The Board has met all obligations to provide a good and safe working environment.
There are regular, monthly health & safety reports, a health and safety and risk register, weekly minuted pastoral reports and actions and termly check-ins for the wellbeing of staff.
The Board meets all obligations as an equal employment opportunity employer. It advertises openly all roles that should be advertised and is committed to employing the best person for the job irrespective of gender, ethnicity or any other issue of identity.
Our appointments policy is adhered to and interview and appointments panels are required to demonstrate impartiality.
The aims and aspirations of Māori are recognised through consultation with iwi, with whānau and through the genuine attempt to deliver on the requests our community makes. Our constraints tend to be the availability of personnel who can make some of these things possible, though the Board has a commitment to achieving these things over time as personnel and resource allow.
The school has a strong record of training Māori and supporting them into teacher training, particularly in te ao Māori.
The school provides huge opportunities for training, professional learning and personal improvement, some of which are internal and many of which are supported by Manaiakalani Education Trust. These are reported on in more detail in other sections of this report.
The school is supportive of the employment of women in the matters of family support, maternity and other aspects of being a family friendly school. We have a commitment to those who are differently abled and ensuring our site and work are accessible to employees and learners with a variety of access challenges.
Management Appraisal in 2023 has been carried out by Anne Sinclair, who also works with us in the Manaiakalani Group.
All staff have been appraised in accordance with the 2023 appraisal & attestation policies and the NZ Teacher Code of Conduct with a focus on professional growth cycles.
All teaching staff are registered or provisionally registered, and provisionally registered teachers have completed the appropriate programme of supervision.
Police checks have been made for new staff employed. We have complied with the requirements of the Vulnerable Children's Act.
The 2023 Professional Portfolio Folder contains the attestation information for all our staff, but as you will discover, is permissioned only for those who should have access to it.
The components of Performance Management in 2023 were:
attestation against NZ teacher Code of Conduct carried out by Team Leaders
managed and shared inquiry into practice
focused walk throughs carried out by management members
reflective learning conversations
research observations and analysis
PLD inputs which include greater opportunity for discussion
CoL Meetings and Inquiries
School supplied supervision along with Manaiakalani supervision
Professional Development this year has been focused on Learn, Create, Share and Reading. The Reading work has been led internally by our own staff, deriving direction from the external analysis ofof the Manaiaklaani Research Team and the development of the RPI.
We have continued with a focus on wellbeing led by the Mitey Team funded by the Sir John Kirwan Foundation.
Our Teacher Inquiry into Practice has been led by the principal, shared with the whole staff and shared publicly on our blogs. Most of these Inquiries focused on Reading and Engagement.
The Manaiakalani Professional Development was carried out via staff meetings, School Leader PLG's, Principals' PLG's, New to ChromeBook PLG's, Middle Leaders PLG's, Digital Intensives, Reading Intensive and in class facilitation and support from CoL Teachers and Fiona Grant.
In-class observation and research was carried out by members of the Manaiakalani Research Team along with School Leaders who were trained for this purpose, under the supervision of the Research Team. For more detailed information on this project and its associated professional development, please visit http://www.manaiakalani.org/
We have sent 5 teachers, to the Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Intensive. This work was a huge success.
We were not able to send any teachers to Incredible Years, this year.
During 2023 all staff have been involved in Learn Create Share PLD supplied internally and by Manaiakalani.
One staff member has been in the Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher Programme this year.
Four staff have been members of the Manaiakalani Class OnAir Team this year.
Four staff were CoL Within or Across Schools Teachers and attended all CoL PLG meetings.
All staff participated in our Reading and Learn, Create, share focused staff meetings
Selected staff participated in the Mitey PLD.
We were able to carry out a Learning Journey to the Taranaki Schools and the Bay of Islands Teacher Summit.
We are planning further learning journeys for 2024
I would like to sincerely thank all staff and our Board for supporting us through this "reset" year and for effort involved in getting all our children back in school and enculturated into daily in class learning and routines!
We have been SO blessed to have been fully staffed through a year when there was a real staff shortage, big waves of sickness that caused us to split classes some times and a dearth of relievers.
