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2010 Annual Report |
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Introduction
We had a very busy and eventful 2010 year. Many families are still feeling the pain from the economic downturn and early indications are that these problems will continue into 2011 and beyond.
There are many issues to be squared away this year. National Standards will still require a lot of work with refining procedures and systems.
Our new Arohanui satellite special needs unit is almost complete. Our 10yr property plan is almost finished and will require some clever and careful work to insure the school is ready to meet the challenges ahead in preparing our next generation.
The board and staff have already carried out a lot of discussion and planning in our project 2021, designed to meet the likely demands of our five year olds walking through our gate in 10 years time.
Much of our future planning will be about marrying pedagogy ( How we teach) with the physical surroundings of the school. Our annual plan for 2011 is based on this linkage of property and teaching styles tied back to the new curriculum and National Standards.
ERO inspected us at the beginning of the year. We had a very positive report from ERO. Our strengths are in stability, on-going PD, strong leadership/management and clarity around purpose and learning. Many of our strengths were highlighted in the report itself.
In the time since being appointed as a principal, I have seen huge changes come about in the way schools operate. Schools have to be everything to everyone and schools find themselves being pulled and stretched in many directions at once. It is important that we keep a tight focus on learning outcomes.
I would like to thank the board for their on-going support to the school, students and staff. I have enormous appreciation and respect for the professional support given to me as principal by our two APs, Nieske Gordon and Wendy Ferguson.
Thanks to all our staff in helping to maintain the unique country school, family friendly atmosphere that is a tradition at Edmonton Primary. This tangible characteristic does not happen by accident. It is often commented on by visitors and is something that gives us immense satisfaction and pride.
Curriculum
The staff completed 2 years of intense PD in written language last year. This work was carried out with oversight from the MOE Literacy Officer. There were good gains obtained by the improved teaching of written language
The National Standards have been implemented in our school with remarkable ease, thanks to the enormous effort by the senior staff and staff in refining and trialling the various unique assessment tools we have developed here at Edmonton School over the last four years.
By engaging with the national standards from day 1, our staff have a good grasp of how the standards are applied and reported against. This allows them to put the energy required into other topics with enthusiasm and insure balance in the curriculum.
There is more to read about progress towards the National Standards in our Variance Report attached at the end of this document.
Throughout the year the BoT received regular reports on student achievement. These have been valuable to the board and indicate where the school needs to go next. They give encouraging feedback about how well the programmes are meeting the needs of the pupils.. In literacy, numeracy, music, ESOL, Reading Recovery, Te Reo, etc.
The board also received reports about the various extra curriculum areas and special needs programmes e.g. ESOL, Music, Reading Recovery, etc tabled at the end of year meeting.
Documentation/ Review
During 2010 we have refined our planning documentation in both the Senior and Junior school. We introduced new reporting and assessment documentation in support of implementing the National Standards. The board carried out self reviews of policy and process around employment issues, finance and property . The senior staff in conjunction with trialling involving staff input over the last 2 years.. introduced the final working copy of our ‘Literacy and Numeracy Prescription.’ This document provides teachers with detail on how to implement good programmes in their classrooms.
Employment
We have started the year with a staffing entitlement of 21.45 Teachers. ( But we actually employ about 24 as several are part time.) This is down slightly on this time last year due to the quirky glitches in the ministry’s resourcing and staffing formulas.)
Finance & Property
These policies and practices were revised during 2010. Our financial position has been summarised in the Financial Officer’s Report (Separate) and shows a healthy working surplus which will help greatly in the financially uncertain years immediately ahead.
Our school has entered an agreement with Waitakere Architects to produce a new 5 and 10yr year property plan.
The staff, board and principal have worked on our Vision 2021 project to gain an insight into what the world will look like in 10 years and what a 5 year old will need from the school. During this project we realised that we would need to plan for slow to moderate roll growth over the next 10 years. (The population growth stats for the west have been inaccurate by over-predicting growth rates. ) The modern curriculum requires variable space, access to IT and provision of small, semi-attached / linked specialist group working spaces. The new 10 YP will need to take these factors into consideration.
