Teaching Team Report: May 2013.
Kia ora Whanau,
Welcome to tonight’s meeting, and thank you for joining us
here tonight. Hopefully those of you who
are official members of the Whanau Group have received the meeting dates for
the rest of this year, so they can be added to your calendar and allow for
reliable meeting attendance!! Please check with Karin if you would like the
dates emailed to you.
Term 2 has started with 9 new children and their families
joining our fabulous learning community at Anne West. We welcome them warmly and hope they will
join the Whanau group at some stage! Our
roles are healthy and the Waiting List stands at 14. It would be very useful for kindergarten if there
could be some active promotion of kindergarten through the community to
encourage new enrolments as we have a
lot of children moving on to school this year as their 2 year cycle comes to an
end, and the next one begins.
We have 2 documents for review and adoption tonight. They are
the Positive Guidance Procedure and the revised Mission Statement, which we are
circulating now as they have been put out for whanau consultation and feedback
and now we would like to have them adopted.
We would also like to share our draft Vision for the kindergarten. A
document we have been working on this year, and we would value your feedback on
this and hope it gives you an insight into where and how we would like to take
this kindergarten community.
Over the term break the shed was extended and clad and painted. The old doors were reinstalled and the extra
space is making packing it up much easier.
We continue to work on organising it and will require some additional
partitions to be installed to create safe storage for the planks.
We also have a new fence around the reserve land which has
more than doubled the flat outdoor play space for the children. Eventually this will incorporate the Edible
Forest which we will begin planning once we are familiar with the
characteristics of the land. Payment for
the fence has not been discussed with me at this stage so we hope it will be
covered mostly by grants and Board funding, but it’s wait and see at the
moment.
Mowing of the new land will take much more time and effort so
we will need to think about how we are going to manage this. There has been a notice put in the newsletter
inviting whanau to help with mowing, so we need to decide how we might manage
this.
We are also looking for someone who is able to build a new
guinea pig cage for us. The one we have at present is on loan from the Lucich
family and needs to be returned soon. It is a great design and we would love to
have one permanently for kindergarten use.
We will pay for materials if there is someone who could build it for us.
We have a trip the Kaitaia Gym Club coming up in a week’s time
. This has been organised by Bonny and her student Anne Morrogh who is here n
practicum for 4 weeks.
We have had a student each term this year, with another one
due for a placement here in term 3. Her
name is Nikki Lowry and she currently teaches at Kids Kingdom in Awanui, and
she will join us for 4 weeks in August.
The teachers are planning to do some research around the
history of the Reserve land and what is was used for in the past. If you know any people in the community who
might have any stories or knowledge of this land’s history, we would love to
know about it.
The Social Evening just before the end of term1 was a great
success. It was a learning curve for me
and I have a better understanding of how to draw raffles, and manage a big
group for next time! Thank you to the
Whanau group for managing the raffle, organising barbeques, cooking, cleaning
and the facilitating the Easter egg hunt!
Great work everyone.
We are hoping to organise something similar for Matariki
celebrations in June- with the extra land available maybe we could use it in
some way. One thing we know we need is
lighting of some kind on the deck!
The old shade sail got ripped apart in the wind at the end of
last term so fund raising for a new one will be for real before next
summer! We need quotes, designs and a
plan made for this so we have some idea of costs.
Any innovative fundraising ideas would be very welcome as we
will be looking at needing to work quite hard on this.
Looking forward to a great term. Clare, Shiv, Bonny, and Celeste.
Teacher Report for Whanau group AGM March 13 2013.
Kia Ora whanau,
Thank you for joining us here this evening for the AGM, we
appreciate the commitment you have made to this group and the support you
provide for the teachers and the kindergarten community.
Well what a year it has been.
At the AGM last March we had a different group of teachers, a different
cleaner, a different building and a different entranceway! In July Leena Taylor resigned as head teacher
due to health reasons and Clare took over as head teacher. This was followed by
Siobhan moving into the fulltime permanent position, which led to the job share
position being restructured back to a full time position and lunch cover
reliever. By the end of the year these
positions were filled and Anna Dunford took redundancy and Bonny Anderson was
appointed at full time teacher and Celeste Matthews as lunch cover. We also appointed a new cleaner as Jodi
Williams moved to a job with more hours and Rose Ngawhika joined the team. Every position has been changed which is
really quite unique! This process took
place over 6 months during which time we were supported by Shirley Hart as a
reliever which helped keep the team on an even keel and reduced the stress of
constant change.
Other major changes taking place have been the building
renovations. The first changes made were
to the entrance way with a new ramp and safety fencing and enclosed porch area
at the main doorway. This area is still
affected by the prevailing wind and has not been as successful as we would have
wished.
