Ohakune school reviews charter

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 11, Issue 529, 29 March 1994, Page 6

Ohakune school reviews charter

Staff and the Board of Trustees of Ohakune Primary School decided late in 1993, to review all aspects of the school' s operation in light of new education goals and administration guidelines It is planned that changes made to the charter will reflect the outcomes of the review. Harvey Porteous, rural adviser with the Palmerston North College of education is acting as facilitator. Mr Porteous told the Bulletin a deeper understanding of what the charter is and where it stands in relation to the school is now emerging in school communities. A charter is made up of goals and objectives which are being made more specific with detailed plans of action included to explainhow goals are to be met.

The process started for Ohakune Primary School with a strategic planning workshop attended by teachers and other staff, at the Hobbit motel in January. A publicly advertised meeting followed on 8 March at the school, where parents and caregivers had the opportunity to have input into the review. A complaint often voiced by schools is that parents don't come forward for such meetings, but Mr Porteous said Ohakune could be pleased with the attendance of 4050 people. He said some schools in Palmerston North, for example, had as few as six. Meetings were initially segregated between staff and parents because teachers could sometimes steer the process, "because they know the lingo" he explained. "We wanted parents to talk about what they want. Now we are putting the two together." Stage three was a meeting of parents, teachers and staff, held to combine the input from the two previous meetings. Once this document is set out, it will be put out for public comment with "a couple of weeks" for people to respond. Mr Porteous said all views expressed in the process are acknowledged. "Its interesting to look at the results from the parents meeting and the staff meeting - it's 'snap'. It's only the terminology that is different," Mr Porteous observed. Following the process it is important for parents to recei ve information on what the goals are, what the schools are doing to achieve those goals and what results they are getting. As far as teaching is concerned the process is a long term one, which still allows for teachers' individuality. "Most teachers are doing the things that we're talking about - it's not a dramatic thing, more of a fine tuning." From the first teacher's meeting, the groups that the teachers were divided into, are still operating within the school' s staff development system. At the teacher' s strategic plan workshop teachers looked at formulating "a vision" for the school. "It is vitally important for the continuing development of our school that we know where we are headed in the foreseeable future," it was stated in the workshop notes. Staff agreed that if the primary goals of education are to engender: a love of learning; a desire to learn; the capability to learn; then teachers would need a commitment to encourage children to become life long learners. Teachers, pupils and parents would then show by their actions a commitment to learning from each other.