Kia ora whānau

Thanks to those who completed the survey this year, we appreciate your feedback which helps us inform decisions for 2020.  Above is a Wordle which represents the key qualities, character strengths and understandings you would like to see your children graduate from Kaurilands School with.  We have found these findings extremely informative and in line with our ongoing focus on wellbeing in particular.  Please see a message from the Board below.

Community engagement survey

Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond to our community survey. We really appreciate it. Your responses help inform our planning as we look towards 2020.

Overall the feedback was positive. Most of our community thinks the school is doing a great job. We received very good feedback on the school's culture, teaching and support staff, and physical environment.

Two areas for further improvement stood out. The first relates to our collaborative spaces. Some whānau worry that teachers don't know their children as well as they should, and don't know who to approach with any questions or problems. There are also concerns about the impact of class sizes.

Next year we will trial "home groups" within our collaborative spaces. Teachers will still work as a team, but each child will have a dedicated lead teacher who will also be the first point of contact for whānau. We'll hold information evenings early in 2020 so whānau have a better understanding of why we have collaborative spaces, and we are looking to reduce class sizes in years 5 and 6 (without affecting lower years).

The second area for improvement is communication. Across our community there are very different views on what good communication looks like: some whānau want to hear more from school, others want to hear less. However, communication hasn't always been consistent across the school so we'll look to streamline that. We're also looking at parent-teacher evenings and more information about student reporting. We are expecting Linc-Ed to become app-based next year, which should make it more accessible.

Finally, we asked what key qualities, character strengths and understandings whānau would like to see their child graduate with. This is what you told us:

Because the survey was anonymous we can't respond to any specific comments. If you have any particular questions or concerns please talk to your classroom teacher, a member of the senior leadership team, or Jo Augustine. 

Nick Summerfield

Board Chair