Tēnā koutou katoa. Tēnei te mihi atu ki a koutou

Last Thursday, Halswell School was privileged to be invited to help unveil a new piece of artwork in the Halswell Quarry. The sculptures were created by Australian artist Karen Genoff. The work entitled Kaurna Waily (Kaurna Leaves) was created to commemorate the long-standing sister city relationship that exists between Adelaide and Christchurch and to replace the original sculptures that were, unfortunately, stolen last year. 

A delegation of our kapa haka group was invited to take part in the ceremony which featured both the Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel and Adalaide's Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor. Our students performed incredibly well and made us all feel very proud.  I would encourage you to stop and have a look at these amazing sculptures the next time you are exploring the quarry. 

Reporting Survey 

You may recall that late last term, we surveyed our parent community about how we report the progress and achievement of our students. In total, we received 147 responses. Assuming that we received one response per family, this constitutes approximately a 30% response rate from our families. 

The data showed a relatively normal distribution of responses in relation to how effective our parents feel the reporting practices are at Halswell School and how well-informed parents feel about their child(ren)'s progress and achievement.

The results have been analysed in detail over the last few weeks. Overall the results were more positively skewed in relation to most aspects of our reporting methods, but some parts were less well-received. The staff have complied a number of recommendations for how we might improve our reporting practices going forward. This is a large piece of work and will take some time to implement well.

Based on the feedback from the survey we will be making some initial changes early next year to help strengthen the home and school relationship. To start things off, we will be hosting a "Welcome Back to School" evening on Tuesday 4 February for all families. Teachers will be available in the learning studios from 5.30-6pm to meet all parents and students in their T Group. This is intended to be a very informal opportunity for families and teachers to connect right at the beginning of the new school year. At 6pm we will then be hosting a picnic on the field.

We will also be increasing the length of the Meet the Teacher Conferences to 15 minutes. Some of this time may be spent without children present if parents would prefer it. The format of the mid-year Student-led Conferences will also be reviewed to help maximise the time parents have with their child's T Group Teacher. 

Finally, we are working closely with the developers of Linc-Ed who are about to roll out a much-anticipated update on their online reporting system. It is hoped that many of the frustrations currently experienced by some of our parents will be reduced or eliminated as a result of these changes.

We will keep you updated as we implement any new improvements to our reporting methods.  A copy of the full report can be found here. 

Staffing news:

Over the past few weeks, the Leadership Team have been putting together the final school structure for 2020. As informed in the last newsletter, next year we are moving to our preferred team structure of Years 0-2, Years 3&4, Years 5&6 and Years 7&8. We will be sharing the final structure with you in the next newsletter including a number of new appointments that have been made. 

We have several teachers not returning to Halswell School next year.  These include Ben Qau Qau who is travelling overseas, Bella Rowse, Sarah Dyer, Lucy Ferguson and Sarah Rogatski (all moving to new schools) and Brooke McFaul who is also heading away for an overseas experience. Teaching Assistant Kathy Marsiglia will also not be returning next year. All of these staff members have made valuable contributions to our school in their time here. On behalf of our Board and wider staff, I wish them all the very best for the adventures that await them.

Ngā mihi nui

Stuart Cameron

Principal