However the addition of the new office for the teachers and
our admin person (Lee), has been a much needed change and very welcomed and
appreciated. There is now a Whanau room
for use when required and a quiet space for teachers to have their lunch break
in. A new toilet for disabled people
(and adults generally) complete with shower and change-table for large children
has also been added. Doors on the
children’s toilets have provided extra privacy for them and a washing machine
in the new cleaners room is also very useful.
The art sink has been relocated and new space created. A new storeroom has been built to replace the
old one.
The addition was blessed by Matua Hone at a small ceremony
just before term started (3 weeks later than the other kindergartens).
The task of emptying the building and loading the container
was daunting but managed with the help of some fabulous whanau and rather
frazzled teachers! Unloading it has been
done in stages as we had to wait for shelving to be installed in the storeroom,
but this is almost done.
The next step is to demolish the existing outside shed and
replace it with a bigger model with a verandah so packing it at the end of each
day will be more easily accomplished.
In amongst all this happening we were Relicensed at the
beginning of term3. This was a thorough
process undertaken by the MoE to ensure our kindergarten is providing the
quality resources, policies and procedures and curriculum for this kindergarten
community. As a result of this visit we
had to replace the very old and lumpy safety fall in the swing bay with bark,
and install drainage to prevent flooding, and concrete around the swing
shed. A planter box was constructed to
prevent the bark blocking the new drain.
The sandpit was topped up with 2 truck loads of sand which the PD
workers transferred for us.
Term 4 was the ERO visit (which coincided with Bonny’s first
day)- the visit was very successful and they were impressed with the
kindergarten, our goals and aspirations and ideas for the continued
development. The confirmed report is
available online and the hard copy is on the wall. ERO used a new format this time and it seemed
to work well for us.
Another new and very welcome addition to kindergarten this year
are Matua Hone Paitai and his wife Whaea Mareea, who have kindly agreed to take
on the roles of kindergarten kaumatua and kuia.
We greatly value their knowledge and wisdom which they so generously
share with us. We plan to meet regularly
with them to share our ideas and seek their perspectives. They have joined us for social evenings so
they can meet our whanau and build relationships with a wider group in our
kindergarten community.
We aim to hold a social event once a term to build our
community and give whanau an opportunity to share kindergarten with all the
whanau.
The Board took possession of the lease for the Reserve land
adjacent to the kindergarten at the last Board meeting on Feb 27th. Our manager is now applying for grants to
fund the fence extension which we hope to hear about soon. Quotes for the job have been received and KPH
was chosen to do the work. We would like
to take plenty of time before starting planting of the Edible forest and work
out how the land changes with the seasons so we can best utilize it. We also hope to seek the input of a
landscaper who can advise us on the planting and layout. Before all of that though we are planning to
do some research on what was on the land before us, and find out as much as we
can about this area on which our kindergarten sits, before we make changes.
We continue to work closely with Group Special Education to
support tamariki who require additional input for their learning. Last year was an exceptional year and had up
9 tamariki receiving support at kindergarten and at home. This meant we had higher than usual numbers
of Education Support Workers in the kindergarten and often very challenging
behaviours to deal with. Our policy on
Inclusion was reviewed and is one of the most robust I have seen, and I believe
we did really well to provide for all the children during this challenging
time. Currently we have no tamariki
receiving support from ESWs.
Our rolls and waiting list are in good health, and we continue
to receive enquiries and enrolments at a steady rate, and we have whanau who
are very keen to start as soon as they can, but make do with visits until we
can accommodate them.
Waiting list is now at: Over 3: 23 Under 3: 12 Total: 35 children.
Fundraising has on going throughout the year with a steady
stream of cake stalls and raffles. While
no really big events were held the consistent amount raised has kept us in good
financial health. We especially thank
the whanau who kindly donated firewood, meat for meat packs and the cakes, and
those who always manage to sell extra raffle tickets!!
We continue to access Equity Funding to help with the cost of
crackers for the tamariki’s morning tea.
We have also used this funding to employ ESWs for extra hours during a
transition to school processes and general support for teachers.
We recently took possession of 10 fantastic raincapes for the
tamariki to use on rainy days. Clare
approached Farmlands with a request for sponsorship of the capes which they
very generously agreed to provide for us.
Their business manager Ange came for a Surprise Morning Tea on Wednesday
(the children’s idea to say thank you) and presented us with the capes (Now we
will wait for the rain!!!)
We are now looking forward to a time of consolidation as we
settle into our new team, new building new projects! We believe we have a wonderful community here
and look forward to working with you all to provide the best we possibly can
for the tamariki at Anne West kindergarten.
Arohanui,
Clare, Bonny, Siobhan, Lee and Celeste.
March 13th 2013.
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