Sunday, 3 May 2015

April BOT meeting

St Dominic’s Catholic Primary School
Board of Trustees
April 2015 Meeting
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Strategic goals reported on from Strategic plan


Engaging Families/Whanau

Consult and make connections with our parish and local community to promote St Dominic’s Catholic Primary School and celebrate what makes our school the place it is.
·         Inserts into the parish newsletter when appropriate
·         School newsletter online
·         The recent Bay newstalk

Consultation meetings with all main Cultural groups within the school at least once a year.
·         Meeting with Pacifica group planned twice a term.
·         Indian group meeting took place and we had a great turn out.
·         Student well-being presented on the night.
·         This term we have meetings planned for Indian and Sri Lankan, Fillipino and Chinese

The idea of these meetings is to provide more of a ‘real’ voice for our community groups.
It fits directly into our strategic plan goal.
We discuss aspects of learning and ways the school can further support their children’s time at school.
Feedback has been positive and the idea of ‘integration rather than isolation’ came out strong which I thought was a great comment.

Develop the Pastoral care group so that they support our families in need when needed.
·         To meet with Pastoral care group twice a term.
·         Families continue to be tracked and support offered when needed.
·         Will be working with Parish to develop this further. Plans are in place for two events this year with the parish and also our ‘sharing shed’ which would be lead by the disciples and allow the parish and school to work on a common project.

Plan to organise at least 2 community events each year that encourages families coming together and socialising. (PTA support here)
·         Bowling Afternoon after mass. Building a sense of community with parents and parishioners. This is a work in progress. See above.

Teaching

Develop and implement programmes that raises student abilities in literacy and numeracy.
·         Targets have been set up based on last year’s results
·         Mutukaroa across the junior school continues at least end of Term 1. Vicky and I have re written the plan for this and have made to following changes to this. All 5 year entering school will be tested and parents will have a meeting then with the teacher based on the results. Those children not tracking as they should will then be re tested at 5 and half and then all children again will be tested at 6 and parents brought in for a formal meeting again
·         ALIM in the Year 3 and 4 has been dropped due to time pressure on staff.
·         ALL in the junior school is up and running. Children are extremely positive about their learning and enjoy sharing in the process. See video on night. https://youtu.be/iYK8l7UzoZc
·         This year we continue the whole school focus on Numeracy. This involves the following
·         Co-teaching
·         Co-planning
We have a contract through the Ministry to unpack Professional development with the staff. We are in Year 2 of this contract. The focus for this year is to build up Maths leaders within the school.
Each teacher has a Maths goal that they are working with the Maths leaders on to make sure that these are developing their practice which will directly affect student achievement.

Creating a greater link from library to classroom programmes through Polly Ghosh who has been given this role in the school.

Use integrated curriculum delivery, inquiry learning and the key competencies in our teaching and learning programmes.
·         We are currently taking the year to unpack this new curriculum. C:\Users\danielp\OneDrive\2015\Curriculum\New curriculum\New one April 2015.docx
·         We are currently working on handbooks to support this document.


Develop further formative assessment practice and encourage students to personalise their learning.
·         Staff have chosen their goals for their personal reflection that build on previous year’s personal development.
·         Staff will be self-monitoring their own evidence gathering in relation to the teacher criteria.
·         All staff have had their initial meetings and have been informed of the process. Management of evidence will now be tracked.

Report to parents on student achievement in relation to the national standards.
·         This will take place as Assessment timetable sets out
·         STAR results discussed.
·         Some thinking around the Special needs students and how we are tracking these students. We need another ways of showing the successes these children are making and the regular ways we are assessing them is not working for them.
·         Narrative assessment aspects.

Student engagement and independence: student voice, goal setting and AKO concepts.
·         Goal setting took place with most children doing this on their devices.
·         This was well received by the parents.
·         Students need to reflect on this goals as the year progresses.
·         This is where the Key Competencies need to be developed further so that the children can talk into these.


Develop a culture of learning where ICT is an everyday learning tool.

·         IT survey as part of the self-review process discussed.
·         IT rubric being developed as part of the IT plan in the school.
·         Review plan It 2015
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Develop and implement differentiated learning programmes to meet the needs of students across all learning areas.
·         Target groups have been set up within the classrooms for Maths, Writing and Reading
·         Data wall will become more and more a focus and will continue to be so. We need to know if we are making more of an impact on our children. What impact is our teaching making and how do we know?

