Reviews

2019 Review Schedule




2018
Emerging Review Update - Term 1 2018 - Behaviour


Present Review Cycle


CURRICULUM REVIEW CYCLE

Proposed Review Cycle (July 2017)

Changes proposed on the basis that if we are going to do something as a result of the review process it takes time and focus to implement change and development.  On the present cycle we could end up with 11 action plans each year.

REVIEWS in 2017 (see below for major emerging reviews in 2017 on behaviour and student monitoring)
Visual Art and Technology September 2017 - reviewed by staff, accepted by Board
Mid year target updates: maths, reading, writing
Wellbeing self review update August 2018 (see below for overall emerging wellbeing review)

Student achievement targets for 2017: Reading, Writing, Maths
Analysis of Variance (already shared and discussed in December)
7:55pm - Strategy NAG 2 -
Charter and annual plan 2017-19  (full version), summary version - this is the Board's guiding document - minute the location of plan (T&L site, and strategic display wall)
December 2016


Science Review
RE Review

Self Review Sept 2016-July 2017
Health & PE self review 2016

Curriculum Reviews
Review
Term 1
Term 2
Term 3
Term 4
Strategic
Annual plan
Curriculum updates
Check review actions from previous year included in plans


End year data – analysis of variance
Consultation
Review charter
Regular
ELL
Integrated inquiry curriculum

RE
Mid year progress:
Reading
Writing
Maths

Odd years:
Technology and visual arts
Even years:
Performing Arts
Health & Physical Ed
Equity and acceleration – including special education needs

EOTC

Emerging Reviews 2017 

Behaviour and Wellbeing

Late 2016
Full community review – open-ended.  Review of innovative learning systems, use of technology, “graduate profile,” what’s important at St Joseph’s (included surveys, observations and interviews) and analysis of progress and achievement data.  All fed into 2017-19 charter. Me and My school survey

All of the review and actions taken from the start Term 4 2016 to the end of 2017 is part of the principal's action plan.

Initial responses from parents regarding addressing behaviours and respect were very positive (see parent surveys in term 4 and also individual emails to principal)

Staff Handbook
This was re-developed for 2017. Our younger and new staff had no guidelines in 2016 and using the staff handbook, the Principal and emerging Senior Leadership Team have worked hard in 2017 to ensure basic staff expectations are being consistently met.

2017
Behaviour and student wellbeing
Identified from school observations,  parent voice, student voice, staff feedback and self assessment. Close monitoring and reporting.  Actions in place for improvement, described in reports.  Closely monitored cycle.
Relationship Management at St Joseph's School
Reports and Self Review on Emerging Review - Behaviour 2017

May 2017 - Behaviour Report - staff self review
Student Wellbeing Survey June 2017
Wellbeing self review June 2017
Wellbeing survey follow up year 4 week 2 term 3 2017

Year 4 wellbeing update - Report August 2018
Wellbeing self review update August 2018
Behaviour report update #3, Behaviour Self Review 2017 - September 2017
Wellbeing Survey (MoE Wellbeing@school) Report October 2017
October 2017 - student engagement
Year 7 & 8 Me and My School NZCER survey
Year 4-6 Me and My School NZCER survey

ACTIONS TAKEN
Staff inconsistency leading to higher level behaviours addressed by principal and plans put in place agreed by all staff - Beyond IY
New procedures for Relationship Management and Wellbeing Mid 2017
Learnings and Behaviour Support Team set up Term 1 - all behaviour interventions are managed by team.  Team attend all meetings - SENCO, DP, Principal.  Snap/emergency decisions made together wherever possible (e.g. stand-down or not) - we call them mini power meetings - its working.
DP attended Restorative Training, Term 1 and fed back to staff Term 2
DP and SENCO attended “Distressed or Defiant?” training day.
Whole staff (including support staff) had a day’s training in Autism in the term 1 holidays from Autism New Zealand.
Behaviour Sustainability Term 2 - worked through with DP/principal and then rest of staff


Start of Year 2018 Teacher Only Day - all scaffolded by the Ministry of Education December 2017 Publication - Teaching Positive Behaviour - Teacher Only Day 2018 
Further guidelines on managing bullying developed for start of 2018 - this is to address the "below the radar" behaviours that we don't see and take us to the next level of positive behaviour.

What difference have we made?

We have increased sense of safety and wellbeing in students evidenced in the student wellbeing surveys in October 2017:

  • Community connections and home family partnerships are strong, respectful and positive.
  • Children know bullying is unacceptable at our school.
  • Children say they are taught what behaviours are OK and not OK.  
  • High inter-cultural respect
  • A big social skills and self control intervention in the year 4 class in term 2 this year has paid off with year 4 more positive than the norm and more so than the rest of the school in all areas of wellbeing.
We have increased learning engagement and general attitude to school evidenced on "Me and My School" surveys - comparing 2017 with 2016 (see summaries below).
Children have said from multiple areas in the school, "We are kinder to each other now." and "We are able to learn."  Little gauges indicate we are in a better place - e.g. all the children wear hats without argument.

Next Steps
We know from multiple sources - surveys, student voice, observations and our ongoing reflections through 2017, summarised in the engagement survey (see below) - that we need to address engagement in learning.  Making the curriculum relevant and interesting, giving more control to learners (all of which had to be taken back in 2017 in order to get things in order) and doing it in a scaffolded and supported way with a sense of order and support.  This ties in perfectly with our charter goal for 2018.  It ties in perfectly with what our Community of Learning is working on.  We now need to balance the work we've done on behaviour and wellbeing with giving more control back to the students, fostering emotional and cognitive engagement.  These levels are not low and are close to or above national norms.  But we know we can do more and better.  We know there are some small pockets in the school where unkind things are said between children out of teacher earshot.  We know there are some isms in the school - I (principal) have addressed this to some extent and named it.  But in 2018 we need to take it out of the dark, like we did with the higher level behaviours in 2017, and address it head on.  We will be kind and respectful to each other at St Joseph's even when no-one's looking.

