Since being elected in July 2019, our Board, as well as our Principal and staff, have been working hard to make improvements in key areas across our school. We’d like to take this opportunity to share some of what we’ve been working on.

Whilst there’s lots still to do, we are making progress. We always welcome constructive feedback as we’re trying to put the building blocks in place so our children can achieve in a healthy, safe and encouraging environment.

Here’s a brief summary of some of the things we’ve made progress on in 2020. We have used the current strategic objectives from our Annual Plan as the framework for presenting this information.

Annual Plan Strategic Objectives / Progress

1. Students are connected, resilient, resourceful and curious about learning opportunities within and beyond Raglan Area School.

  • Initiated the development of a whole school curriculum to create better organisation and consistency across all levels and to make the most of the fact that we are an Area School – we can take students on a journey from the time they enter to when they leave.
  • Reorganisation of Middle/Senior School Structure – providing more subject options for our middle and senior students.
  • Updated our Vision Statement for the school to “Mana Rangatahi” (Empowering Young People). We believe this statement succinctly and effectively supports our focus which is primarily about achievement – not just academic achievement but rather a focus on providing a supportive, happy environment for all of our students to thrive. We want our children to be proud to attend Raglan Area School.
  • New Student Representative elected to the Board – Congratulations to Taliah Edgecombe-Pearse who will join the Board from our November 2020 meeting onwards. We thank Amiria Drysdale for her insightful and valued participation in 2019/2020.
  • New Outdoor Education programme – for the first time, we are able to offer Outdoor Education at senior level (Yrs 7-13) in 2021. This will be led by Matua Liam Coulden-Lavers. We will be including kayaking, mountain biking, climbing, among other outdoor activities.
  • Expansion of access to digital curriculum – the school has purchased 300 Chromebooks with another 120 on the way.

2. Quality and effective teaching, learning and assessment practices are embedded to raise and celebrate outcomes for all learners at Raglan Area School.

  • Improved student achievement reporting to streamline teacher efforts and ensure consistency of outcomes for students school wide. Reporting of results is absolutely key, and as Board members we have been excited to see substantial progress in this area. The school implemented a new student management system in 2020; Edge, and this will provide a faster and improved method of reporting. We’re also very happy about the plan to implement Edge module – Educa in 2021; an online, secure portal for whanau to keep up-to-date with student progress and achievement and interact with their student’s teacher(s).
  • New Middle/Senior School Structure – rebalancing the workload for staff in this area of the school.
  • Heads of Subjects will be put in place i.e. a Head of Maths that’s responsible for delivery of Maths across the entire school. It is hoped this will assist teachers with the development of the school wide curriculum to foster achievement for every student.
  • A huge amount of reorganisation and tidying up of processes, procedures and documents has occured to create a strong foundation that allows us to now focus on lifting professionalism and standards across our school.
  • A School Enrolment Zone is currently being considered to assist us in managing our increasing roll numbers. This will not affect any of our existing students and families or those new students attending Te Rōpu Aroha ki te Reo.A meeting for all whanau regarding this will be held at school in November, date and time to be confirmed.
  • Professional Learning Development for teachers
    • Aotearoa Histories Professional Learning Development
    • Positive Behaviour 4 Learning (PB4L): Bullying Awareness / Responding to Major and Minor Behaviours

3. Māori learners achieve and celebrate success acknowledging their identity, language and culture.

  • Inclusion of a Cultural Narrative in our curriculum. We are intent on lifting Māori achievement across the school. We are working with iwi to develop a cultural report that provides cultural narratives that could in turn be reflected in the design of the school property and school curriculum. We are also committed to looking at ways we can strengthen the Maori Medium pathway for our tamariki so they can stay connected with Whaingaroa.

4. Respectful and inclusive relationships are visible within a culturally sustainable learning environment committed to staff and student hauora and wellbeing.

  • Planning for the adoption of a school wide uniform – this is part of our ongoing efforts to lift the standards across our school, unify our students, further our school’s identity and level out the playing field. We are on track to implement a school uniform from Term 2, 2021. Once finalised, further details will be provided on uniform items and pricing.

5. School policies, procedures and practices are reviewed, digitally integrated and published to support a culture of self-improvement and transparency.

  • Updating school policies – A consistent and thorough review cycle of policies is now in place. This ensures that there are clear policies in place for staff and students. Recently updated policies include; Bullying, Sun Smart and various others. Once they are finalised and ratified by the Board, they will be uploaded to our school website.
  • School website/communication – we’re working to improve the way that our school shares important information about school happenings and events. Whilst we recognise that it’s important to use a number of different methods to communicate with our whanau (email, text, paper notices and SchoolApp), we also want to ensure that our school website is kept up to date as the key place for parents to visit to find the current and historical information they need. We’ll be meeting with the school team on this over the next few weeks and will keep you updated on progress. We may call on parents who have skills with graphic design, web editing or communications for extra help if it’s needed.

6. All avenues to finance and resource school aspirations are actively pursued to enable a safe, stimulating and innovative learning environment to flourish.

  • Improvements to our school’s finances. We’re very proud to report that we have moved from a position of requiring intervention and monitoring by MoE (following the ERO report in 2016) to now being fully in the black, with a surplus of funds in our accounts.
  • Updates to our property plan. A full and comprehensive assessment of all school property has been completed. Project managers have been appointed to oversee the upcoming projects and more information will be available on this as projects are confirmed however here are a few projects underway and about to start:
    • Shade sails to be replaced in the lower court area of the Junior School. Other areas for Shade sails are being planned.
    • School buildings to be freshly painted reflecting our school colours light blue and navy blue. Other colours will be white, grey and black.
    • Four new classrooms – planning is well underway for the inclusion of four new classrooms mid 2021 and a further two classrooms are already in the pipeline.
    • Resurfacing courts, potential structures and pool maintenance – we’re trying to improve and broaden the facilities we offer. Exciting times.
  • Solving our parking problems – we’re trying to identify solutions to our ongoing issues with parking and drop-off areas in regards to congestion and safety. This is a complicated issue involving the Council and MoE, but we need to find a solution given the current and future roll growth.
  • School Fencing – safety of our students is paramount. The MOE funded this project in response to the safety needs of identified high-risk students in our school. Strict MOE guidelines and procedures have been adhered to throughout this process. We have been guided by the local iwi and the carvers to inform our decisions of appropriate fencing around the waharoa.

 

As you can see, there’s a lot we’re currently working on and there are a lot of exciting projects in the pipeline. We’re trying to focus on long-term solutions that will support our student achievement goals as well as our school values – Ngā Uaratanga:

  • Poutama: We are resilient and aspire to excellence
  • Whanaungatanga: We are inclusive and connect genuinely with others
  • Manākitanga: We are respectful, kind and empathetic
  • Kaitiakitanga: We are guardians of Te Ao Maori and our world

We always need more parental support! There are always plenty of opportunities for you to contribute to the school, please reach out to your child’s classroom teacher or Leader of Learning if you have time, skills or resources you would like to contribute to the school. Or join our Raglan Area School PTA, a group of parents who work hard on behalf of our whanau and always need more support.

We’d like to sincerely thank our Principal Louisa, our Senior Leadership Team and our teachers, who have all been working extremely hard to make improvements across many areas.

Whanau, thank you for your support and patience.

Board of Trustees (Louisa, Lisa, Tui, Anita, Joe, Fraser, Liam and Tara)