Liberton Christian School
2008 Annual Report
Chairman’s Report
The 2008 calendar year has been both a challenging and encouraging year for Liberton Christian School. The school had its triennial Education Review Office review, developed much of the Revised New Zealand Curriculum and operated at or about its maximum roll throughout the year. The school was very well served by an enthusiastic and confident staff who were committed to delivering high quality educational programmes to students and to the special character of the school.
The school was reviewed by the Education Review Office in June as part of its three-year review cycle. The school focus selected for the review was on learning and teaching across the school with an emphasis on numeracy and teachers’ professional learning and development. The ERO reviewers found that excellent progress has been made on the issues identified in the 2005 ERO Review, namely the school library, management of curriculum delivery and self-review. They reported that, “Students receive high quality mathematics programmes and are achieving at a high level across the school, particularly in Years 7 and 8”. They also commented that the curriculum is well designed and implemented and is enhancing student engagement and achievement. The Board of Trustees and the school community have been encouraged by the feedback from ERO on the quality of learning for students and the evidence of the special character of the school. The review also highlighted areas where the school could improve its performance. The main area highlighted was that the school needs to develop a formal process for self-review. The Board will be working in 2009 to implement a programme to address this issue.
The staff and Board of Trustees have been working through the 2007 Revised New Zealand Curriculum. During the year, the school has been working through its vision and values. This has been has been an excellent opportunity to review our vision for the school, and consultation was included from both the school community and the students.
ICT has been a major focus for the school this year. Liberton joined a number of other Dunedin schools in a three-year ICT Cluster of which 2008 was the first year. This has provided a number of professional development opportunities for all of the teaching staff and has encouraged and enabled a range of new ICT-based programmes at the school. In addition to the professional development, the school had an ICT audit of its computer network. An ICT hardware plan was developed for the school to improve its ageing computer facilities. A generous grant from the Synod of Otago and Southland of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand allowed for the upgrade of the school’s computer network and to increase the numbers of computers in each classroom.
The School continues to operate at or near its maximum roll. This creates challenges for the school in how to best structure the three classrooms. The Board of Trustees believes that the students would be better served with four classrooms. The senior class in particular would benefit greatly from having only two year levels in the one class. The school’s proprietors applied to the Ministry of Education in October for an increase in the maximum roll and are currently awaiting a response.
The School finished 2008 in very good heart. Looking back over the year, student achievement levels were high, all of the major goals in the School’s Annual Plan were met, the ERO review reported that students were receiving high quality teaching and learning, and the Board of Trustees has worked well as an effective governance team. The relationships within the school community were strong and there was good community spirit. The School looks forward to 2009 to continue building on the excellent progress made in 2008.
Neville Jopson
Principal’s Report
2008 has been a year of blessing for Liberton Christian School. As a community we have much to be grateful to the Lord for as we celebrate the achievements of the students and school.
2008 Staff
At the beginning of the school year we warmly welcomed Miss Hermione Barnett to the teaching staff as principal release teacher. Her commitment to and enthusiasm for Christian education is a blessing to the junior class children and our community.
We also welcomed Miss Pamela Pirie, a final-year student teacher from the Otago University College of Education. She observed and taught in the middle class with Mr Robertson during the year and it was with sadness we had to say goodbye in November.
Mrs Chantal Smith, Mr Alan Robertson and Mrs Kyra Jones continued to provide high quality teaching programmes to our students in their respective roles and each bless the school with their talents, professionalism and readiness to serve.
Christian Character
Our World Vision 40-hour Famine effort was again outstanding as students raised over $2,700. This exceeded our expectations and we received a wonderful surprise and blessing for our school by being awarded a World Vision/Just Juice Intermediate Scholarship and a Gold award. This acknowledged the commitment of all our 40-hour famine participants. Year eight student Matthew Boyes was chosen as our school ambassador and all 40-hour famine participants were presented with certificates. Matthew travelled to Auckland in the September holidays to participate in leadership training and lots of fun activities with the other nineteen intermediate school ambassadors from around New Zealand.
We joined with Pine Hill students and teachers for special services to celebrate Easter, Pentecost and Christmas at St Mark’s Church through the year. We value these opportunities to gather with the Pine Hill School students and we thank Mrs Benita Barton for the effort she makes to bring the schools together to share in worship.
On 18 May our dear friend of the school and neighbour Mr Sidney Harlow passed away. Thirty students, four staff and nine parents represented our school at his funeral. Two of our students, Matthew Boyes and Harrison Stirling, spoke during the funeral. The funeral was a fitting tribute to Mr Harlow’s life and our presence was very much appreciated by his family and many others who attended the funeral. We miss Mr Harlow’ s cheery wave and chat over the fence but remember his life as he shared it with us; as one of faith in Jesus and sincere gratitude for the blessings he received in his life.
