An update from board meetings 5 & 6 by Amy and Theresa.

Kia ora koutou

With two Board of Trustee meetings under our belt it is well and truly time for an update on what has been going on. We have elected Lynda Dickson as our chairperson - she has fantastic leadership skills and will steer us on the right path to govern our school. Each parent trustee holds a portfolio of responsibility, Lynda - HR, Debbie Fitzgibbon - housing, Gavin Clarke - health & safety, Dean Eades - finance, Emma Muclock - property. Theresa Tuivailala is our student trustee and I (Amy Hewett) am the staff trustee and we are responsible for board communication.

We have been getting up to speed with governance and our role as trustees by attending training courses, meetings with Ministry of Education representatives and going to the Area Schools’ conference. Talk about a steep learning curve!

We have had very positive feedback from our teachers on their visits to other schools in Christchurch and Auckland that occurred on the teacher only days last term. They were specifically looking at collaborative learning practices and a teaching and learning tool called SOLO taxonomy. Investing in our teachers and providing them with opportunities to upskill is one of the best ways for the board to help our students with their achievement.

Our immediate focus is to start the journey of appointing a new principal after Jen’s resignation earlier this week. We had a meeting last week to begin putting a plan together and will keep you informed as we go.

Board of trustee meetings are meetings that are held in public. This means that members of the public are welcome to attend, but they do not have speaking rights. At times in our meetings we go “into committee” to protect the confidentiality of staff and students, but please know you are welcome to attend our meetings. We next meet at 6pm on the 25th August in the boardroom then again on 22nd September.

We will continue to keep you informed of Board of Trustees discussions and plans through this blog.update. If you have any questions on matters we raise please feel free to contact us using our school email address (first letter of our name and surname @cheviot.school.nz for example ahewett@cheviot.school.nz).If you have any correspondence for a board meeting please make sure we have received it 7 days before a meeting.

Ngā mihi nui

Amy and Theresa