School Charter

CHELSEA SCHOOL

 

 

CHARTER 2010 - 2011

This is the Charter of Chelsea Primary School, Birkenhead

Mission Statement

Chelsea School is in partnership with our parents to encourage academic excellence and full participation across multi disciplines which will result in children actualising their potential and emerging as well rounded and well grounded citizens, eager to extend their education into the future.

School Vision

Chelsea School is a place where:

The education of the children is paramount and standards of excellence are encouraged and supported.

The Board of Trustees ensures that the policies and practices of the school reflect the mission statement.

We strive to create an environment that in educational terms, encourages and develops self worth and confidence, and encourages risk taking to develop the skills required for the children to grow into caring, well rounded, responsible adults who will make a useful contribution to our society.

We teach the children to value excellence in all things, especially in attitude and effort. Creativity and risk taking is encouraged, as is the correlation between rights and responsibilities.

Every effort is made to cater for each child’s learning needs.

Cultural Diversity and Maori Dimension

Chelsea School reflects New Zealand’s cultural diversity:

Chelsea School will reflect the unique position of the Maori culture by:

What reasonable steps will the school take to incorporate tikanga Maori (Maori culture/protocol) and te reo into the curriculum?

We will:

We will actively engage with our Maori community on a regular basis and encourage families to build upon the children’s knowledge and experience of their own culture within the home environment as well as at school.

Should arequest for Te Reo to be taught occur, a dual enrolment with the Correspondence School can be sought, or a recommendation made to the local bi lingual classes.

 What reasonable steps will the school take to incorporate Pacifica into the schools curriculum?

Mainstream classrooms and school celebrations, where appropriate, will reflect Pacifica culture through song, dance.

What steps will be taken to keep informed of the views and goals of the schools Maori and Pacifica community?

The school will meet annually with the Maori and Pacifica community to discuss Maori and Pacifica achievement compared with other groups and to discuss future goals.

A balanced curriculum is provided, incorporating the National Education Guidelines and the seven essential learning areas of the New Zealand Curricula.

Each year the Board of Trustees and Staff develop, implement or review a strategic plan, which incorporates the National Administration Guidelines. These are followed/ delivered according to gazetted requirements.

Type of School

Chelsea is a Decile 10, secular, contributing school, which caters for children from Year 0 to Year 6, offering the New Zealand Curriculum.

School Description

Chelsea School is situated in the suburb of Birkenhead, and was established in 1981. It is a variable spaced school, which is reconfigured as necessary, to address changes in year group numbers.

Each Syndicate has a Senior Teacher responsible for its operation.

All children have a “home” room and “home” teacher. Cross grouping takes place within each syndicate. This is a process by which the children are streamed for Literacy and Numeracy to allow for more efficient and effective learning to occur.

The school has as extra facilities, a well-stocked library, a technology suite that operates a school wide network, a Staffroom, an Administration area, a hall, a swimming pool, an after school care centre and an adventure playground.

The school currently caters for a maximum of 400 children with the majority having had one or more years at a pre-school. The children bring with them the expectation of success with reading and writing. Many enter school able to recognise the letters of the alphabet and a few basic sight words. However, the incidence of poor pre-school skills is increasing.

62% of our student population is NZ/European, 21% is Asian, 8% is Maori and 1% is Pacifica. We have 20 other nationalities, or 26% of our students, for whom English is their second language.

These children receive extra lessons in English if necessary.

Most children attend a lot of after school activities.

Children with special needs are not numerous but their needs are reasonably severe. These children are catered for within the classroom situation through cross grouping, the SEG grant and the RTLB Service. We have one ORRS funded student.

The health of the children is generally good with asthma and allergies presenting most often.

The school is staffed according to Ministry of Education formulae. There are 2 male teachers on the staff.

The school has strong support from parents who are encouraged to take an active interest in their children’s education through various activities held at the school, and through supporting homework endeavours.

An open door policy operates as regards consultation with parents, with both parents and teachers being encouraged to be proactive in consulting each other whenever the need arises.

There is one formal parent interview during the year and two written reports issued mid year and at the end of the year.

Parents receive print outs of their children’s academic results prior to the interview and at any other time on request. These are not reports and are in an academic format. Teachers are happy to interpret the printouts for the parents.

Description of the School’s Community

The “as of right” catchment area for the school is the area of Birkenhead known as Chatswood – a subdivision created in the 1970s. It is mainly made up of large family homes, the majority of which are privately owned. Chatswood is a high socio economic area within Birkenhead, with the people generally earning above average incomes.

Chelsea School has had an enrolment policy for many years. The purpose of this policy is to avoid overcrowding and to more easily manage the roll of the school. A zone does operate for “as of right “children.

Upon leaving Chelsea school at the conclusion of Year 6, the children attend up to 10 different Intermediate schools.

The parents rightly have high expectations of the school and are quick to express not only concern but also satisfaction when their concerns are or are not being addressed.

Specific Objectives: 2010-2011

  1. To further incorporate Te Reo and Tikanga Maori into learning

2. Implementation of the new curriculum including the Key Competencies

For several years the children have been learning and applying the skills required for inquiry learning. This has now developed into full scale Communities of Thinking and is school wide.

In 2010, our year long focus this will be “How could anyone live there?” Each syndicate will take this from a different perspective with a change in focus each term.

Children will be set undermining situations (questions that challenge the status quo) to solve.

Children will be learning and applying de Bono’s Hats, Blooms Taxonomy, Ryan’s Thinking Keys, mind mapping and other thinking strategies as they are required.

Their ability to apply their knowledge will be evidenced by their Concluding Community Performances at the end of each term. These performances will be attended by whole school and the parent body.

Our target is to have children questioning, researching, hypothesising, evaluating and presenting/debating their findings.

Responsible for this will be the senior staff in the first instance and all staff thereafter.

Monitoring and review will take place each term as the pitfalls, problems and positives are discussed in staff meetings.

 During 2010, we will:

Major overriding objective

To ensure that the Board of Trustees supports the teaching staff in the pursuit of excellence, in instilling in the children a life long love of learning and in supporting the school in its motto of “Chelsea School – Simply the Best”.

 

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