Health & Safety
There are two major issues that still need to be addressed that were timetable for 2010. One was fencing along the school frontage. The architect suggested we hold off on fencing till the overall 10YP was completed. We have concerns around the fall matting under the pirate ship but this issue was partially addressed with a few repairs carried out by the caretaker. These will both need to be addressed shortly.
Administration
The Rugby World Cup has meant some changes to term lengths. Term 1 and 2 will be 11 weeks long, Term 3, 10 weeks and Term 4 ..7 ½ weeks.
Variance Report Goals What actually happened Analysis Future action
Goals Our goals last year were to have as many children as possible ( 80% ) at or above the expected standard of at or above the new National Standards in reading , writing and Maths - irrespective of age creed, gender or time at school. Data was collected using various contemporary sources of testing and assessment. Teachers were given specific detailed guidelines on how to interpret this data in relation to the standards using continuum charts and graphs uniquely developed here at Edmonton.
This vast amount of rich information was triangulated and blended with teachers professional OTJ.. (overall, teacher judgement) to carry out fair and accurate assessments.
Thus teachers were able to ‘place’ each pupil below, at or above the particular standard. Our guidelines also allow the teachers to see if a child is on the trajectory towards the standard whilst transitioning from one level to another.
What actually happened? Results Below is the end of year data collected across the school using the process outlined above. The data shows actual numbers which are then converted to percentages for clarity.
In many cases the numbers are very close to our goal. ( All percentages added and averaged across the school gives 74.4% )
Analysis The data next 2 pages ( Not supplied here) highlight 4 groups of students in particular to keep an eye on in 2011. The staff and senior staff have looked carefully at these results with an eye to improvement.
The 4 sub-groups to watch % at or above N/S Senior Maori children for ..Writing………46% Senior boys for …………….Writing………50% Senior PI for ………………...Writing……...60% Senior girls for …………….. Reading……...67%
Bearing in mind this (2010) was a trial year, the culmination of well over 4 years development of our tools ( Graphs and continuums based on NZC levels and then integrated with the National Standards.) ..our aim was to get all our pupils, Maori, PI, boys and girls, all year groups including a significant percentage of special needs and ESOL…as close as possible to the new National Standards.
Why 74%? It could be for the following reasons…..
(1) This is an honest and fair result. It was never going to be anything else because this is an accurate measure and shows the real state of play i.e. This is how it is.
(2) Many of the lower scores are from ESOL and special needs children ( Some of whom are actually on the SLS Programme for very slow children – below NZC level 1)
(3) PD takes time to embed. Sometimes the real improvements do not occur until they have had time to flow through the school.
(4) We have been ‘hard’ rather than ‘soft’ in our judgements overall.
(5) AsTTle writing is far tougher than the National Standards and this misalignment influences childrens’ achievement. ( We use AsTTle to assess our Year 4,5 and 6 pupils.)
(6) We have a historically high transience rate of approximately 30% per year. ( many of our pupils come from rental housing.) This of course makes it difficult to get an accurate measure of achievement when 12 % of our pupils move house through the year. It makes longitudinal data almost meaningless.
(7) What the children bring in terms of pre-learning and skills varies year to year at entry level. However our data shows fantastic shifts up the achievement levels after playing ‘catch-up rugby’ for a year or so in the Junior Department. ( this is highlighted in our ERO report.)
Action
Senior staff will get in alongside staff in 2011 to continue the support for new teaching gained through our PD over the last 4 years in reading and written language. We have clear in-class support structures, professional advice and guidance plus concise and definitive documentation linked explicitly to instructional programmes and performance/appraisal systems.
Teachers share their teaching practice in syndicate groups and there is now a culture of refining teaching programmes based on mutual support and reliable data sourced from accurate assessment and moderation processes i.e. all the components of a modern successful curriculum delivery model is integrated into a co-ordinated whole.
There is a solid expectation that teachers will lead learning in their class by modelling to students that they are themselves always learning and striving for improvement at all levels.
With more experience support and refining of the procedures and practice around N/S, and our participation in 2011 in the Leadership and Assessment contract, we hope to continue improvements as a high functioning school.
I have every confidence that this will be so.
John Carrodus Principal Edmonton Primary School February 2011 |