December 8th, 2010

Naumai e te whanau o te kura Muritai tena koutou katoa,

Dear parents / caregivers,

A special welcome our new arrivals to Muritai School - Daisy Hemmingson-White (Room 23), Mason Pendrous (R13) and Olivia Seymour (R14).

This newsletter aims to give some background to the reports that will be issued on Friday along with classes for 2011.

This Friday each child will bring home an envelope that will contain an explanation around the national standards processes, your child's 'grading’ against the national standard in reading, writing and maths, the curriculum achievement report and finally information showing their class and teacher for 2011. The children will also bring home their portfolio which will display some of their class work from this year.

Our aim this year has been to develop as clear a process as possible for implementing the National Standards and sharing them with parents and children. Children receive information and feedback on how they are doing at school, specifically related to their next steps for learning. To read, write and do maths well the children have to show many different skills at various times of the year. To summarize children into a simple box that indicates whether they are well below, below, at or above - against a very wide standard - is quite tricky. The curriculum achievement report gives richer information about some specifics within the disciplines, as well as commenting on work, class conduct and study skills. The general comment concluding this report provides a brief commentary of how the children - have performed, what they have done well or struggled with, and what they may focus on next year.

In our view, at this stage, our visual presentation of the national standards, and the school report is the clearest way to inform you of how well your child is doing against firstly the national standard, and secondly the NZ curriculum. Most schools have struggled with the process around judging the national standard - it needs to be acknowledged that there are considerable flaws with the standards due to the skill set required to master and use effectively the 3 disciplines of reading and writing and maths. We have found that the standards and the curriculum are not truly aligned across the 8 years of primary school. This makes moderation between and across groups of children very difficult. It also makes moderating across schools to form a national standard extremely difficult. Generally, at best though the national standards provide a ‘snapshot’ position of your child within the disciplines of reading, writing and maths. The table format of the report (from well below to well above) reinforces this as well.

CLASS STRUCTURE 2011

Class placement notices will be coming home this Friday. We have some final modifications to make at this stage but we are well advanced in the process. Generally, no changes can be made after placement notices are sent out. Any concerns should be directed to me (Y7-8), Matt Skilton (Y3-6) and Maureen Buckley (Y1-2), not to classroom teachers.

It is always a juggling act to fit 400 children into classes. One change can have significant ramifications for many other children's placements. Moving children after the placements have been made is only possible in exceptional circumstances and only after I have considered all the implications from talking to the teachers concerned. Only social or emotional reasons will be considered in a move. We take the process very seriously and I’m confident that you will all be happy with the result!

With a starting roll in 2011 of 404 (375 this year) we essentially will be running an extra class through the year! Muritai will start with 18 classrooms and grow to 20 through the year. I commented last week about forming classes and again there has been some movement this week with new enrolments coming in daily. However in establishing classes - we have had take into account -

• the expected children (46) coming to Muritai through the year.
• the need to have learning spaces available for these children.
• the available additional funds to pay teachers required to be in front of these classes.
• the fact that year groups do not fit nicely into small groups of even sizes, with a number of bulges in year groups and gender imbalances. So some give and take HAS to be accepted.
• our geography, with a split site, also prohibits even classes.
  

The Ministry funds the school on the following ratios - 1 teacher to 15 children for new entrants, 1 teacher to 23 in years 1-3 and at 1 teacher to 29 at year 4-8. In addition to this, due to our decile rating and extremely high student achievement performance, the school receives limited funding for learning support, reading recovery and extension programmes – this has to be allocated out of operational funds. What the school is able to provide in 2011 is class sizes of 18-23 in year 1-4 and 22-25 in year 5-6 and 27-29 in year 7-8. At the same time the Board is committing all parent donation funds to additional teaching resources and not into the general running of the school.

So the 2011 line up looks like this –
3 year 7-8 classes of 28 - Stephen Eames, Kirsten Berry, Raihania Chadwick
2 year 6 classes of 22 - Stu Devenport, Peter Hull,
2 year 5 classes of 25 - Lisa Allen, Melissa Coton
3 year 4 classes of 20 - Richard Dobson, Karen Chao, Hayden Ray
2 year 3 classes of 23 - Jess Savage, Pippa Grant
2 year 2 classes of 21 - Karen Jones/Morag Roberts, Annabel Capper,

1 year 1-2 class of 21 - Sheena Naik
2 year 1 classes of 21 - Barbara Ryan, Sally Ingram,
3 new entrant classes starting with Maureen Buckley; Margs-Mills Smith (term 2)

What is on in the last 8 school days -

December
9th – Y0-2 Xmas concert; Y5-6 triathlon; 2011 Y5-6 camp meeting; Y7 at Mt Holdsworth;
10th – Y5-6 at Days Bay; Class lists/ Portfolios/ Reports go home
13th - Children visiting new classes (Pippa and Melissa are here); Thank you parent morning tea; BOT mtg
15th – Year 8 Formal dinner
16th - Year 3-6 Xmas Concert
17th – Final assembly (11.00) and last day. School finishes at 1.00.

EOTC week

Over the last fortnight the children have been out and about enjoying things in their local communities. We have relied on parent support to help us get through and we really appreciate this. The kids appear to have had a wonderful time.

PARENT MORNING TEA
On Monday 13th staff will be hosting a 'thank you parents' morning tea at 10.30 in the hall - all parents welcome.

FINAL ASSEMBLY

Many people like to attend our final school assembly where we farewell people leaving the Muritai family. This will be at 11.00 on Friday 17th.

LAST DAY

School finishes at 1.00 next Friday the 17th December. Our after school care team will supervise a 'movie' in the library until 2.30 for after school care children (or any casuals that need care next Friday).

TOUCH RUGBY

It is finals day this Friday and we have -

• 3 teams playing for 1st place - the Storm, the Eagles, the Sharks
  
• 1 teams playing for 3-4 place - the Vipers,
  
• 1 team playing for 5-6 place - the Bears

Sadly the year 7-8 teams - the Rockets, the Flyers, the Hurricanes have had to default due to Abel Tasman and Mt Holdsworth trips.

All teams have had great parental support through coaching, cheerleading and transport. Thank you to Mr Hull for his coordination of this terms touch rugby.

HOLIDAY PROGRAMME

Our after school team are running holiday programmes until Christmas Eve and again from January 17th - February 1st. Details are in the Noticeboard' section of our website click here or email Cath at barker@muritai.school.nz

CHRISTMAS TWILIGHT FESTIVAL

This is on this SUNDAY 12th December. Starting at 4.30 with the Community Christmas Carols in the Muritai School Hall and at 5.00-8.00 there are Eastbourne Village Market Stalls and Entertainments in Rimu St (rain or shine) - plus buskers, music, mechanical bull (donated by Bruce Mills 2000 Ltd) and more stalls than ever before.

CHRISTMAS HOUSE

Karen Brown's amazing Christmas House is open again this Saturday 11th December (2pm -9pm) at 2 Waeranga Rd, Days Bay (just up the hill - please park on the waterfront). Come and enjoy the Christmas House with its wonderful array of decoration, and the very large Christmas tree wit decorations that have been collected from all over the world. The kids (and adults) will love it. Entry is gold coin donation for charity.