EDITOR
If a person armed with a rifle was spotted in your school playground, you would probably call an immediate lockdown. When a squadron of men, carrying rifles and backpacks sprints across principal Geoff Frank’s school playground, the kids call out and wave to their Dads. That’s because Geoff Franks is principal of Linton Army Camp School, located on the southern outskirts of Palmerston North. ‘Ninety-five per cent of the families of children attending Linton Camp School are connected to the military,’ said Geoff. The school itself is much like any other state school of similar size (143 students). The entrance lobby is welcoming and warm. Brightly coloured art works, awards, trophies and photographs – representing the history and achievements of the young learners within, liberally adorn the space.
Principal Geoff Franks with his Te Reo teachers
Parents like to be involved in their children’s schooling
What is less typical than many other Manawatu Schools is that 62 per cent of the children are male and 38 per cent female. Of those, 58 per cent are Māori, 31 per cent Pākehā and 11 per cent from other backgrounds. Geoff Franks and his teachers know all the children well. They also know the parents and whānau and have strong relationships with the local community. Parents are encouraged to be involved in their children’s learning and progress and are always made welcome at the school. In turn, many parents support the sports programme and other activities through coaching and organising big sporting events. ‘The Army are great to work with,’ says Geoff, ‘and we have regular conversations with the Base Commander, who is also a member of our School Board,’ he said. ‘Everyone on the base is right behind the children and their education and willingly support us, especially with physical activities and sports, which are very popular with our kids,’ he said. Once a year the Army hosts ‘Army Day’ for the kids. Orienteering and obstacle courses are very popular alongside myriad other physical related activities. Everyone looks forward to this day and the kids, their parents
and teachers hugely appreciate the effort that goes into making it happen, ‘It’s always a physically fun day and generates a competitive spirit through team activities as well as individual pursuits,’ says Geoff. The Army facilities on the Camp’s grounds are extensive and include large playing fields, a well-maintained swimming pool and a well-equipped library. ‘Our school has access to the outdoor facilities including the swimming pool and the library,’ said Geoff, ‘and we don’t have to pay to maintain these fantastic assets. That is a bonus other schools do not have and allows us to host local schools so our children can have sporting competitions right here at the Camp,’ he said.
Military Trucks in formation parked expect antly as a backdrop to the School grounds
Linton is the largest New Zealand army base in the country and home to the Headquarters of 1 Brigade. It bears little resemblance to its 1941 ‘tent city’ which upgraded to prefabricated huts in 1942. Today it is the operational hub for the NZ Army with 2000 personnel based there. 1 Brigade supports peace and security by providing task organised forces in several places both home and abroad. Except for the Special Forces, HQ 1 (NZ) Brigade commands the NZ Army Field Forces day to day and prepares them for operations. These operations are undertaken by several Combat Units including the Royal NZ Infantry Regiment, Queen Alexandra’s Mounted Rifles, the Royal Regiment of NZ Artillery, the second Engineer Regiment, the Royal NZ Corps of Signals and the Royal NZ Army Logistic Regiment. The Camp operates much like a small town with its own residential streets, shops and services, fire brigade, Police and medical centre. The difference is the Camp’s grounds also include a parade ground, assault courses, rifle ranges and mess buildings. The mess is where military personnel socialise and eat. There are separate messes for ordinary personnel and Army Officers – demonstrating the hierarchical nature of the Army Defence
Principal Geoff Franks loves to talk about the children, the families and their successes
Force. Linton Camp is also the headquarters of Training and Doctrine Command, which trains and educates the Army’s personnel, develops leaders, establishes training standards, manages doctrine and integrates lessons learned and training support across the Army. ‘These represent the military careers that our children’s parents have taken up,’ says Geoff. About half of the school’s families would be in residence at the Camp and the other half would live in the city or nearby towns. It isn’t possible to buy a house on the vast army camp site. They are all owned by the State – specifically for military families to rent – but only for a limited time after which they must vacate for the next family. ‘Six years is the maximum you can rent an army house throughout your entire military career,’ said Geoff, ‘which puts a lot of pressure on families to be looking out for alternative housing,’ he said. Families moving out of the camp, might also shift their children to schools closer to their new house, unless both parents are employed by the military. ‘All of this means that few children who start with us at age five, are still with us at year eight,’ said Geoff. ‘We have a turn-over of about one third of our school roll every year, so that’s not a high level of stability for us. Between 2010 and 2015, we lost 359 children,’ he said. Housing is not the only reason the school roll fluctuates. ‘We also have families moving to other army camps or to serve overseas,’ he said. At Linton’s base Camp, there are expansive areas for housing the large fleet of military vehicles and an extensive array of workshops for servicing them all. As a strategic partner to the New Zealand Defence Force, Lockheed Martin provides services to the Defence Force for maintenance, repair and overhaul of
the fleet. A multimillion-dollar upgrade is planned for Linton Camp which will include a new explosives store, a Queen Alexander’s Mounted Rifles headquarters, a field workshop, vehicle shelter and a logistics main fleet utilisation warehouse. Already upgrades are underway for the sewage pump station, perimeter fence, CCTV and the electrical network. ‘We are also looking forward to development of the central Camp Base area,’ said Geoff, ‘which will provide a centre for people to gather and socialise,’ he said. There are some other bonuses for the kids like visiting the Fire Station on the base. ‘They love us bringing the kids down and the kids love learning about their work,’ he said. ‘They also enjoy the military parades and watching training exercises like Dads leaping in and out of helicopters’, he said, ‘so we make good use of those experiences for our kids.’