The support of these staff by our own Management Team, Team Leaders and Board and the support from Manaiakalani and Tāmaki Community Development Trust has made an enormous difference to our capability and has meant our service to our community has been excellent.
As mentioned early in this report we have increased stress from the number of traumatised and seriously anxious families we have to work with.
I wish to thank all staff most sincerely for your commitment to inclusion, compassion, sympathy, patience and love.
Toni, Garth, and Kent; another incredible year of service and a great team effort!
We have really needed each other's skills and abilities and the way these have complemented each other is a real success.
Really great job Team!
Special congrats and recognition go to Toni Nua who has had year long health challenges but has soldiered on through and continued to serve in an amazing way.
Digital Learning/Creative Space
Hannah West continued in this role in 2023 and has had another outstanding year. Our challenge will be replacing her whilst she's on maternity leave
The job has included:
P.E.N.N
delivery of our Y3 - Y8 Extension Programme
delivery of integrated Digital Learning lessons, to produce digitally capable children who can work independently in their own classrooms.
Working with external organisations to bring expansive learning opportunities to our learners
We unhesitatingly recommend the continuance of this Board funding position.
We also recommended in previous years that the Board to fund a Support Staff position to do some of the daily monitoring and management of the school ChromeBook Programme. Te Awhina Dewes & Ana Va'afusuaga have carried out this work under the support of Leigh Flavelle & Fusion Networks. this has been a real success and we recommend the Board continues to to support this.
Sports
This is our 12th year of having a full time Sports Co-ordinator and we have been so grateful to have Sally back in the house and be back in year where we could play every code!
Tyson and Timmi have continued to support the programme as they have done since 2017 and we recommend that along with continuing to fund the programme as a whole, that the Board continues to fund these two extra positions.
Programme results are summarised in the curriculum part of this report and in detail in the Programme Report section.
We recommend the continuance of this programme
Library
Leigh Flavelle as manager and Doreen Fester as Library Assistant, have looked after our again Library in 2023. We are pleased to report that the Library has seen heaps more use this year and has met the needs of a growing number of children. we support the continuance of this organisation.
It is recommended that this Board created solution should continue.
The Library Report can be found HERE
The eNablers Team continued in 2023 to co-ordinate and support the Digital Learning work, Maker Movement, te reo me ona tikanga Maori, family financial support, sport/PE and school technical support. This group has met at 7:30 on Wednesday mornings, when we were able to do so. This meeting has been attended by Garth, Russell, Jackson, Hannah, and Sally. This continues to be a very successful co-ordination method and between us we have put on some outstanding events. Our gigs this year include the School Picnic, Film Festival, Fiafia, Families @ Pt England, Fun Days & larger Visitor Occasions.
Maker Space/CRT
Jackson Vogt took over this role in 2016.
I have reported on this role in the Curriculum Report and Jackson has reported in his own report.
The Maker space continues to be an important centre for development in our school
This programme has been very beneficial for our school and our children and has grown some really remarkable and effective partnerships which were elaborated in the Curriculum section of this report.
Maker Space Report available HERE.
We recommend that this position continue to be supported by our Board of Trustees.
School Network/Tela Laptops/Classroom Desktop Support
Under Kent's supervision, Ana Va'afusuaga and Te Awhina Dewes have carried out this work as Tier 1 Tech Support for our school, which has helped us enormously whilst it has helped them pay for university. This has been of huge benefit as children have been in and out of school and between them along with support from Roz and Leigh they helped so many children and families to stay connected to their learning.
We recommend the Board continue this role and support.
Special Needs Organisation
During 2023 we continued to have Part Time Special Learning Support Programmes carried out Jenni Clarke and Helen Squires and supported by Child Support Workers. Along side this we had had our anchor programme of Quick 60 . Irene Wilson has carried out this work in 2023 and as in past years, we have found it to be very effective. We have also staffed a repeating Reception Class for New New Entrants. This has also been very successful and we recommend to the Board that we continue with this raft of support.
Special Needs Programme Report HERE
SWiS
Jordan Tino has continued as our SWiS worker in 2023 and has done an absolutely outstanding job. Jordan has been instrumental in getting many of reluctant attenders back to school. Thanks Jordan, for your love and support for so many of our tamariki and their whanau. We love working with you!