Next steps from Wellbeing survey:
Students record that student-initiated interactions are more disrespectful than the norm, particularly name calling and putdowns.  Many staff have worked very hard this year to reinforce that this is NOT the culture at St Joseph’s.  We believe over time we will be able to reinforce this more and more as children who have become accustomed to this sort of interaction leave the school. There are positive plans in place for 2018 to address this - guidelines on bullying, and focus on Teaching Positive Behaviour.

In Summary - year 7 & 8


In 2017 it was necessary to tighten teacher control on both the year 7 and year 8 groups in order to help them engage more purposefully in learning.  This has increased learning engagement and general attitude to school on the whole.  The effects of this are reflected well throughout the survey for all of the year 8 group and for the year 7 girls.  These steps were necessary and other conversations and observations indicate that the students feel that they are kinder and learning more now but at the same time this has had to come about through teacher control which can only be one step in our journey.   A consequence of tighter teacher control is less emotional and cognitive engagement.  For true cognitive engagement the students have to be emotionally engaged and self-managing.


Our stronger focus on learning engagement and progress in learning has had a good impact on the year 8 group and the year 7 girls.  Its had a good actual impact on the year 7 boys in terms of achievement but not yet in emotional satisfaction.


Our next step is to foster and improve emotional engagement (without losing learning engagement) particularly in the year 8 boys for 2018.   They need to become self-regulating, self-managers so that we can lift teacher control and allow them to feel more emotionally connected.  

A purely student-led curriculum as we have done in the past has run its course as these students have run out of inspiration and need to be exposed to life, issues and problems to solve which they are not able to come up with themselves.  We are taking this in hand in 2018 and moving away from the strictly student-led curriculum to an overall plan/journey which we hope will provide enough structure to engage students whilst still allowing freedom for personal inquiry and problem-solving.  We are investigating project-based learning, more hands-on and EOTC experiences and aiming to merge the core subjects more seamlessly with an integrated curricula approach.

In Summary Year 4-6
Overall emotional engagement and attitude to school is positive in relation to nationwide norms.

The most obvious systematic area of note was that the girls’ engagement being lower than the boys’ – slightly for the year 4 girls but markedly for the year 6 girls.  There have been some social issues between some of the girls.  However their emotional engagement and attitude to school, although not as positive as the boys’ is still in a good place.  In looking for causes, the biggest discrepancy is in learning engagement and the biggest discrepancy there is in feeling the work is not appropriately leveled for them.  This is a class with particularly able students who need extending.  The next step from this survey will be to engage with the class (particularly the girls) early in 2018 and find out more about their attitude to learning, their motivations and what we can put in place to meet these needs.


MAJOR AREA OF EMERGING SELF-REVIEW in 2017

Monitoring student progress and planning for acceleration


Identified absence of systems and consequent slowing of progress and lowering of achievement in 2016.



Plan for improving learning monitoring systems
Task
Responsibility
Timeframe
Background reading on best practice in learning support.
Best Evidence Synthesis for Diverse Learners - BES Diverse Learners
Background on competing systems - so we can justify our choice of practice
SJH & LFR
By week 3 term 2
Review policy and procedure, flowchart etc to link our practice with identified best practice. Write "Learning Support Procedures at St Joseph's School."
LFR & SJH
Week 4-5 term 2
Revise tracking systems - make a whole approach tracking - keep all student records together, track over years.  Individual tracking for at risk learners.
LFR
SJH
By week 2 term 2
In week 2 staff meeting: Share tracking systems with teachers and explain the process -
Stage 1 - ensure all learners’ initials are in the correct starting place & start to work on individual and group strategies.  Copy group strategies from monitored students’ forms.  
Focus on one thing to address for individual strategies
Teachers add to collaborative documents on ideas for interventions
LFR
SJH
Week 2 term 2
Follow up to support teachers with in class programs
Follow up for teacher aide training/support to add to programs
Continue to look into further options
SJH
Ongoing
One on one appraisal meetings 90 minutes - detailed analysis of student goal-setting and capacity for meeting goals.

Classroom observations - systems for diverse learners
LFR
Term 3
Plan for further staff pd in specified areas for 2018
LFR/SJH
By term 4
Identify future resources for 2018 budget
SJH/LFR
By term 4

Over time the responsibilities will become more SJH and monitored by LFR.  At the present setup stage LFR leading.

What difference has it made?

There are clear areas of accelerated progress. We reached our 2017 targets, except for writing where substantial acceleration happened even though the National Standard goals weren't reached.

We have upturned our declining achievement results in reading and maths.


We have consistent practices for engaging with whanau around achievement of priority learners.

What's Next?

Main target focus in 2018 is on writing.

Over the Summer vacation, I (LFR) have revamped the monitored student forms to include the whole class. We are now looking primarily at progress towards the expected level. Apart from junior running record tracking, MUSAC Edge (our Student Management System) does not provide us with the tools to monitor progress effectively so we have had to make these ourselves.
We have structure planned to ensure we keep this to the forefront and attend to it as a priority through our senior leadership team meetings and syndicate meetings - see term 1 2018 plans.

Based on all the review we have done in 2017 we know that we need a more integrated curriculum and so that we can provide a more holistic approach and teach literacy (in particular) in the context of the curriculum. We know we are on the right track because our charter for 2017-18 has achieved what we hoped we would achieve in 2017 and it lead naturally into our plans for 2018. These are outlined in detail in our 2018 annual plan, achievement targets and community of learning focus.



POLICY REVIEW CYCLE 2017






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