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An account of life at a small sole-charge New Zealand school

Monday, August 23, 2004

PRINCIPALS REPORT
AUGUST 2004.

ROLL = 9

STAFFING Unchanged


Curriculum

Since July we have had the school speeches and then speech day and cross country at Makahu. Mason and Alex were our speech representatives and I was pleased with the effort and work that they put in. The cross country was postponed to Sept. 14th due to the bad weather. This gets us out of phase with the Taranaki cross country but at least we should get it out of the way.
Other features have been the new maths programme. At the suggestion of the maths advisor I have concentrated at working with the juniors first and then developing it through the school. A complex operation and I can now see why they allow two years in the development contract.
We are half way through our Olympics Units. We have focussed on the 100metres for the class and then developed from there. Alex and Mason are doing an online unit with about fifteen other schools and are currently sitting on a gold medal.
Mike Whiteman came in to start stage two of our interactive fiction unit. We are continuing on this in a fairly steady but low key way.

Administration
As part of our policy review I have been looking at the language programme. The core programme was introduced in 1997 but was revisited in the literacy review in 2002. This is a solid and successful programme and the focus has been on it’s implementation especially at the senior level of the school. There are three peripheral policies that do need reviewing and I would like to table them tonight for discussion. They are:
Policy on Computer Use (1995)
Policy on Handwriting (1993)
The Library Policy (1995)

For professional Development I attended a maths course in Inglewood to supplement the online maths. Excellent value.
The Connected course for implementing Broadband. This was a huge waste of time. The connection provider will be ICONZ via satellite. They rang to discuss this while I was at the course. I have since been informed that the satellite to deliver this hasn’t been launched yet.
The maths advisor, Keith Bland, spent a morning at school doing practical teaching demonstrations for the new maths programme.
I attended the I-School course in New Plymouth for schools using Apple Computers. A mixed bag but I did get to evaluate a lot of new software. The cluster group are paying the fees for this.

Upcoming Events
Aug. 27th Observation visit at Kaimata. We appear to be back on track with this. But Dave owes me a visit.
Aug.31st Rachael Jafferes visit to develop ICT. Any thoughts for the homepage.
Sept.1st Mini Olympics at Huiakama. 8th Maths course at Inglewood, 9th ICT leadership workshop. 13th Mike Whiteman to visit. 14th Cross country 17th End of term three.



Richard Barnes
Principal
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