At our May meeting we invited all the new staff to come and meet the Board of Trustees. We really enjoyed learning about the multitude of roles that our new support and teaching staff are involved in and to be thinking how best we can support them through our governance role.
As usual Mr Congdon presented his Principal’s Report on how various aspects of the school are functioning. Each time he does this he provides a written summary of how the college is progressing against the annual goals which have been set by the Board and Management. It is good to have this update each time we meet, and the board is able to ask questions about the pace and extent of progress as we move through each year. Mrs Searle, in her capacity as manager of the administration staff also presented a verbal report on staffing and how the various administration support staff roles work together. Mr Congdon and I also presented a report on our attendance (along with Head Boy, Matthew Hollows) at the Christchurch Education Summit. This was a significant gathering with nearly 800 people coming together over two days to address a number of topics related to the future of education. The summit comprised community members and groups, representatives from early childhood, primary, secondary, tertiary and workplace training organisations (including both staff and students). Part of this discussion centred on the kinds of values we wanted our education system to promote and what success might look like for our learners. If you are interested in participating in this education conversation which ongoing and is likely to inform a number of reviews currently happening (including of NCEA and the governance of schools by boards) then go to this internet link: https://conversation.education.govt.nz/
In addition to the receipt of our usual reports on health and safety, finance and property, at the last board meeting we also reviewed a revised Code of Conduct for the trustees and passed our NAG 6, 7 and 8 policy which covers our reporting obligations to the Ministry of Education. Having a Code of Conduct for our trustees is really important as it sets out the expectations of a trustee (including coming to meetings prepared to discuss key issues having read all the documents) and of our behaviour, including matters of confidentiality, transparency and honesty.
Our next board meeting is 25th of June and I shall be overseas for the three weeks preceding it. Garry Good, Deputy Chair, has kindly agreed to step in as Acting Chair in my absence, and Board members will be in attendance at the forthcoming interview night to talk with you about how things are going in the school for you and your tamariki. Please do go and have a chat with them, we would really appreciate your feedback on our College. I am sorry I won’t be there!
Hei konā mai
Juliana Mansvelt
Chair Horowhenua College Board of Trustees