South Featherston School
End-of-Year Update from the Board
November 2020
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Tēnā koutou katoa
To the whānau and friends of South Featherston School... welcome to the end of 2020: a year of twists and turns, ups and downs, and fits and starts - a real freak of a year!
First-and-foremost, the Board wanted to put a huge shout out to our amazing teachers and staff at the School, who put in so much mahi - often long hours - to make sure our learners (and whānau) were so well supported during these novel and challenging times, through Lockdown and the 'Level' hopping of a pandemic. They always lead the way with care and compassion for our children and our community. (And after comparing notes with other parents forced to 'home school' over that period, I found that I was not the only one with a renewed respect and deep appreciation for the teaching profession in general!)
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'My town is my muse'. South Featherston artistes painting the town red... and yellow and blue and...
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Board Changes
And so we've had a few come and go from the School Board this year too. We still have the support and guidance of the very experienced Liz Millar (LSM) who is helping us, as we bring the number of trustees and expertise of the Board up to where it ought to be.
In terms of recent changes, we said farewell to David Greaves (who served many years on the Board even after his kids had left school), Clem Hodgson (who took over the reins as Chair from Josh Drake earlier this year and was also heavily involved with the School's fundraising committee), and Jayne Conaghan (who joined in 2019 and brought strong policy expertise to the table).
We also said good-bye to Sandra Walters who has acted as Board Secretary since 2019 and had previously been a Board Chair when her kids attended the School. To that end, we'll be advertising for the role of Board Secretary shortly in the WTA, but do get in touch with the school if a part-time role like this appeals to you.
We acknowledge the enormous contribution that these folk have made to our School and extend our thanks and appreciation to them and their families.
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Diversity is important in a Board.
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By-election Update
Our next major objective is top up the number of trustees by way of a by-election at the beginning of 2021. We had kicked off the process, but with the resignation of the Returning Officer, we sought advice and decided to restart the process again in the new year (especially with time quickly evaporating in 2020!).
The next step is to work with the New Zealand School Trustees Association (NZSTA) to set a date. The Board Chair and LSM (Chris and Liz) will appoint a new Returning Officer who will run the by-election process.
In preparation, we have asked a rep from NZSTA along to the school on 11 Feb 2021 at 7pm for an hour to give an overview of what's involved with school governance. The session will signify the start of the by-election process; however, the session is open to all community members - not just those who think they might like to get involved on the Board. If you're just plain curious about what governance is about at all, or had a few questions, general or specific, then we'd love to see you there.
In the meantime, if you're a good team player, and were thinking you might like to chuck your hat in the ring as a Trustee, and wanted to know a bit more about it, feel free to reach out to Tana or any of the Board members (emails below) for a chat about it.
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One for the Data Hounds
Our end-of-year 2019 student achievement data came through and we were able as a Board to feed that into our Charter and Annual plans. As a summary for years 1-8 we had the following percentages achieving at or above the expected curriculum levels in the following areas:
- Reading: Boys (82%), Girls (85%), Overall (83%)
- Writing: Boys (73%), Girls (81%), Overall (76%)
- Mathematics: Boys (91%), Girls (81%), Overall (86%)
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Charter Overhaul
At the start of the year, the Board (with Chair Josh Drake) reviewed the South Featherston School Charter which was lodged with the Ministry in the middle of the year. The thorough mahi put into the plan in 2020 has set us up well for revisiting, reconfirming and adjusting the Charter for 2021 and the years after.
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COVID-19, Annual Plan & Achievement Data
...and then there was this whole pandemic thing. Amidst all the changes of alert levels and home-schooling, the Board switched to virtual mode in order to complete the Annual Plan and work through the student achievement data. (Targets were based on our start-of-year analysis and included teacher anecdotal assessments where we were unable to rerun mid-year assessments because of Lockdowns and whatnot.)
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Teacher Aide
With our local curriculum crafted up and our curriculum statements submited, the Board heard what the staff were saying about how we could support our students better in the classroom, and so funding was made available to employ (the wonderful) Gina Roberts as a Teacher aide.
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My School, My Castle
The refurb of the school office block and roofing is nearing completion (yay!) and the 10 year property-plan is now nearly completed. We've also had some sign-off from the MoE to get some new fencing around much of the School perimeter.
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Susan Allan
The Board acknowledges the massive part Susan Allan - who will be retiring at the end of the year - has played at our School over the last two decades. She has been a stalwart for South Featherston and has helped set countless kids up and start them on their journey as lifelong learners. Hope you can join us for community picnic in her honour at the school at 5.30pm on Thursday 10 December.
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Mrs. Allan receiving PLD on how to draw a taniwha from an expert.
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...and finally...
After somewhat of a stuttery year, the Board is looking forward to kicking into full gear in 2021. High on our 'to-do' list is to improve how the Board engages and consults with the community. To that end, expect a bit more comms from us going forward.
Keep an eye out for an invite in the New Year too, to provide feedback as we tweak our Charter and consider strategy for our School; although that said, please do reach out any time at all that you have some feedback, thoughts, ideas, criticism, questions or observations that you wanted to impart - by email, on the blower (021 0415831), text, or even at the school gate. We are committed to making our school even more awesome than it already is.
Have a super relaxing break over the summer.
Yours humbly,
Chris Miller (Board Chair), Tana Klaricich (Principal), Liz Millar (LSM), Jo Dennis & Callum Lord (a.k.a. the South Featherston School Board of Trustees)
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