Week 5 Term 4
Principals Report
In this newsletter I am sharing some decisions that have been carefully considered by the board and the leadership team about next year.
For the last three years the board has funded an extra teacher at Thorrington in the year 5/6 cohort. The reasoning for this was around the high numbers of children that we had in year 5/6 in 2016 and within that cohort we had a high number of children with learning and emotional needs. These were the children who may have just started school around the 2010 /2011 earthquakes so it is easy to see why this occurred. After three years of funding an extra teacher and with lower numbers across the whole school this year the board has decided that this is no longer sustainable. Added to this is the Ministry directed build roll number (460) that we are working towards over the next three years.
With one less teacher in 2019 Tuakana with 160 children would mean 5 Home Bases of 5/6 starting with 32 in each Home Base. In comparison, the Whanaketanga numbers at 140 across the whole team are much lower than Tuakana. The most equitable option was to remove the teacher from the Whanaketanga team. This will allow Tuakana to have six Home Bases of 26 or 27 and Whanaketanga will have five Home Bases of 28.
There were several options to consider with five Home Bases in Whanaketanga instead of six, but the best option is to composite year 3 and 4 classes so that there are 28 children (a mix of year three and four children) in each Home Base. We have seen advantages for both the younger and older children in the year 5/6 composites and we believe that the year three and year four children will have the same experience. At present in our collaborative structure the year 3 and 4 students work together very well – the recent ‘Brave on Stage’ collaborative production is a great example of this.
We are starting the class placement process next week and as always we are mindful of learning and social needs in this process. As with our current collaborations, there are many opportunities for different groupings within the collaborative structures.
Teacher placements for 2019
Timatanga
Year 1 Home base 3 Aimee Sinclair (Carmel Knight to open next year 1 Class )
Year 1 Home Base 4 Jo Clarke
Year 1 Home Base 5 Teresa Price
Sue Hunt will release both Teresa and Jo one day a week on different days
Year 2 Home Base L1 Carl Scurr
Year 2 Home Base L2 Wendy Booth
Year 2 Home Base L3 Kendall Skelton and Denise Bruce when Kendall takes Maternity leave
Whanaketanga
W 1 Year ¾ Home base 6 Lizzie Rodda
W 1 Year ¾ Home Base 7 Dave Crosson
W 2 Year ¾ Home Base 9 Deb Dent
W 2 Year ¾ Home Base 10 Sophie Ainsley
W 2 Year ¾ Home Base 11 Michelle Hamilton
Tuakana
T 1 year 5/6 Home Base 14 Lauren Ormsby
T 1 year 5/6 Home base 15 Jessie Becker
T2 Year 5/6 Home Base 12 Kathryn Cornfoot
T2 Year 5/6 Home Base 18 Sue Andrews
T3 Year 5/6 Home Base 16 Nicky Reynolds
T3 Year 5/6 Home Base 17 Hayley Ngan
Have a wonderful show weekend holiday
Ngā mihi
Christine Harris