Alan Robertson and I attended the New Zealand Association for Christian Schools Leaders’ Conference in Auckland. The keynote speaker was Carolyn Kelshaw, who is CEO of Christian Parent Controlled Schools in Australia. The focus was on sustainable leadership and Carolyn led us through the Biblical narrative of Joseph’s journey to leadership. We attended a variety of Christian education workshops and we both came away from the conference encouraged and inspired in our work as Christian teachers.
The Education Review Office (ERO) reviewed our school during the last week of term two. The Board of Trustees and staff were very pleased with the findings and regarded the report as confirmation that we are working well together to provide a high quality education to the Christian community. We were particularly pleased that the reviewers saw strong evidence that the Christian character of the school was well embedded and of central importance to all aspects of the school.
Curriculum
Curriculum opportunities have been rich and diverse over 2008. Education outside the classroom opportunities included a trip to the Albatross Colony in term one and the Otago Museum in term two, as part of Creation Studies topics.
Under the guidance of Mrs Smith, the senior class totally enjoyed their Berwick Camp experience despite the marginal weather at times (snow, sun, hail, rain). Most activities were able to go ahead and our students made the most of the opportunities available to them. Students reported that they were able to face a new challenge and/or experience a new activity to extend their personal development. Senior class camps are fast becoming a favourite tradition.
The arts were joyfully explored through a variety of opportunities. Musician, Mr Bob Bickerton, captivated our students with his mix of humour and knowledge as he demonstrated sixteen different instruments and explained how they worked.
In August we hosted a group of Middleton Grange Christian School (Christchurch) performing arts students and teachers. The workshops with our students were wonderful; the positive interactions between our students and the Middleton Grange students were lovely to see, and the evening performance in the Maurice Joel Theatre at Otago Boys’ High School lots of fun. I know the Middleton Grange students loved being here and enjoyed sharing their talents with us too.
Our own school-wide production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was a huge success and once again provided our students with a very worthwhile and meaningful drama experience. We had ninety students from George Street Normal School attend our matinee performance and a full hall of parents and friends for the evening performance. We were delighted to see the development of the students as they worked on the elements and techniques of drama performance individually and in groups. God has truly blessed us with talented children, and of course the talented Mr Robertson, who wrote and directed the production.
Our whole school attended the DCBC production of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Once again we all enjoyed seeing one of the Narnia Chronicles being brought to life on stage and the students’ responses were very positive.
The Board of Trustees and staff are working together to implement the Revised New Zealand Curriculum by 2010. During 2008 we have spent time getting to know the new document at the classroom level, whilst considering the implications to our own curriculum delivery plan at the governance level. After much consideration and consultation work was completed on the Vision and Values statements which will underpin the rest of the process. At a later date there will be meetings held for wider community involvement and further consultation.
Professional Development
During 2008 our school-wide professional development for staff centred on Information Communication Technology (ICT). We entered into a Ministry of Education three-year profess-ional development contract with several other schools to support our development in this area. We began by taking stock of our resources and thinking carefully about what we would like to be able to provide to our students in the future. In May we learned that we had been blessed to receive a grant of $20,000 from the Presbyterian Synod of Otago and Southland education fund towards our ICT programme. This grant has already made a significant impact as we work towards our ICT goals through the purchase of new computers and other needed hardware improvements to our system. As the year has progressed the use of ICT to enhance teaching and learning has become more evident in the school. Mrs Jones has made use of the school’s compact camera set in the visual arts by supporting the year 1–5 students in creating digital stories and the year 6–8 students in claymation. The results were outstanding.
Sports
All classes took part in swimming lessons during terms one and four. The junior and middle classes received lessons through the JC Swim School and the senior class went to Moana Pool for ‘Swimsation’ lessons.
During 2008 we were able to enter a year 7–8 netball team, year 5–6 and year 7–8 miniball (junior basketball) teams, and a year 4–6 soccer team. We also tried a new sport by entering two teams in the Rippa Rugby school competition. Thank you to the dedicated parents who transport the children each week to these extra-curricular games and to those who take on coaching roles.
We have shared in many wonderful moments and achievements through the year and have so much to be grateful to our Lord for. Our school vision is to see “our children, as part of the Christian community, learning with enthusiasm, growing in knowledge, developing their abilities, and desiring to serve God.” Thank you especially to all those who uphold the school in prayer as we work to achieve this vision for our children together.
I would like to sincerely thank our dedicated staff, Board of Trustees, parents and wider community for all the support and encouragement given faithfully to our school, students and myself over 2008. In Christ.
Fiona Sizemore
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