Infrastructure Update

Tena Koutou Katoa

Change has been constant at Stonefields School since opening in 2011. Some of the systems and structures that worked when we were a School of 500 learners are now not fit for purpose. This term we enrolled our 700th learner. Continual review to ensure continuous improvement has been essential as our numbers have increased over time.

The purpose of the communication is to update you on some infrastructure changes for 2020 to ensure we future proof our School as we continue to grow towards a roll of 1000 learners.

After reviewing and reflecting on parent voice through the recent community survey, teacher voice, learner voice and analysing our achievement data we have made the decision to re-organise the School into two-year levels in each learning hub in 2020.

This will mean we will have:

    • New Entrants - as new entrants enter the School new learning hubs will be opened to cater for the increased numbers
    • Years 1 and 2 - 2 hubs
    • Years 3 and 4 - 3 hubs
    • Years 5 and 6 - 3 hubs
    • Years 7 and 8 - 2 hubs

The School will be organised as follows in 2020:

    • New Entrants - Hub koru (old library) then open growth hub in hub 3
    • Year 1/2 - Hubs 1 and 2
    • Year 3/4 - Hubs 5, 6, 7
    • Year 5/6 - Hubs 10, 11, 12
    • Year 7/8 - Hubs 8 and 9

Build Update

The new building is taking shape very quickly. Despite the rain and the wind, the team has worked hard to stay on schedule. As you will have seen, the concrete pad has been completed and the steel infrastructure is being installed, including for the central internal atrium staircase. Next week will see the framing in place for the second floor being installed.

Over the summer break, the car park is being modified slightly to accommodate extra vehicles. Although this means we will sadly loose some of the trees and planting out the front it does mean we will not need to build another car park elsewhere on-site. This project will also involve installing barrier arms at the entrances in order to help traffic flow and child safety.

The other work being conducted over the summer will be improvements to, and extension of the admin and staff areas. This is in order to create capacity for more staff in the admin team, to extend the health room, and to provide meeting spaces. Inevitably there will be some disruption to people arriving through the main entrance area during this time. We will do our best to minimize it. This project, including the refurbishment of the staff area, is likely to take until July 2020.

Click here to view a time-lapse video of the build so far.

Device Use

We are grateful for the 253 community members who completed the Critical to Learn and Know survey. It has provided us with valuable information to inform our next steps.

We were interested in understanding parents thoughts about whether the device use at Stonefields School was ‘about right’, or too little’. The summary table below indicates that we might not have this quite right. It also highlights that more information is needed to inform parents about just how much learners use their devices at School.

My child uses their device at School:

We have also been analysing the entry assessment data over time and have been noticing an increasing gap in children's oral language capability. We have been engaging with resource teachers, speech-language therapist and expert practitioners to actively develop learners oral language, we are already seeing positive shifts. This is an area we need to work more closely with our community to ensure we are actively building learners oral language acquisition.

On average our children enter below the national average in conversational language, the ability to communicate with adults and peers. Other areas we fall below the national average are recognising words, identifying letters and recording sounds.

We want to assure you that we do accelerate outcomes for our learners who enter below National expectations, children generally reach expected achievement levels in their areas after 2 years.

Your feedback through the survey’s and the insights we have gained through data analysis have informed our decision to delay the 1:1 iPad initiative until year 3. Up until now, learners have been supported with an iPad from year 1.

Our focus moving forward is on designing a library of rich experiences for our 5 and 6-year-old learners that helps them to develop an abundance of language.

Devices at Stonefields School 2020:

    • Year 1/2 - no 1:1, School will fund sets of ipads that can be used from time to time to support learning
    • Year 3/4 - the School will continue to fund 1:1 ipads and ask that parents contribute $50 towards their child’s iPad use for the year
    • Year 5 - 8 - Parent owned Chromebooks, purchased through the Manaiakalani Scheme. Next year - Year 7 learners will be due to renew their devices. This information is in the process of being finalised and we will share more details over the coming weeks.

Staffing for 2020

We are pleased to inform you that we are very close to being fully staffed for 2020. We have great stability moving into next year and look forward to sharing the full staffing picture later this term.

It is hard to believe we now have 70 employees on our payroll, Some change we have come to learn is inevitable, however, it is always sad to say goodbye to valued staff members. I am sure you will join us in saluting and thanking each and every one of these staff members for their significant contribution to our learners and Stonefields School as a whole. Click here