St Brigid's Annual Report
St Brigids School
Introduction
Each year the Board of Trustees has the pleasure of reporting the progress that St Brigid's has made during the year.
Student achievement
The information that Kay has presented to the Board throughout the year on student achievement has been very positive.
The introduction of National Standards was a major focus in 2010. Their implementation has meant some realignment of assessment results and expectations. In some age groups what was seen as a good result last year is now not achieving the standard and in others the required standard has been reduced. There has been a considerable challenge for teachers to ensure that the implementation of National standards has a positive outcome for the children.
The teaching staff has put a huge effort into the new mid and end of year reports. Each report is the result of several hours work so with 25 or so to complete per teacher, many weekend hours have been spent on this.
Strategic Plan
2010 was the second year of the current strategic plan. Kay and the team have made good progress in all areas. The school survey raised several points, that have led to some quite lengthy Board discussion and we are looking to act on several of them in the New Year.
The Board recently met with Whanau and although the representation from Whanau was small, the Board was delighted to hear that the Kapa Haka will be starting again in 2011.
The Board received extra funding in our Operation Grant for a new sport initiative. This extra money allows us to provide even more sporting opportunities for our students. One of our teachers has been delegated responsibility for this initiative and is working to achieve key objectives in consultation with staff and students. Currently the funding has allowed us to purchase new equipment to support our sports programmes, hire venues that allow us to provide experiences currently unavailable to us without the use of a school hall and build links with the sporting bodies within our local community.
Property
The renovation of Rooms One and Two will be completed over the Christmas break. This is possible by using funds raised at the school fair and through the dollar for dollar Catholic Schools Board renovation scheme.
With MOE changes to lower class sizes in the junior school we need another classroom. The plan is to build a new room onto the front of Room 8. Building work will commence in term three 2011 and will mean that Room 8 will be using the Library. We will be doing everything possible to minimize disruption for Room 9.
Personnel
The BOT elections were held in May and we had a number of new faces join the Board. We welcomed
Martin Glaeser
St Brigids BOT Chair
