Chairperson’s Report
INTRODUCTION
The current Board term will have come to an end by the time of publication of this report. It is an appropriate time therefore to reflect on progress during the past year.
ISSUES OF GOVERNANCE
The principal, Mr Sinclair, has now completed his first full-time year in this role. His focus has been on continuing to strengthen academic achievement across all levels of the school. The most obvious result of this has been the results from 2009 at senior level, where the school achieved 32 Scholarships, including three Outstanding Scholarships, one of which was a Top Scholar award in Te Reo. This result is a credit to both students and teachers.
The emphasis on data analysis to improve outcomes has also been a feature of the last year, which has also resulted in good reporting to the Board and assisted in informed decision making.
The Board has encouraged whole of school professional development, which has been run weekly on Wednesday mornings. The result of this has been a strengthening of reflective practice and extensive work on the new curriculum and methodologies associated with this. Thanks go to the parent community for their support of this.
Major renovations have taken place on D Block with good results.
The school continues to have a deficit. This will be a focus for the incoming Board. Operational funding remains an issue for all schools, including Hutt Valley High School. Despite this, the Board has supported the ongoing upgrade of information technology in all classrooms.
CONCLUSION:
After six years on the Board of Trustees, I am in awe of the dedication of the senior management team. The time and effort that they put in achieving good results for our students often goes unrecognised. They are supported by an excellent group of teaching and support staff, for whom I have the greatest respect. It has been a privilege to have been involved with them.
The contribution of parents, caregivers, students and the wider community is also much appreciated.
Special thanks must go to my fellow Board members. They have worked very hard and have shown humour and resilience. As well as myself, the retiring parent representatives are Mary Bruce, Nicholette Pomana and Ron Soper. Karen Baker and Paul Rolton have put their names forward for another term and I wish them success.
By the time this is published the new Board will be in charge. One of the tasks for this Board will be the development of the strategic plan for the next five years. Consultation will be part of this and I would encourage all to take the opportunity to be part of this and to contribute to the direction and life of this great school. Susan Pilbrow
Principal’s Report
Introduction
2009 was a year of significant progress for the school.
New structures within the academic programmes at school were bedded down. These include streaming two classes off the top of the group at Year 9 and Year 10, one in the regular programme and one in Teamworks. Large subjects ran a streamed top class where possible. The effects were immediately positive at the top end of the school. It is too soon to comment on the impact at the other end, although teachers have commented on the much higher level of work that is possible and the greater speed at which it is completed. The social impact of streaming at Year 9 and 10 remains an area that is being watched. A Year 11 Boost programme was introduced aimed at identifying students with no credits by the end of the half year and offering them additional work in their own time, using voluntary staff labour. The programme had significant success.
The top twenty students in the 2009 Year 11 and 12 cohorts, plus any students who achieved 40 credits or more at Excellence have been presented with certificates specifying their ranking and achievement at a full school assembly convened expressly for this purpose. This continues a focus on recognising and rewarding academic excellence.
In the cultural field, a new dance group called Scribble had significant success including for the boys a Most Promising Newcomers award and third place at the national hip-hop finals. A Gospel Choir commenced and became a popular addition to the music area beyond the curriculum. The school’s existing strength in Music was confirmed – especially in Jazz – and the Drama Department produced work of outstanding quality.
Consolidation in sports occurred, with a great deal of behind-the-scenes work done to improve the structures that underpin the sports programme. Junior sports showed particular strength.
The school continues to face resource challenges. Our current deficit budget cannot be sustained and the challenge of extending our IT capability is a significant one. Despite that, we have completed putting data projectors throughout the classrooms, and staff have trained in ways to exploit the teaching resource that they supply.
The visit of the Education Review Office during the year gave us a chance to ask them to examine the junior school, so that we had an external view of an area where we wanted to make changes. Their feedback was very helpful and their recommendations underpin work the staff has done since.
The Board of Trustees approved a staff Professional Development programme which operates before a late start to classes each Wednesday. That programme has produced a staff well versed in the methodology of the new curriculum due in 2011. Staff have also participated in work to develop their repertoire of techniques and to increase their ability to offer a truly student-centred programme.
Further work has been done on the new Year 10 Health programme, which has been taught as a programme laid over core subjects, borrowing part of their class time. During 2010, further revisions will occur and in 2011, that course will become embedded within an expanded Physical Education and Health programme.
In conjunction with the Health programme work, the school has begun training in restorative practices techniques to expand the range of responses possible to negative behaviour. This work is intended to sit alongside student-led initiatives that aim to provide a constant focus on school culture in its positive mode.
Ross Sinclair
The full report can be downloaded here: HVHS Annual Report 2009
