the country. The Minister stated that it’s a school’s decision about how many children are in a class and that the government is just changing the funding formula: essentially, that is true.

Most teachers’ salaries are not paid by Boards of Trustees; they are paid directly by the Ministry of Education (MOE). In some schools, the Board of Trustees might decide to pay for extra teacher time to have an extra classroom in operation or to provide extra support (eg Reading Recovery). They do this because MOE-paid salary allocation is insufficient to meet those extra needs. The number of teacher salaries provided to a school is determined by the number of kids on the roll (numbers that are audited by the MOE via statistical returns completed by every school in March and July every year).

Currently, the teacher to pupil ratios used to calculate the number of salaries a school is entitled to are: one salary for every fifteen new entrants; one salary for every twenty-three years 2 and 3 students; and one salary for every    twenty-nine students in years 4, 5 and 6. Using these ratios, Waverley Park’s entitlement for 2012 (based on 239 kids – we’re well past that now) was 10.3 teacher salaries. So our Board decided to fund the 0.7 of a salary to make sure we had eleven classrooms in action from the start of this term.

The new ratios signalled by the Minister this week (one salary for every 15 new entrants; and one salary for every 27.5 years 2 – 6 students) would generate 9.8 teacher salaries for those same 239 Waverley Park kids. At this point, the direct cost to the Board would be 1.2 salaries to keep eleven classrooms going; not many boards (including ours) in schools our size could afford to do that for a whole year.

There are not many options left to a Board facing this situation. In the main, they are:

-  pay for the difference out of Board funds (not a sustainable option for most)

-  reduce teacher salary spent on providing support programmes (e.g: Reading Recovery; numeracy support) in order to redirect that salary back into classroom teaching

-  increase the average class size (in the hope that at least some of the support programmes can also be retained). New entrants don’t arrive in neat batches of 15 - neither do they thrive when there are big numbers of them in a class: so the senior class sizes have to start larger than the school-wide average to enable us to keep the other junior classrooms with rolls low enough to ensure there are spaces for the wee guys to fill when they leave the new entrant classroom.

When the Minister stated that schools determine the number of students in a class; this (simplified) balancing act is what she was referring to.        

In response to the Minister’s announcement, New Zealand Principals’ Federation President Paul Drummond had this to say: “A South Auckland school study showed that learners with poorly developed literacy need smaller classes in order to have the support to become confident readers. Increasing class size would be in direct conflict with the Government’s goal to lift the performance of underachievers.”

Further studies in the UK demonstrated that larger classes produce more and larger groups of learners and large classes have negative effects on teaching, learning and learners’ concentration. The studies also found that in smaller classes, teachers were more likely to spend time with individual learners.

“Increasing class size will not help underachievers and will create unintended negative consequences for all kids’ learning,” said Drummond. “No matter how excellent your teacher is, the bigger the class, the less time a teacher can spend with each student.”

Tuinga Tahi…

Last weekend, our Tuinga Tahi  kids had their first marae stay of the year. Two days of intense rehearsal interspersed with an awesome meal and some great bonding time on Friday night. The kids gave it their all - and so did their support crew: none more so than their leader, the tireless Raiha Johnson.

Given the impending birth of “number two”, it’s fair to say that Raiha could probably have found a more relaxing way of spending the days leading up to Mothers’ Day. Not surprisingly; number two is scheduled to appear after Polyfest (featuring our big kapa haka group Kotahitanga) - now this is planning - but before Putangitangi (where Tuinga Tahi will compete). Thanks Raiha and team; the kids had a blast. 

Te Iwiroa was all concentration…….

…….so too Paris and Jayda.

Friday 11 May 2012

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Another solid week of “Living the Learning” from the students at Waverley Park - just the way we like it.

Wednesday night saw our year six students - and their family supporters - attending our camp movie night. Individually hand-crafted by our talented caretaker James Clive; the “Camp La Bafta” (say it quickly) trophies are awarded to individuals who stood out during the camp. The trophies are intended as permanent keepsake for the winners; so new ones are made each year.

Unsurprisingly, thanks are due to: James Clive for his support; every adult who assisted with the teams on camp; the kitchen crew of Sylvie, Margot and Murray; Helen Kennedy and Janelle Shaw for making the camp happen; Rex and Pauline Scott for the after dinner programme; Sharon “Spielberg” Witheford of Persistent Productions for the DVD production and presentation; everyone who attended on Wednesday night; and our year six kids for not dropping a lip or a head (despite the lousy weather) and giving everything a go on camp.

They were indeed “Living the Learning.” 

The big winners on the night: Camp La Bafta Awards went to (l to r): Daniel Anderson, Samantha Bowden, and Campbell Sutherland.

Life Ed mobile classroom…

The Life Education Trusts mobile classroom makes the bi-annual visit to Waverley Park for the week starting Monday 12 June.

Yes! Harold the Giraffe, his friends, and their human, will be providing each class with two sessions in their hi-tech mobile classroom: kids love it.

A 2008 NZCER conducted a study of the Life Education programme. Their findings were:

“It supports students to develop life skills

ü It encourages students to make healthy choices

ü Students gain knowledge about health and their bodies

ü Students develop self-esteem and a positive understanding of themselves

ü Students develop strategies for relating to others

For further info: http://www.lifeeducation.org.nz/

Schools really value the programme the Life Ed caravan brings. Heavy national and local sponsorship means that the cost is heavily subsidized; so the cost to us is…

$4.00 per pupil payable at the school office or by banking online (see box below).

