School Strategic Plan for Melrose Primary School
5141
2016-2019
7
Valid as of August 2015
Endorsements
Endorsement by School Principal / Signed: Kellie ThorpName: Kellie Thorp
Date: 21/03/2016
Endorsement by School Council / Signed: Paul Barker
Name: Paul Barker
Date: 21/03/2016
School Council President’s endorsement represents endorsement of School Strategic Plan by School Council
Endorsement by the delegate of the Secretary / Signed John Pryor
Name John Pryor
Date 20/03/2016
7
Valid as of August 2015
School Profile
The broad philosophy for Melrose Primary School is “Educating Hearts and Minds”. This philosophy derives from our ten year journey in Emotional Intelligence.Demographics:
Melrose Primary School is located in the rural city of Wodonga, Victoria, 300kms north of Melbourne on the Murray River. It has an enrolment of 330 students. The school is based on the belief that quality education is best provided for students through meaningful relationships between teachers and students. With leadership support, teachers plan differentiated and challenging learning tasks across the curriculum. The school values “Academic Excellence and Emotional Wellbeing.”
Purpose:
Melrose Primary School is located in an educational and recreational precinct. Our school is surrounded by a network of parks, walking and bicycle paths, sporting ovals and courts and a major regional recreational facility. Originally built in the 1970s with an innovative open plan design, the building has since been renovated extensively to modernise learning environments and equip classrooms with 21st Century technologies. The main theme of the process was to enhance our capacity to engage and educate our students through access to specialised technology and purposeful learning embedded into Literacy and Numeracy teaching.
The improvement of outcomes for students in Numeracy and Literacy continues to be a major focus for the school. It is our belief that these skills are fundamental life skills which are core to the development of active, engaged citizens of the future. Staff members have participated in intensive, ongoing personal and team based professional learning to enhance curriculum delivery in these areas. The school is committed to enhance student engagement and connectedness to school. We use our Emotional Intelligence program as a catalyst to establish a harmonious, safe and purposeful school community. The overall philosophy driving our school is encapsulated in our motto "Educating Hearts and Minds".
Values:
Our children stand at the doorway of an unpredictable tomorrow. If empowered with the right skills they will journey well, with meaningful relationships, purpose and their wellbeing intact. Academic achievement alone is not enough to guarantee our children are happy, productive and contributing members in the community. Therefore we have incorporated Emotional Intelligence in our curriculum to better equip our students with the knowledge and skills to provide the means by which children can successfully participate in opportunities both educationally and personally.
Emotional Intelligence is the dimension of intelligence responsible for our ability to manage ourselves and our relationships with others. It is a way of understanding how we think, feel and act. It is having the ability to manage the thoughts and feelings that contribute to our own and others happiness, and is a key predictor of success in later life. We want our students to make lemonade when life throws them lemons and be able to live and work in collaboration with others. EQ is taught explicitly in our curriculum, as well as being woven into the very fabric of our school culture. The principles of emotional intelligence underpin our school vision, values and school-wide pedagogy. Our school-wide pedagogy (SWP) is:
· To Know Yourself (knowing why you think, feel and act the way you do)
· To Choose Yourself (knowing and doing what is right)
· To Give of Yourself (leaving a legacy of good, healing rather than hurting).
Every student at our school is welcomed at an EQ ceremony. An EQ “Tools for School” toolbox is provided to every student which provides symbols to remind us of strategies to use in self-regulation and active learning.
In 2014 our school embarked on RULER training to provide additional depth to our EQ program. The acronym RULER drives our planning and delivery of explicit EQ teaching. RULER stands for Recognising emotions, Understanding emotions, Labelling emotions, Expressing emotions and Regulating emotions. The four anchors of the RULER Program are: Mood meter; class charter, meta-moment and the blue-print.
The newsletter showcases our EQ philosophy every week in a variety of ways. These include Principal messages, EQ awards, EQ articles, strategies for parents and student work samples.
ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT:
Our 2015 Student Family Organisation Index is 0.675. Melrose Primary School has a large number of students from low socio-economic backgrounds. When Education Maintenance Allowance was applicable, 52% of our families where eligible to recieve assistance. We currently have 30 Koorie students, six students with English as an Additional Language and we have a number of students who are funded under the Program Students with Disabilities (PSD).
Melrose has a large number of students from defence force backgrounds. At present, we have a Defence Force Transition Aide who is employed for 10 hours per week to work with our 24 families and 30 students who come from defence backgrounds.
SCHOOL ORGANISATION:
Melrose has sixteen teaching classes. There are three classes of Years 5-6; One class of Years 4-5; Four classes of Years 3-4; Five classes of 1-2;; and Three classes of Foundation.
We offer teachers three hours per week of allocated APT, which is linked to specialist subjects. The three specialist subjects we offer are LOTE (Italian and Auslan), Physical Education and Visual Arts. These are taught from Foundation to Year Six.
STAFFING:
Melrose Primary School has a full-time Principal, two full-time Assistant Principals; a leadership team of seven staff (Principal, two Assistant Principals and four Teaching and Learning Coordinators); twenty-five teaching staff; and fourteen ES staff. We also have a full-time Primary Welfare Officer.
ACHIEVEMENT:
The strategic intent of Melrose Primary School is reflected in our constant effort to improve learning outcomes for all students.
Our Performance Summary 2015 indicates that our students are achieving slightly lower outcomes to like-schools in English and Mathematics with VELS teacher assessments from Years Prep to Year 6.
Our Year 3 NAPLAN results showed that we were within the range of 60% of Victorian Government Schools in Reading and Numeracy. The four-year data trends also reflect that our students are within the range of 60% of Government Schools in Reading and Numeracy.
The Year 5 NAPLAN data replicates our Year 3 data. It shows that our students are receiving similar results in Reading and Numeracy and this is also sustained over a four year trend.
Our students’ average growth in NAPLAN from Years 3 to 5 was medium in Reading, Numeracy, Writing and Grammar and Punctuation.
Some highlights in 2015 were:
- All staff members were provided with intensive structured professional learning both at a personal and team level.
- Professional Learning Teams met every week to support staff in identifying student needs and providing a differentiated curriculum.
- All Program for Students with Disability students showed progress at satisfactory level or above in achieving their individual learning goals.
ENGAGEMENT:
Melrose Primary School continues to develop and refine its Emotional Intelligence program aimed at the building of social competencies to improve individual wellbeing and engagement.
In 2015 our school continued with its own unique version of the Student Attitudes To School Surveys as we have recognised the mportance of seeking feedback on school satisfaction from all of our students. The results in our Student Attitudes To School Surveys were exceptionally high. Our results indicated high levels of safety in our school; satisfaction with school work; and connectedness to peers.
Year 5 & 6 students at Melrose also completed the Department SATS survey in 2015, with all results in the area of teaching and learning slightly below or equal to the state and region mean scores. Results in Student Relationships and Wellbeing fell within the first quartile, with indications that perceptions of classroom behaviour are quite low.
We have made significant improvement in the area of school attendance. Our results in 2014 indicated that our school absence rate remains higher that the median for all Victorian Government Schools, however our four year trend analysis also indicated that our school’s average absence days has consistently fallen each year from 19.21 in 2012 to 17.75 in 2015.
In 2016 we will continue to maintain our existing programs as well as implement new initiatives aimed at engaging all. We will also embark on community awareness that will educate students and parents around the importance of regular attendance. We will also discuss attendance in our weekly newsletter.
We also plan to use ICT to improve student motivation in the classroom and in addition, will develop links with families.
Our school is well above State average in parent opinion surveys in all areas of assessment. Melrose Primary School values home-school partnerships and parental involvement.
WELL-BEING:
Our Parent Opinion Survey results in 2013 showed that parents are extremely happy with our transition processes. The data showed that our school is performing above other schools in terms of parent satisfaction with our school transition programs.
