Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Reports and Portfolios / Class sizes

Wednesday 12th December, 2007
Volume 22

Dear Parents / Caregivers

A reminder that school finishes at 1.00pm on Thursday the 20th December.

REPORTS AND PORTFOLIOS
Teachers have been working hard to complete these over the last month. I have been impressed with the positive themes that have run through each class. There is a good dose of honesty there for some but generally I think the teachers have really captured each child very well. The report has a slightly different format this year. We have still retained the 5 point scale from year 3-8 but have moved to a continuum right across the school, as opposed to a score and a grade for effort. If your child receives a 3 then they are at their expected level. For some children a 3 is very hard to attain through various learning difficulties and connections – the key is to look on the back page and see about application. The effort component is on the back page and is captured under work and study skills and personal skills. I am sure you will appreciate the slight change to the format. They represent useful information, along with the portfolio and work samples, of how your child is achieving at school.



CLASS SIZES
Muritai School requests a donation from parents to fund additional teaching resources. Some of this donation has been used to provide smaller classes. Some of this donation is used to provide additional learning opportunities. The school also provides a strong learning support programme through Raewyn O’Sullivan, a reading recovery programme for 6 year old children through Rosemary Paice and a one day school for year 5-6 children through Matt Skilton.

Students are funded at 1 teacher to 23 children in years 1-3 and at 1:29 at year 4-8 (but this also includes me, the Principal as a classroom teacher). In addition to this, due to our decile rating and extremely high student achievement performance, the school receives very limited funding for learning support, reading recovery and extension programmes – this has to be allocated out of operational funds.

With a starting roll in 2007 of 388 the Ministry will staff us to have 14.5 classrooms. Muritai will start with 16 classes and grow to 18 through the year with a closing roll of around 435 – this is clear evidence that the BoT does fund two additional classrooms and teachers through the total parent donation of around $90,000 and fund one extra through the operational grant.

However in establishing classes the year groups do not fit nicely into groups of 24, we have a number of bulges in year groups, gender imbalances and our 17th class, Maureen Buckley’s new entrant class will start the year with 2 students. Our geography with a split site also prohibits even classes as well. These are real issues that the Board quietly confronts and tries to resolve as best it can for the benefit of all students.

What the school is able to provide in 2008 is class sizes of 22-24 in year 1-4 and 28-29 in year 5-6 and 23-26 in year 7-8. At the same time the Board is committing all parent donation funds to additional teaching resources and not into the general running of the school.
Barbara Ryan

As previously stated Richard Dobson will lead the year 3-4 team and Ginny Ives will be leading the year 1-2 team. Matt Skilton and Maureen Buckley will have overall responsibility fpr year 5-8 and year 1-4 respectively.

Our part-time teaching team has been confirmed. Barbara Ryan will be back supporting our programme until the new entrant class starts around term 3. Ruth Hooke (Y5-6 and arts), Jenny Champion (Y3-4) and Morag Roberts (Y1-2) will also be providing classroom support.

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