Board of Trustees
Newsletter
1
Naumai e te whanau o te kura Muritai
Tena koutou katoa
Welcome
to this Board of Trustees newsletter that aims to bring the school community up
to speed with some of the things that the Board has been addressing as part of
its governance role of Muritai School. We welcome Sarah Richardson to the Board
as staff representative replacing Melissa Coton who served for 2 years.
Property
Construction has finally begun on
our new Library building. We had hoped to begin construction earlier this year
but were held up by both the council and Ministry of Education consent
process. Because the library project
involves an alteration to the ‘middle’ block, the council required us to bring
that building up to current code, which has meant the installation of new
ceilings. Some of these were installed
during the holidays and the remainder should be done during the next break. The
builders are working to the following timelines:
· end of November – the new
building completed
· Christmas holiday 2014 - stage
2 (the refurbishment of the old library and the large deck off the 2 story
block) completed.
· beginning of 2015- all
building works completely finished.
Once again our sincere
thanks to the Carnival Committee and all who have contributed in any way to the
three Eastbourne Carnival’s which provided over $170,000 towards this work. We could not have done it without your
generous support.
In
other property matters you will have noticed the repositioning of the
playground to make way for the library and the painting completed in the
holiday break. The School Network Upgrade team has also completed their work
and updated all cabling and essential network tools. This will assist the
school to take further advantage of ultra fast broadband connection. At the end
of this term we will be replacing the hall roof, which has served its time so
close to the sea.
Student Achievement
The
Board has held five meetings so far this year and is steadily working on
keeping everything moving forward. Our
April meeting was devoted to student achievement. Teaching staff spent much of the last term
sifting through student achievement data gathered in term one and what it means
for our teaching and learning landscape. The management team is pleased with
where the children are at, but acknowledges that hard work is required to
maintain and improve on our high standards.
The Board supports the teaching staff’s belief that the growth in our
children is displayed in so much more ways that just a standardized test.
However, as a measure, these tests are useful and when the management team
formally reported to the Board our student achievement information shows some
excellent results in reading and writing, and some definite school-wide gains
in maths over the last 12 months.
Our
2013 school-wide average results using National Standards show we are in a
strong position. In reading, writing and maths we average 90% at or above the
standard, which comparatively puts Muritai in the top echelon of schools in
Wellington for student achievement. Coupled with our consistent success in zone
sport and the arts the Board is confident that Muritai continues to be ‘the
best that it can be’.
Well Below Standard
|
Below Standard
|
At
Standard
|
Above Standard
|
|
Reading
|
2%
|
5%
|
32%
|
61%
|
Writing
|
2%
|
8%
|
46%
|
44%
|
Maths
|
0%
|
10%
|
45%
|
45%
|
You
can find the full student achievement result on the school website under the“Our school-School Information” link and the Ministry of Education has
published our results along with other schools at http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz. Whilst there are well-documented
difficulties with using this information for comparison purposes given the
complications of the national standards process we are delighted that Muritai
School stands out as a leading school.
Towards 2020
Last
month we were again joined by the management team who shared their vision for
2015 and beyond. The Board is shortly to
begin a strategic planning process which we are calling “Towards 2020” and will
be canvassing the views of our community as to your hopes and aspirations for
Muritai School. We encourage you to
engage with this process.
Finance
One
of the real challenges for any Board of Trustees is managing school finances. The
school continues to run extremely tight margins but got through 2013 in a sound
financial position. We would always like to be able to offer more to our
children. We are only able to match our
expenditure with our revenue by relying on the parent donations which supports our
current staffing level and provides smaller class sizes. Your donation enables
Muritai to run two extra classrooms across the year than the Ministry of
Education funds. A reminder that your
donation is tax deductible and it really helps us plan for the following year
if this is received by us sooner rather than later.
Staffing
We
were thrilled to learn Barbara Ryan has been awarded the Primary Science
Teacher Alumni Award, one of three awarded annually in NZ. This is an extension
from her Royal Society sabbatical that she took a couple of years ago and
recognition of the difference that she has made to our school and local science
teaching community. Barbara continues to be a real force in science teaching at
Muritai. The Board also acknowledges the excellent work of Raihania Chadwick who continues to put huge energy to our tikanga and te reo Maori programmes at Muritai. Our first ever performance at the 'Polyfest' was excellent.
We
were disappointed to lose Kirsten Berry and Hayden Ray last term and the Board
thanks them for their contributions to Muritai over the last few years and
wishes them well on their next journey at their new school. We welcome their
replacements Annette Borgonje and Briana Lee to the Muritai family.
Roll
The
roll remains strong at 440 pupils and we expect the school to have a December
closing roll of 472. Room 1 opened at
the end of last term and the next new entrants class opens later during term 4,
while the Y5-6 class, currently in room 16 transfers to the old library until
the end of the year. The enrolment zone
that was implemented late last year is working well to ease pressure on class
sizes. Other than year 8 parents, if you
have a child who will not be
attending Muritai next year please let us know as soon as possible. A quick email to the office will be fine but
we are already planning for 2015 and looking at staffing and funding
requirements so this information is critical to our planning. Equally if you know people who are planning
to start at Muritai in 2015 please ask them to also get in touch. The better informed we are the better
decisions we can make.
Carnival and Home and School
The
Carnival team met recently to get things up and going for carnival this year.
They have settled on a date for this year of November 23. Please lock this onto
your diaries and have a think about how you might contribute to supporting the
team on the day. As already mentioned
your contribution to recent carnivals is the reason we have been able to build
the library and fund IT development in the school. We really need everyone to
get behind this year’s Carnival.
Finally....
As
you can see its been another busy year for the Board but a rewarding one as we
start to see the realization of some projects that have been in the pipeline
for many years. The Board has
appreciated meeting with the management team of Andrew, Stu, Dean, Jess and
Maureen at two of the meetings this year and it served to reinforce to us that
the school is fortunate indeed to have such passionate, capable and
professional leadership. Please continue
to give them your support and a reminder that they and we as your Board of
Trustees are always available to listen to your comments and thoughts on the
life and direction of our wee community.
na matou na,
Muritai School Board of Trustees
Craig, Olivia, Nick, Julie Dave, Sarah, Stu, Andrew
