Every two years the Board of Trustees does a survey to ascertain how the school is performing in a number of areas. This information is very important to us as it helps create the Strategic Plan. Please follow the link to complete the survey, it should only take 10-15 minutes.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfC43rIvAPN5P_3gUEAZRuEEjlKoks_LPs1NhInsn0ac3ck5g/viewform

The following is what came out of the last consultation in 2018 with some of the answers....

STEM should not take priority over literacy, numeracy and social skills

-We totally agree and that is not the intention at all of introducing STEM/Makerculture into your child's learning. We are starting off at the early stages and trying to introduce some of these concepts to the teachers and ultimately the students. The vast majority of these concepts can be integrated to support literacy and numeracy.

Sports Draws

- On the main page when you scroll down you will find three large dots. One is called sports. This will take you to the sports draw.

Communication continues to be a big issue for many parents. With no easy fix as many parents said that we send too many emails and have too many ways of communicating while others have commented that they don't get enough.

- Here is a rundown of how we communicate.

- Newsletters - Are emailed every three weeks. These are fairly generic to whole school activities, important dates, student successes, syndicate news. These automatically get uploaded to the website.

App - Largely a reminder that an email has been sent out or more importantly emergency notifications such as when the school is shut for snow etc.

Website - Collates all of the information that has been emailed and has other information such as the calendar and sports draws.

Facebook/Twitter - Collates all of the information that has been emailed. We don't allow comments as we don't actively monitor the site as it is blocked by the schools network. If you want to ask a question or have a complaint please feel free to email the school.

Face to Face - Most importantly we have an open door policy so please feel free to talk to the teacher about any issues.

Assembly

All assemblies are on the calendar which can be found on the website. You should receive a personal email invite from the teacher prior to your child's class assembly . Assembly starts at 10:50 and finishes at 11:30-11:45. Parents are welcome to their child's assembly.

More communication and feedback regarding children with learning difficulties

Individual Education Plan meetings are held regularly with children who have severe learning difficulties and each newsletter has information from Kristen Ferguson about what we are doing in the school in this area. This year we are placing a greater emphasis on dyslexia.

Sports has a higher priority than culture.

It could easily be argued that in fact we value cultural activities over sports. All sports practices are run at lunchtimes for free while most cultural activities such as guitar, kapa haka, ukulele, orchestra are done in classtime. We release teachers to support our cultural programmes at $3,900 while the Kapa Haka costs $5000 a year to run.

Lunch supervision

- All students are supervised between 12:30 and 12:45. Junior teachers check every lunchbox to ensure that they have had a sufficient amount. Middles and senior students are supervised that they have lunch and that they have time to eat it but the quantity of lunch consumed is not monitored.

Multi level classes

- Transition is one of the worst things you can do for a child's learning according to the research. By keeping them in the same class for two years they actually have fewer transitions. It also allows us to even out class sizes as we can spread children out across more classes.

New parents commented on a lack of understanding of what will happen in the first few weeks at school

- Although the enrollment book has much of this information it is often forgotten about from the time of initially receiving it and the first week off school. Mrs Oldfield will work with parents at Kaikorai Kiwis to develop a one-pager that can be put on the fridge to help parents negotiate the first few weeks at school.

Te Reo

- Students work in a variety of ways developing their Te Reo including using Education Perfect. We haven't invested in bi-lingual signage as it will be largely demolished in 2020. The new buildings will have bilingual signage.

Mathematics

- After a successful trial in two classes last year we are introducing Prime mathematics which uses less strategies, brings in algorithms earlier and is based upon the Singapore Mathematics Programme.

Homework

Homework - Once again a wide range of opinion here. We have asked teachers to provide 10-20 mins a night of the basics (Basic facts, reading). This is entirely optional for parents but what we would encourage is that if your child develops a passion for a topic or wants to continue to work at home on their inquiry, that you would support their learning.

Kaikorai School Board of Trustees

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