Minutes of FLAG Meeting 24 September 2009

Minutes of FLAG Meeting 24 September 2009 by Christopher Waugh

September 24, 2009, 5:02 pm
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Present: Greg, Lincoln, Hamish, KT, Dave, Jane, Angela, Jane, Marcus, Dawn, Denise, Simon, Chris

BOT vision and mission statements for consideration

Board of Trustees draft from their planning day is attached – the FLAG observations are:

To be the best possible learning community (sounds more forceful or determined)
To create the best learning community (no need to put the proviso of ‘possible’)
This phrase does not appear to provide the inspiration that a vision statement ideally would. The intent is approved of, but the wording feels somewhat mundane.
Perhaps remove the word ‘young’ – all members are learners.
Remove “Parents” as it is implied by ‘community’.

Integration Group: Main focus was the Year 9 programme as a pilot for integration. Science and Mathematics were concerned about the need for specialist teaching and learning input at these levels of the school. The classes needn’t be necessarily taught only by one teacher – but the planning could be much more integrated. Year 9 was chosen as a focus as it’s an area of the school where the students appear to be a little lost – and where they lack the skill to generalise their knowledge from one subject domain to another. This is supported by KT.
- Lincoln was curious about what research supports the idea of need for homeroom – Andrew Fuller’s research can be cited here.
- Dawn reminded us of the importance of the focus on the educational as well as pastoral benefit
- Manurewa High School: this ‘homeroom’ notion right through to Year 11 proved to provide measurably improved outcomes.

Minutes from this meeting were tabled.

Values Group: The values identified in the revised NZ Curriculum appeared solid and worth adopting. The group then looked at some of the specific values that we would focus on initially: Integrity, Excellence and Innovation were ones we decided would be worth tackling in the immediate future. Understanding of the notion of what a value is first has to be established in the school before we can discuss these in detail.
- Some discussion followed about the nature of a value and how we treat values within the school. Questions were asked about whether a value can be fixed and inviolable

TOD: Values Discussion (A focus on what values ARE, tight and focussed – using the Curriculum values as our model)
Year 7-9 Integration – including all subjects. (Present current problems; followed by a rationale for change; provide a set of models to work to; discussion and buy-in)

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