Strategic Developments and Annual Plan

Principal’s Progress Report

Ruru Satellite at Verdon

After a year having passed since the consultation process, the Catholic Education Office has received no information from the Ministry of Education about the project’s current status.

Mentoring Program

The staff are completing the second cycle of senior student academic mentor interviews. Fortnightly report data is distributed to staff about the students they are mentoring. We are currently waiting on software developments to progress before committing to automate the distribution of this data to parents. If parents are concerned at any stage during the year, they can access this information by contacting the year level dean.

Numeracy Project
Mrs Jacques is working with the mathematics staff to bring the strategies into the year 7 to 10 classrooms. This follows on from her training time in Auckland during term 1.

Literacy Project
Mrs Crawford is working with groups of staff to continue the development of learning strategies for literacy.

National Standards
Mr Miles, Mrs O’Neill and Mr Olsen attended a workshop, facilitated by University of Otago presenters, focusing on the details of assessing and reporting on the national curriculum. The three way conference – staff / student / caregiver interviews – were a success. Feedback from our on line survey was positive. The suggestion was made that a booking sheet be placed online. This will be investigated.

Blazer Badges
The sports and cultural leadership badges have been presented at assemblies in term one and early term two. This is the first year that blazer badges of this type have been presented systematically. It is an ongoing process during the year and will be reviewed for next year.

Verdon Haka
Work is progressing on development of a Verdon College Haka. The haka is based on the sentiments expressed in the school song –The Verdon Anthem. Dean Whaanga is leading this project. It is planned that the school will learn the haka and have an inter-house competition at the end of term. It will be a pleasure to have the whole school being able to support our sporting and cultural teams with a passionate and well delivered haka.

Annual Plan
At the last Board of Trustees meeting the draft Annual Plan was accepted. Since then deans and senior management have been working to develop an action plan for the 2010 Target that identifies an at risk group of year 11 and 12 males. The first step in the process has been to identify the at risk students through fortnightly reports and for the deans to agree on a management plan. The deputy principal is overseeing this step of the process.

Strategy
To identify a group of twenty students who are in years 11 and 12 and are at risk. To develop an active mentorship programme for this group with the aim of improving critical indicators such as attendance, engagement and achievement.
Target
Improve the attendance rate, academic and behavioural fortnightly report grades and NCEA achievement so that 2010 results significantly exceed the 2009 achievement profile data for this cohort. This is a difficult target to measure and will require qualitative /anecdotal as well quantitative evidence. The overall target is to improve the educational outcomes for these students.
Following on from the identification of students at risk, we will develop individual education plans (IEPs) for each of the students and have the progress reviewed by the pastoral committee.

Staff Vacancy
At the end of term two Mrs Whakamoe, our teacher of Maori Language, will be retiring. We thank her for her three years of service to the College. As a result of this staff change there is a vacancy for a half time teacher of Maori at the College advertised in the Education Gazette. Any enquiries should be directed to the College office.