Chapel Hill State School

Chapel Hill State School

School Annual Report for 2005 School Year

School Annual Report for 2004 School Year

Reporting for 2005 school year

Information for Parents and the Chapel Hill School Community on the school's operations and outcomes from 2005.

What a wonderful year Chapel Hill State School has had for 2005.

The school has experienced so many successes over the twelve months and in so many different areas.

Foreword

Introduction

The school has had a great 2005 with a number of important achievements. The school saw the construction of the Arts Building whereby the school’s concept of Educating in and through the Arts can be further established. Values Education was the talk of the year after the school received a Federal Grant to encourage the adult community to talk and discuss Values Education and to bring this dialogue down to the children as well. The school continued to have success in the academic area with great results in the Year3, 5, and 7 state wide standardized testing process. The results can be viewed in this report.

Highlights

Educating in and through the Arts is a major theme of the units of work undertaken by classes at Chapel Hill School . 2005 saw the construction of our Arts Building . Here the various strands of the Arts Curriculum can be featured and highlighted by classes. Values Education was brought to the front of teachers’ and parents’ minds with the establishment of a Federal Government grant to promote a healthy dialogue around values education among the adult community of Chapel Hill School . 2005 saw the provision of all classrooms with air conditioning.

The Highlights of the 2005 School Year.

• Statewide Testing. The school was once again involved in the Year 3, 5 & 7 Testing process. The results have indicated that the school is significantly above the State Mean Level and way above the National Benchmark levels. These results will shortly be on the school’s web page.
• School Opinion Surveys have indicated that there is a healthy atmosphere at school with parents, students and staff happy with the progress and the direction that the school is taking.
• ETC Tests. The school underwent Science, Maths and English ETC tests for Years 5, 6 & 7 (mainly). We had 4 High Distinctions, 36 Certificates of Distinction, 77 Certificates of Credit, and 126 Certificates of participation.
• Pullenvale Environmental Centre. We have worked well with the personnel at the Centre. The children have been involved in a variety of classroom programs for Years 1, 2, 5 & 6. The Artists in Residence Program and the Leadership Program has worked well with the Year 6 classes.
• Robotics. The Year 5 & 6 students have explored Robotics and Year 6 held a full day of Robotics.
• Classroom Programs/Units of Work. The teachers have used a variety of teaching methods to excite, challenge assist students with their learning - the Transition Program, the Philosophy in the classroom programs, the Year 3, 5 & 7 plays/dance performances, discovering Democracy Program, Technology units and the Arts units have made the classroom programs relevant and meaningful to the students. The Poetry writing sessions have proved successful with Abbey Glacken’s poem about “Stars” travelling around Brisbane on the side of a bus. Montana O’Brien received a Highly Commended for a Christmas Card Competition. This is a great result of the daily drawings that the Year 2 classes undertake each and every day.
• The Intervention/Support Programs. A number of students have gained from the various Intervention/Support Programs that the school has run to assist where necessary.
• Sport. Chapel Hill School excelled again this year in sport – participating in Netball, Touch Football, AFL, Softball, Baseball and Tennis – in Interschool team events. The Baseball and Softball teams went on to local premierships for the year. The Under 11 boys Futsal team went on to win the Queensland Championship and the Under 12 boys and girls teams did a great job as well. The school was involved in swimming and athletics and cross country at District Carnivals and we are proud of these efforts. The Under 11 boys relay team came third at the Regional Carnival. We had a group of students who went through to the Regional Cross Country trials.
• Music. Music was another area where the students performed well. The Junior and Senior Bands gained Gold at the Brisbane Band Festival and the Intermediate Band was awarded a Silver at this Festival. The Senior Strings received a Distinction for their great performance at the Festival of Music. The Choirs have performed well this year with performances at various locations. The year ended with a great performance at the Brisbane City Hall for the turning on of Brisbane’s Christmas tree lights. (Also thanks to Lea Withnall for her time and effort in conducting the Choir over year.)
• Chess. The Chess Club continued to function and we have had great success with the entrants at the various weekend competitions.
• T he Anti-Bullying Program has progressed and now we are seeing students assisting and helping other students at the appropriate times.
• Val ues Education . The school was successful in achieving Federal funding for the adults in the Chapel Hill School community to understand values and work together to have a shared vision of values to be embedded into the school. Presently, values are present in each unit of work that students undertake, but not consciously.
• Camps. All three camps – Midginbill Hill, Currumundi and Sydney/Canberra were a success again this year.
• Achievements in Individual Pursuits. Once again this year various students have had success on their own in the pursuit of a variety of different sporting and cultural pursuits – e.g. Dance, Karate, Piano exams, various Eisteddfods, Cricket, Soccer, Netball, Softball, Baseball, AFL, Rugby Union, Rugby League, Gymnastics, Speech and Drama – to name just a few.

THE FACILITIES

The Arts Building has finally been completed and with just an internal fit out to go, this building will enable the classes to incorporate The Arts into units of work and eventually The Arts will drive those units within the classroom.