We have a designated transition coordinator to facilitate transition from kindergarten to Foundation. Vital links are developed with local pre-schools and families, through a variety of visits, phone calls and activities, so that each new Foundation child and family feel supported before school begins.
For our Year Six students, we have a very comprehensive and successful transition program to the local Middle Years College.
A well-developed working relationship exists with key staff from the college and processes are in place to allow the transfer of educational data and personal information to support each student in their new setting.
Our school has an induction program for new students in Terms 1 and 3, as well as a Welcoming Ceremony at Assembly at the beginning of each term.
Our school provides specialised transition programs for students with additional learning needs. Individual Learning Plans are implemented for identified students. Our school utilises the services of the Flexible Learning Centre in Wodonga to help support students with additional needs. We also provide opportunities for dual enrolment with our local special school for students with identified academic needs.
Strategic Direction
/Achievement / Key improvement strategies
Goals / Achievement Goal
Improve student-learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy for all students. / Key Improvement Strategies
· Create a whole school teaching and learning philosophy.
· Review current assessment practices.
· Develop an agreed whole school assessment schedule.
· Develop systems for analysing student data.
· Imbed across the school expectations of high academic performance.
· Support teachers to deliver high quality literacy and numeracy curriculum.
· Develop and imbed a Melrose classroom teaching and learning model.
· Investigate the implementation of focused learning walks and lesson observation.
Targets
Targets are defined measures of the successful achievement of the school’s goals. Targets can take a number of forms and may focus on the outcomes achieved by all students, such as the learning growth all students will be expected to achieve, or on the outcomes of a smaller group of students. / 80% of Year 3 students to be in NAPLAN Bands 4-6 for English dimensions and Numeracy.
Decrease the students in NAPLAN Bands 1-2 to fewer than 10%.
80% of Year 5 students to be in NAPLAN Bands 5-8 for English dimensions and Numeracy.
Decrease the students in NAPLAN Bands below Band 4 to fewer than 10%
For every student to achieve at least one year’s growth as evidenced by Victorian Curriculum teacher judgments and whole school assessment results
Theory of action (optional) / If there is a consistent whole school approach to teaching and learning and the collection and analysis of data then there will be improved outcomes
Actions
Actions are the specific activities to be undertaken in each year to progress the key improvement strategies. There may be more than one action for each strategy. Schools will choose to describe actions with different levels of detail. / Success criteria
Success criteria are markers of success. They are useful in demonstrating whether the strategies and actions have been successful. Success criteria often reflect observable changes in practice or behaviour. To simplify and focus the school’s monitoring of progress, only a limited number of success criteria should be set.
Year 1 / · Provide professional development for all teachers in English On Line and Scholastic (lexiles).
· Review literacy and numeracy assessment practices
· Build teacher confidence in utilizing a range of assessment strategies to effectively plan for and assess teaching and learning.
· Build teacher capacity to analyse data to inform teaching and learning
· Audit individual teacher and unit based methods of data recording
· Determine core beliefs of teaching staff around best practice teaching and learning
· Implement school wide targeted literacy and numeracy intervention programs
· Familiarise staff with Victorian Curriculum through targeted PD opportunities and adjust unit planning to match / · Planning documentation of teachers reflects the use of EOL and Scholastic data to inform teaching
· Classroom records of reading levels and lexiles growth across the year
· Staff collaboration on mind map of common expectations and core beliefs around teaching and learning
· Ensure that all identified students have individual learning plans that are reflected upon, evaluated and modified regularly
· Data sets identifying students who have participated in intervention groups – including baseline data and post intervention achievements
· Report against Victorian Curriculum at end of each semester
Year 2 / · Redevelop whole school numeracy and literacy assessment schedules based on best available evidence
· Explore available assessments to determine science understandings and capabilities
· Investigate and trial digital program/resource to record, track and analyse student growth in key identified assessments
· Develop Melrose Teacher Handbook which outlines expectations with planning and teaching and learning