Please support your child to take advantage of this excellent learning opportunity. Thank you. 

Friday 04 May 2012

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Earlier this week, just for a day or so, it seemed that autumn wasn’t going to show and we’d just head straight to winter; we haven’t had to crank up the boiler for weeks. Already there are people with colds and sniffles……

Principal - justifiably whingeing…

We regularly update the personal information we hold for each child. Obviously, birthdates don’t change. However, the same cannot be said for addresses, phone numbers (personal and work), emergency contacts (and their phone numbers), e-mail addresses, medical issues, and, occasionally, surnames.

In the event of a personal medical emergency (eg broken leg – ambulance trip – hospital) or a natural disaster (think Christchurch): it is vital that we have up to date, accurate contact information for your child; agreed?

We sent the forms home with the school accounts – which we posted so the “my kid lost it” defence won’t work. Despite several newsletter requests last term, less than 50% of the forms have been returned. Over 30% of those that we do have back have had changes made – to contact information in particular.

So for over fifty percent of our kids, we have no way of knowing whether or not the information we have on file is still accurate (and judging from those returned so far: a third of them may not be).

Sadly, we have discovered that for some of them, the information we do have is no longer valid... this has come to light when kid’s become sick at school and none of the phone numbers we had on file worked. When a child is miserable and vomiting; it is not the ideal time to discover that we no longer have a way of contacting the family.

PLEASE SEND THE FORMS BACK – YES; EVEN IF THERE ARE NO CHANGES! IT IS THE ONLY WAY WE HAVE OF KNOWING THAT OUR INFORMATION IS ACCURATE. In case you’ve lost the form, we are enclosing one with your newsletter. 

Exactly!

An ERO report released recently - “Science in The New Zealand Curriculum: Years 5 to 8” - states that of the one hundred schools evaluated, only 27% had “effective or generally effective science programmes for Years 5 to 8”. The report, featured in the press earlier this week, has generated the New Zealand Principals’ Federation press release with the heading “National Standards Suck Soul out of Science”:

“Principals are saddened but not surprised to see that Science is not thriving in schools. They warned two years ago that this was just one inevitable outcome of the national standards policy.

‘The Principals’ Federation predicted that focusing on the three areas of reading writing and maths, as the national standards policy does, would be detrimental to the wider curriculum,’ said Vice President of the NZ Principals’ Federation, Philip Harding today. ‘You get what you measure and this Government wants to measure just three things,’ he said.

‘Millions of dollars were poured into implementing national standards which had to be drawn from somewhere,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately that meant a reduction in resources for professional development in many areas including in Science,’ he said.

‘Principals are disappointed to see this result because it is our broad rich curriculum developed in partnership with our school communities that has lifted our achievement levels to be amongst the best in the world,’ said Harding. ‘We fear that if we continue to keep a narrow curriculum focus on account of national standards, we will lose our high world ranking,’ he said.”

Friday 27 April 2012

The new term started smoothly … fortunately so did the staff and most of the kids! (Timing being what it is) ANZAC Day falling in the middle of the first week back could have been a major disruption to getting under way, but that’s not what happened. Possibly because for the first time in a few years, ANZAC Day hasn’t occurred “inside” the end of term break; the kids are showing significantly increased interest in what ANZAC Day is about. 

It’s a good thing for kids to know about our country’s history – teaching it is so much easier when they show natural curiosity. Many are aware of their own family members’ military involvement. I had a priceless discussion with one young man as he was leaving to go home on Wednesday:

“Are you going to the ANZAC thing tomorrow, Mr Hawkins?”

“I might,” I said (and thinking: “I might not if it snows”).

“Look out for my granddad,” he said; helpfully: “he’s got hair just at the sides an’ round the back. There’s just skin on top.”

“There’ll be lots with that haircut,” I said: “what if he wears a hat?”

Pleased with his extra clue: “He’ll have a sorta moustache too.”  

Take time to talk with your kids about their ANZAC learning – you will add to their understanding. And they may add to yours. 

Safety first…

It’s a bit like tackling an assault course getting in and out of school via Eden Crescent at the moment. We await the end of the water upgrade in the crescent – and the resealing of our car park. Thanks for your co-operation – many of you are using St Andrew St as your drop-off and pick-up point.

One of our mums has suggested a parent roster to supervise the St Andrew Street crossing in the mornings. The concept is to have an adult rostered to supervise for 25 minutes each morning (8.25am – 8.50am); we’ll even provide a cute fluorescent vest! Coming into the darker months, this initiative can only be a good thing.

If you are available to be on the roster one morning a week, please leave your preferred morning and your contact details at our office. In a perfect world, we’d get at least ten volunteers so we can work a two-week roster…..unless everyone wanted Mondays…..

Teachers Only Day…

No school for Waverley Park kids! We need to hold a training for teachers and so we settled on Friday 1 June – stretching Queen’s Birthday weekend to four days  for the kids and families able to take advantage of that. Please make sure you mark it on your calendar.

Camp La Bafta Awards…

The camp movie has been completed; so the camp movie night can proceed. Year six campers, their parents, and staff are invited to the school hall on Wednesday 09 May from 7.00pm to view the evidence!