Kia ora koutou... here is our update from the Board of Trustees. In this article, we share the date for our consultation evening to be held on the 18th of May (this is a must-attend as we have some exciting plans for the future of our school), share the work we are doing to keep our students safe as they travel to and from school and inform you of our work with the MoE to manage the roll growth at LPS.

Community Consultation Evening

As we mentioned in our Term 1 update, one of the fundamental actions to improve communication between the Board and whānau is to hold in-person community consultation evenings once a term. Our first consultation evening will be taking place at 7 pm on Thursday, 18 May. Please fill out this RSVP Form if you are going to attend the consultation evening. Once we have an idea of the numbers attending, we will then confirm which space we will use at our school.

The Board has been spending time and effort reflecting on how our tamariki are educated at Lincoln Primary to ensure we deliver the best possible education. This has included considering how we can ensure that in the delivery of education:

• there is a cohesive delivery of teaching and learning;

• there is a connection with the new values of Lincoln Primary and how these link across the school; and

• it allows for the curriculum refresh for all learning areas that the Ministry of Education (MOE) is rolling out in the next two to three years.

To meet all these objectives, the Board is considering introducing the Primary Years Programme (or PYP for short) – International Baccalaureate programme. The PYP is an inquiry-based and concept-driven model of learning and teaching that moves away from teaching individual subjects in isolation from each other and instead focuses on big ideas that cover multiple subject/learning areas. The PYP encourages independent and collaborative learners by giving them a voice and allowing them choice and ownership in their own learning. 

For further information regarding the PYP, please see this Frequently Asked Questions Sheet. You can also read some research HERE.

We understand and appreciate that changes to how the school delivers education can be unsettling and can cause uncertainty and concern. It is for these reasons that our first community consultation evening will therefore be focused on talking about the MOE curriculum refresh and consulting on the implementation of the PYP – explaining what it is, what would change, how it could improve outcomes for our tamariki, and to seek your feedback during the course of the meeting. We strongly encourage all whānau to attend this community meeting and have their voice heard.

Road Safety

We are working with the Selwyn District Council to address some of our concerns around road safety. The Government has previously introduced a road to zero strategy, with one of the key action items to set safe speed limits around all schools by the end of 2027 (with a certain number to be completed by the middle of next year). The Council has advised that it is looking to lower speed around all schools in the Selwyn District by the middle of next year. This will involve reducing the speed limit around the streets adjacent to Lincoln Primary to 30km/ph. They have advised that part of the process involved in lowering the speed limit is to consult the public, and it expects that this consultation will take place in June/July this year. We will let you know once the consultation has opened.

The Council has acknowledged that lowering the speed limit by itself may not slow drivers down and that it needs to be done in conjunction with engineered, designed changes to the roads. They were reviewing our site and the roads after they met with us to start formulating a plan of what additional work may be required for our school.

Given the lowering of the speed and any engineered design changes are still some time away, we asked the Council what steps could be taken in the interim to improve road safety. We are currently waiting to hear back from them on this. At the same time, the Board is considering if there are any steps it can take as well.

Improving road safety does not just involve focusing on infrastructure changes. Whānau and tamariki all play a part in improving the safety of the roads for all road users. All teachers in Term 2 will be discussing road safety with their classes, and we encourage whānau to have discussions at home as well. Chris will provide further information in a school newsletter regarding where you can access this road safety information for yourselves.

Property

The Board met with the MOE to further discussions around classroom capacity. The MOE acknowledged that we have, and still are, experiencing significant role growth and that there is a need for both short-term and long-term solutions to deal with this role growth. 

We are currently working through what the short-term solutions will be, as some of these solutions will be required before the end of the year. We are also starting to engage with the MOE on the long-term solutions, which, as you can imagine, is a bit of a process, but we will continue to push to progress this process as fast as possible.