Coffee Meeting

Thanks to the parents who turned up for this term’s morning coffee meeting. We were able to discuss and clarify a wide range of points. Those unable to attend can see what we covered below. Feel free to phone, email or drop in at any time to clarify any questions you may have.

Notes from recent parent questions discussed at Term 2 Coffee Meeting:

Recent ERO Review. Report is still in draft form. Should be published by the end of this term.

Parents’ library. Reminder that we have a collection of books for parents. Teachers will point parents towards display in library during interviews over next two weeks.

Making the most of school website. Those lost newsletters and missing sports notices can be found on the ‘SportZone’ and ‘Info Central’ pages on the school website. Also remember to use the ‘Any Questions’ page if you are unable to visit school to ask questions.

Upcoming Maori Consultation. Invitation for whole community to take part.

Year 3/4 outdoor education programme. Teachers currently working on details of a y3/4 outdoor challenge event to replace previous Y4 camp. Will involve all Year 3 and 4 classes. Will probably be two day long event including an overnight stay. Scheduled for mid-late Term 4.

Same learning, different contexts: Why all rivers don’t look the same. There are school-wide focus areas, all classes are working on the same curriculum areas, the contexts used by each class are different.

What is a decile rating? Explanation that decile ratings are calculated based on community socio-economic data and are not related to teaching and learning or the performance of a school.

We will follow up on parent suggestions to spread notices and newsletters across all Rivers so that more consistent information about school events arrives in each household.

It was noted that children’s ICT skills are surpassing some parents. Student-led lessons for parents are a long term goal to address this issue. Will be 2010 or 2011 when these start.

Our identification of gifted and talented children was explained. Our aim is to ensure all teachers are challenging and extending children all day, every week - as opposed to sending these children to special events and programmes and believing this alone meets their needs.

We will follow up on parent suggestions to make clear the classroom release timetable for teachers with extra duties.

We will also ensure timely notices are send home when there is an impending change of class teacher.

We clarified that the large number of new entrants this year are IN ZONE students. Out of Zone pupils are not a significant pressure point on numbers in the junior school.

2010 class compositions. We clarified that the make-up of classes for 2010 will be done to meet the needs of the children, not to keep groups together at the expense of teachers’ and parents’ knowledge of what might be best for the child.