Principal News

By Simon Clarke | Posted: Sunday November 17, 2019

I have a number of points of information that I would like to share with you below. I also inadvertently attached the wrong Principal Report in the last newsletter which can be found in the next article.

Student Results

Our end of year student data has been collected and analysed and I am pleased to say that we continue to perform very highly.  We use a combination of teacher judgements and standardised tests to collect this information to ensure that we have a full picture of individual, small group and overall school achievement.  The Board will be using this data over the next few weeks to set targets and direct funding for next year.

Our reading results continue to perform highly with 90% of our students being able to read at or above the expected level.  Our Maths results sit at 86% while our writing results continue to improve to 84%, a jump of 5% from last year.

Thank you to the hard-working students, families, teachers and teacher aides for achieving such great results!

2020 Classes

We have had a number of enrolments for next year in the senior and middle classes over the last few weeks.  This will mean that we will need to make our class structure look a little different for 2020.  To create a balance of even year groups and gender mix we will need to have the following classes:

• 1x Year 6
• 3 x Year 5/6
• 1 x Year 4/5
• 2 x Year 3/4
• 1 x Year 3
• 2 x Year 2
• 1 x Year 1/2
• 1 x Year 1

The classes will have a range of students in them and it should not be assumed that if your child is in the straight Year 6 or 3 class that they are in the top or bottom of their year group.

Sickness

We have had a lot of sickness recently, made worse by children coming back to school too soon and passing it on to other students.  If your child vomits at school or has diarrhoea then please do not send them back to school within 48 hours.  I have attached the Ministry of Health guidelines for illnesses and return to school times.   Please note it doesn't need to be food poisoning for vomiting to trigger the 48 hour restriction - any vomiting or diarrhoea requires a 48 hour exclusion from school.

Mobile Phones and Smart Watches

With Christmas fast approaching you may be considering buying your child a smartwatch.  We are already experiencing a number of children videoing other students in school time and texting their parents during the day.  Some of these texts can often cause confusion for both parents and teachers and it is simply not needed.

If you need to get a message to your child, please call the office and we will pass it on.   Currently, if your child brings a phone to school, they are asked to bring them to the office in the morning for safekeeping during the day.  The same rules will apply to smartwatches in 2020.  If a phone or smartwatch is damaged or goes missing during school hours the school will hold no responsibility for it.