The Bays (Port Hills) Learning Community Cluster

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This learning community cluster includes 4 state primary schools, 1 special school, 1 state integrated school and 10 early childhood education providers.

 

Schooling

  1. Heathcote Valley School
  2. Mt Pleasant School
  3. Redcliffs School
  4. Sumner School
  5. Van Asch Deaf Education Centre
  6. Star of the Sea School

 

Early Childhood Education

There are 356 licence spaces across the early childhood providers in this cluster, including 62 spaces for children under two years of age. At July 2011, 485 children were enrolled at early childhood services in this cluster, 61 were under two. All  173 new entrant students who enrolled at a school in the Port Hills Cluster in the year to March 2012 had attended an ECE service. All 12 Maori new entrant students and 5 Pasifika new entrants had attended an ECE service.

 

Services

  1. Kidsfirst Kindergarten Beryl McCombs
  2. Kidsfirst Kindergarten Mount Pleasant
  3. Kidsfirst Kindergarten Sumner
  4. Heathcote Valley Preschool
  5. Moa Kids Community Early Learning Centre
  6. Pebbles Preschool
  7. Rosa Giardino Montessori Nursery School
  8. The James St Junior School
  9. The James St Pre-school
  10. Van Asch Deaf Education Early Intervention

 ECE services are independently owned and managed.

 

School Governance

There are three types of schools: state, private (or registered or independent) and state integrated schools. (State integrated schools are former private schools which, while now “integrated” into the state system, also provide programmes around their particular religious or learning philosophy.) State and state integrated schools, while government funded, are managed by boards of trustees. Private schools receive only partial funding from the Government. Day to day management of ALL schools is the responsibility of the Principal. The Crown is responsible for property provision for state schools to ensure students have access to their closest school. The proprietors of state integrated and private schools are responsible for their own buildings. The Port Hills cluster includes one state integrated and one special school.

School boards are required to develop individual charters and annual plans and report their performance against these.You will be able to access the school charter from your school or at Find a school.

Education Review Office (ERO) reports on school and early childhood performance are publicly available.

 

X cluster ERO review cycle

Heathcote Valley School 3 years
Mt Pleasant School In progress
Redcliffs School 4-5 years
Sumner School 4-5 years
Star of the Sea School (Christchurch) 3 years

 

School Roll Changes


In March 2010, prior to the earthquakes, the primary schools in this cluster provided teaching and learning to 1525 students. While individual rolls have fluctuated, the combined primary roll in this cluster has declined by 224 to 1301 at March 2012.

 

Individual School March Rolls, 2008, 2010, and 2012:

Note: only roll data for primary schools in this cluster is displayed.

 

The following chart shows the ethnic composition of the combined cluster school rolls by percentage of total combined roll

 

 

Education Achievement

National Standards aim to lift achievement in literacy and numeracy (reading, writing, and mathematics) by being clear about what students should achieve and by when. Boards are required to report on learner’s achievement for 2011, in their 2012 Annual Report.

You will be able to access National Standards data for your school from the Find a school section of the Education Counts website as soon as this information is available.

 

Special Education

Van Asch Deaf Education Centre (day/residential Special School) is situated within this cluster, although students attend from a wider area. Special Education delivers specialist services and support to learners with special education needs across this cluster. This includes support to early childhood education, schools, teachers, parents, families and whānau. .

 

Māori and Pasifika provision

Māori-medium education programmes involve students being taught either all or some curriculum subjects in the Māori language, either in immersion (Māori language only) or bilingual (Māori and English) programmes. There are no Māori or Pasifika bilingual units or language programmes delivered by schools in this cluster.

 

English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) provision

 ESOL provision for refugee and new migrant learners from non-english speaking backgrounds is provided to 10 primary learners across the schools in this cluster.

 

Technology

There is no specific technology provision located in this cluster. Schools are likely to be accessing it in neighbouring clusters.

 

Land – State Schools Only

School sites sit outside the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) land classification process and WILL NOT be given any Technical Category foundation rankings, though the land in the surrounding residential area of this cluster has been classified TC2, TC3, Port Hills zone and Red zone. Geotechnical assessments on the state school sites in this cluster indicate land issues may compromise continued education provision.

Further ministry commissioned assessments may be required at a later date, should any of these sites be further developed.

 

Buildings – State Schools Only

There are 61 teaching spaces included in the 7,969 square metres (of useable space) of teaching and learning and administration space across this cluster of schooling provision. The teaching, learning and administrative space is incorporated into 60 actual buildings. All of these buildings suffered damage during the earthquakes.  Repairs have yet to be made to the building stock. Condition assessments confirm over time earthquake strengthening will be required across 8 of these buildings within the cluster. There are weather tightness issues in a further 23 buildings.

 

Building Condition Information – State Schools Only

Number of buildings

Number of buildings with EQ damage

Number of buildings with strengthening required

Number of buildings with weather tightness repairs required

Number of buildings with both strengthening and weather tightness repairs

Heathcote Valley

11

11

1

9

1

Mt Pleasant

8

8

0

5

0

Redcliffs

17

17

4

5

1

Sumner

24

24

3

4

0

Cluster

60

60

8

23

2

 

Based on March 2012 rolls – a minimum of 49 teaching spaces will be required for ongoing teaching and learning in this cluster, as below.

School Rolls and Classroom Numbers – State Schools Only

March 2010 Roll

Classroom (No.) current (July 2012)

March 2012

Roll

Estimated classrooms required at March 2012

Heathcote Valley

263

12

241

10

Mt Pleasant

325

14

321

13

Redcliffs

372

14

243

10

Sumner

418

21

393

16

Cluster

1,378

61

1,198

49

The Way Forward

Extensive condition assessments and engineering investigations have confirmed all buildings in this cluster currently remain fit to occupy – unless already isolated. A number of the buildings across this cluster will, however, require remediation and strengthening over the longer-term. 3 are not considered cost effective to repair. This includes 3 teaching spaces.

 

Future Planning

The earthquakes provide an opportunity, as outlined in the Education Renewal Recovery Programme [PDF; 881kb], to consider options for revitalising the greater Christchurch education network that go beyond simply replacing what was there. Discussions with schools, communities and providers within this cluster will be key to informing decisions around the future shape of education for the Port Hills education community. Ways to enhance infrastructure and address existing property issues, improve education outcomes, and consider future governance will form part of these discussions.

 

Community Engagement

There will be conversations with boards of trustees to establish how schools in this cluster can not only restore services but also deliver improved outcomes for their education communities. In line with the support signalled in the Education Renewal Recovery Programme [PDF; 881kb], for improved collaboration, this will provide an opportunity to gain further suggestions around shared provision across schools and services within specific areas of interest and the wider community, as appropriate.

Check out the engagement schedule for further details.

 

Secondary Schools

Secondary, state integrated and independent schools located within these clusters will be involved in discussions around the future shape of provision within their education communities.

The Ministry has worked collaboratively with secondary schools on ideas for future secondary school education provision in greater Christchurch.  In October 2013, the Minister of Education announced decisions for the secondary school network.

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