Dear parents and caregivers,
Term 1 is now underway and we are all settling into 2021 after an initial period of disruption due to the COVID19 level changes here in Auckland.
Academic performance
The board’s most important responsibility is for student achievement.
Academic performance at Kohimarama School held up strongly in 2020 despite the challenges created by COVID19 and the corresponding disruption to teaching routines. This year we already have cause to be grateful for the rapid response of the teaching staff and school community who enabled continued learning for students during level 3 earlier this term. It’s important to recognise the efforts made to ensure teaching staff new to Kohimarama School in 2021 were able to transition to online learning so quickly.
It was great to see the number of families visit the school to meet the teachers last week. Your student’s teacher is the best source of information about the academic performance of your child at Kohimarama School.
Financials
Thank you to those that have paid your donations. Donations contribute to the primary funding of Learner Assistants at the school. Last year the School achieved 79.6% of budgeted donations and we are hoping to maintain or improve this year. For those that wish to contribute more to the school there is a mechanism to pay an increased donation via Kindo.
Late last year the board and school worked together to set the budget for 2021. Balancing school revenue and expenditure for this year was particularly challenging due to increased staff costs. To offset the increases in costs the school has reduced the level of Learner Assistant support to our classes. The school management and board believe Kohimarama School will still be able to maintain a high standard learning environment despite this change.
One of our strategic goals is to ‘Enable our learners to thrive’ and within that we are seeking to ‘Continue to improve in academic achievement across the school’. We are conscious that to meet this goal we need to consider options to increase revenue so that school learning resources can be maintained or improved, not reduced.
One mechanism to increase school revenue is to enable people to gift the tax credit component of their school donation back to the school. To make this happen we are in the process of establishing a relationship with TaxGift (taxgift.co.nz) who would process this on behalf of parents and the school. Further details will follow separately.
Centennial
This year marks 100 since Kohimarama School opened and events to celebrate are planned for September. Further details are available on the school website:
www.kohimarama.school.nz/centennial2021
Property
We are continuing to engage with the Ministry of Education to address both the provision of short-term relocatable classrooms and also establish a long term solution to our property requirements.
Board of Trustees
The Board of Trustees is a collection of representatives from the school community and we welcome engagement with you. To learn more or to contact us please see the school website:
www.kohimarama.school.nz/about/governance/board-of-trustees