Board of Trustees

Newsletter 1       

July 2014

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