The Electrical Upgrade was completed – finally. With the electrical upgrade came the Air Conditioning for each classroom. Since the introduction of the air cons, the working environments in each classroom have been extremely pleasant and the output of students and teachers has been full on. It is a great pleasure to work within these environments.

Shade Structures . the school now has two shade structures on the oval for students and visiting schools and sporting groups to use while they are here for their various pursuits. These structures have been funded by a grant from the Gaming Fund.

The E xtension to the Hall for storage purposes has also just recently been approved and this will clean up the rear of the Hall of equipment. This extension is being funded by the Brisbane City Council and the Chapel Hill SS P&C Association.

A new Sand Pit/Digging Area should be in place for the start of 2006 school year after a set of play equipment in the playground was taken away due to safety issues.

Key outcomes and goals achieved

With the advent of Values Education within the school, there was a strong need to provide children with the strategies for them to explore the various aspects of Values Education. Through this project, the staff had the opportunity to listen to a number of key personnel in the area. Notably, one was Dr Peter Vardy who indicated that children need to have the ability to question and to think. They need a framework around this issue. Philosophy in the Classroom was born as it develops thinking skills and conceptual understandings. It combines both cognitive and affective domains leading to not only improved learning outcomes in literacy and innumeracy but also improved social, behavior and attitudes.

Future outlook

The school is still waiting on notification of three other projects that funding has been sought for.

• Toilet facilities at the Tennis Courts
• Water tanks under the Hall and on the ends of each building to collect rain water to use on gardens and ground areas
• Investing in School Program for the provision of internal painting, new classroom furniture, more shade structures on the end of Blocks 2 & 3, new playground equipment.

Our school at a glance

School Profile

The school had an enrolment of 445 in Year 1 to Year 7 and 50 children in the school’s Preschool. This is a co-educational facility catering for children from Preschool to Year 7. In 2005 the school had 2 classes of Preschool, Year 4, Year5, Year 6 and Year 7 and 3 classes of Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3.

Curriculum offerings

The 8 key learning areas of English, Mathematics, SOSE (Studies of Society and the Environment), Science, Health and Physical Education, The Arts, LOTE – German and Technology.

The school provided the opportunities for students to explore Poetry and Chess and Thinking and Philosophy.

Computers are provided for classrooms and in all classrooms. In the P-3 section of the school the computer ratio is 1:5 and in the Middle School the ratio is 1:3. Additional computers are located in the Library for cataloguing and for general research (10 computers).

Social climate

The School Climate was an aspect of the School Opinion Survey administered to Parents. At Chapel Hill School , the climate is significantly above the State Benchmark and above the Like schools benchmark for 2005.

Parents and the community

The parents of Chapel Hill School are an integral part of the school Not only do they provide financial assistance to the school they provide an invaluable assistance within classrooms. Parent helpers are used extensively across the school. Within the classroom, parents assist classes in mathematics groups, language groups, art groups, and in one on one support programs.

Parents assist within the school grounds with working bees and gardening clubs.

The ever hard working Parent group – “The P&C” – provides a great support basis for parents as well as the school.

Results in the Year 2 Diagnostic Net

Performance measures: percentage of students not requiring additional support

Our reading, writing and numeracy results for the Queensland Year 3, 5 and 7 Literacy and Numeracy Tests

The Year 7 Reading, Writing and Numeracy Standardised Test results:

Percentage of Chapel Hill School Year 7 Students above the National Benchmark – 96%

Number of Chapel Hill School Year 7 students in the bottom 15% of the state in Numeracy - 2

Percentage of Chapel Hill School Year 7 Students above the National Benchmark for Reading – 96%

Percentage of Chapel Hill School Year 7 Students above the National Benchmark for writing – 98%

Number of Chapel Hill School Year 7 students in the bottom 15% of the state in Numeracy - 0

The Year 5 Literacy and Numeracy State Wide Standardised Test results

Percentage of Chapel Hill School Year 5 Students above the National Benchmark – 100%

Number of Chapel Hill School Year 5 students in the bottom 15% of the state in Numeracy - 0

Percentage of Chapel Hill School Year 5 Students above the National Benchmark - Reading– 92%

Percentage of Chapel Hill School Year 5 Students above the National Benchmark – Writing -100%

Number of Chapel Hill School Year 5 students in the bottom 15% of the state in Literacy - 1

The Year 3 Literacy and Numeracy Results form the State-wide Standardised Tests

Percentage of Chapel Hill School Year 3 Students above the National Benchmark – 96%

Number of Chapel Hill School Year 3 students in the bottom 15% of the state in Numeracy - 6

Percentage of Chapel Hill School Year 3 Students above the National Benchmark - Reading– 99%

Percentage of Chapel Hill School Year 3 Students above the National Benchmark – Writing - 97%

Number of Chapel Hill School Year 3 students in the bottom 15% of the state in Literacy - 1