School Catholic Culture

Reviewing the annual plan from previous year
·         First meeting has taken pace with DRS and we are well on board for a great review. St Dominic’s already has great system and structures behind the scene for real pastoral care.
·         This year the focus is Pastoral Care.
·         What does our school actually do to support our school families?

Visually our school looks more Catholic using images and pictures
·         Work in progress


Professional development in this area is looked into and encouraged through the appraisal process.
·         We need to develop systems and procedures to ensure that the 12 credits become the least amount of professional development achievements their teachers experience in a year.
·         There seems to be ever increasing pressure on our schools to up skill and seek higher qualifications for our teachers.
·         This is great however what is not discussed are issues like teacher release impacts on students, budgeting to allow this to happen and how our rural Catholic schools are supposed to meet these obligations.
·         No one disputes the need to encourage our teachers of the Catholic faith to up skill, what we need to be mindful of however is getting to the point when all teachers who apply for a job in a Catholic school have to have a Catholic Qualification.


Key competencies are developed through the school values.
·         Example of planning using KC
·         Staff meeting taken on this to make sure this is in the forefront of our teachers minds.

More student voice and action into all things Catholic at school
·         Will oversee the ‘sharing shed’ idea set up by the pastoral care group. We have received the money for this so can go ahead with it.
·         Have ordered the shed and Mike the caretaker is on board with what this will look like for us. We need to work out a system for this to happen.


All staff expected to attend 2 PD courses each year.
·         This opportunity is open to all staff including Support

Exchanges with other catholic schools for mass and sport exchange where our faith can be celebrated Catholic School’s Day
·         N/A

Teacher’s video practice and this is used to reflect upon. This will form part of teacher appraisal process.
·         Ongoing and as part of individual teachers evidence gathering

Managing and Learning

Design and implement a school wide curriculum that meets the needs of NZC and our school community.
·         The new St Dominic’s Curriculum has been introduced however we need to go back to this to ensure that this is leading the schools drive.
·         We have unpacked the Year 6 leaver and now will move into the Student achievement statement so that the teachers understand their roles in the new curriculum.


Build a professional learning community that focuses on student learning as their core purpose. Share good practice.
·         All staff are well aware that they are in the ‘drivers-seat’ regarding their own evidence gathering. They will have maintain a very robust and rigorous plan to ensure they are meeting the teacher council criteria.
·         I see Community of Schools being a leading factor in making this happen further.


Provide professional development opportunities to support student achievement through improved understandings in Curriculum, Pedagogy, Literacy, Numeracy, Assessment, National Standards and E- Learning.
·         Mutokaroa project
·         Whole school Mathematical focus
·         Catholic strand meetings
·         ALL
·         NZC support
·         Reciprocal teaching professional practice
·         Sharing practice within the staff

Grow Great leaders. Build leadership capability of principal and teachers who hold positions of responsibility and leadership and also Student leaders.
·         N/A

Provide a safe secure learning environment for our students.
·         Current areas of concern
ü  Junior playground. Have given this as the target for the bi-annual fair. PTA happy with this.
The Health and Safety Reform Bill will create the new Health and Safety at Work Act, replacing the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992.
The Health and Safety Reform Bill is currently before Parliament. The select committee considering the Bill is due to report back by 30 March 2015 and then the Bill will continue its progression through the parliamentary process. It is likely that the Bill will come into force in the second half of 2015.
We have reviewed and changed our process around this at St Dominic’s.
This is the focus for the Fair from the community.

Governing

Enrolment and Office procedures - monitor the enrolment procedures
·         This is working well and we are on track for 278 students by the end of the year.

Promote high levels of staff performance.
·         This has been set up and all teacher having to come up with 3 goals based on IT, Teacher practice and Maths
·         This will then lead into formal observations and reflection through evidence gathering
·         All part of the teacher inquiry model and building teacher capability.

Continue to upgrade the school grounds, ensure the property is able to meet the needs of a 21st Century education, continue environmental education
·         Enviro group are an excellent group that are really making a difference across the school. Vicky continues to lead this strong group of children.

Monitor school budget to ensure purchasing is strategic.

Ensure there is a planned cycle of review and self-review in the school.
·         New format rolled out that is simpler and easy to follow BoT  Self Review 2015.docx
·         Self-review on IT developments and its impact on students discussed on the night.

Staff feedback at BOT meetings leading the reports in their areas
·         Staff yet to be set up for this however they are very keen to get this off the ground.

Current school roll 234

Points to discuss
·         IES update
·         Principals appraisal process
·         Staff illness
·         Server issues
·         One page strategic plan



Although the life of a person is in a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.




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