It’s great to have friends
Whilst the Army’s influence over the Camp families in residence is inescapable, the school operates much like other schools. ‘We try to minimise the influence of the Army within the day to day running of the school,’ says Geoff, ‘and just get on with the learning.’ ‘Owning our Learning, owning our future’ is the mantra at Linton and it has buy-in from staff and students alike’. One of the ways this mantra comes to life is through the ‘seesaw’ app. It turns school reporting on its head. Seesaw empowers the children to report what they are learning at school. Their reporting extends far beyond the ‘twice a year reporting in plain English’ requirement. Linton kids are continuously reporting to their parents and teachers what they are learning,
Rides on the Fire Engine are always fun
Elastic skipping – an old time favourite!
using photos, videos, drawings, text, PDFs and links. The children are providing the evidence base from which teachers can draw conclusions about progress and next learning steps. It’s an authentic learning approach and attracts frequent and pertinent feedback from both parents and teachers alike. ‘We are heavily focused on skills for our children’s future like problem solving, team-work, social interaction, communication, creativity and critical thinking, which are the competencies of our New Zealand Curriculum. Last term we had a special focus on collaboration and Science communication,’ he said. A very high percentage of the Linton Camp School children, including Māori students (who outperform their Pākehā peers), meet learning expectations or exceed them. The very few who struggle are well supported by reading recovery services, RTLB, RTLit, and teacher aide assistance. Māori is the dominant culture in the school and a likely contributor to the high success rates of Māori students. There is a bilingual class and intensive te reo me tikanga. These programmes are available to all who wish to participate. ‘We maintain a culture of collaboration throughout the school and with other schools,’ said Geoff, ‘and have joined a Kahui Ako which shares the same high expectations and cultural aspirations as we do.’ Geoff is one of the two Kahui Ako leaders. ‘I can bring strategies and plans for collaborating to the Kahui Ako, which is a well-established practice at my school,’ he says, ‘and this is an excellent forum for PLD opportunities through sharing agreed PLD together.’ A second factor in the school’s success is its inclusive practices and focus on children’s wellbeing. It’s a school where the whole child turns up and teachers respond to the whole child. Pastoral care is just as important here as physical safety and academic achievement.
With sport being so popular with the children, the school uses sport as a metaphor to define the competencies they expect children to achieve. These include positive learning, team-work, having goals, being resilient and applying effort and focus on always improving. ‘The same values apply to the staff,’ says Geoff. One of the problems that constantly concerns Geoff Franks is the decile funding system. His school is designated decile ten which means he is on the lowest funding band with the least learning support funding. It is assumed that decile ten schools are located in affluent communities which can ably support the school’s funding shortfalls. In the case of Linton Army Camp School, Geoff argues, the school does not sit in an affluent community. ‘We ask families for between $70 and $100 a year in school donations, and we are lucky if 30 per cent of the families can
Some Amazing Art Work displayed in the school foyer
pay,’ he said. ‘We don’t have many beneficiaries but neither do we have a stable roll. Many families do not own their own home and we are not a school with large reserves. You need a car to live here and bus trips are expensive for the kids. It’s impossible to predict learning support needs and we don’t have the extra funds to respond in a timely way. If we were decile 7 or less, we would qualify for the $150 per student in lieu of school donations. That would give us an extra $20,000 which would be far more than the current donations income,’ he said. Another issue which limits growth in the school roll is that the school is located on the army Camp base. Families that are not military, do not think of the school as public. It would not occur to parents outside of the Army to consider Linton Camp School as an option for their children, whereas in Waiouru, another Army base, there are far more children attending school who are not military related families. I ask Geoff how the children cope when a parent is sent away on service to the other side of the world, for example the Middle East. ‘It’s no big deal when mums or dads are sent away on military service. We make contact quickly with the family if we notice any behavioural changes,’ he said. ‘There have been instances of soldiers not surviving these missions, but none has been a parent of our children here. It can cast a shadow, however’, he said. Overall, Linton Camp School is a great place for kids to learn and grow. With the relatively high achievement rates of the children, especially Māori children, Geoff Franks can feel very proud of his leadership style and the talents and dedication of his staff. It’s a school with a very different character to most, but for all that, it is a school where the children know that their learning is front and centre. If they have military facilities and activities to support that learning, then that is a bonus.
ADVERTORIAL
SchOOL AccOunTIng – AccESSIng ThE BEST ADVIcE AnD SuppORT With some school support providers no longer offering accounting services, a number of schools are likely questioning where to turn next. In a time of insufficient funding, schools need access to solutions and guidance that will deliver tangible benefits for their students and teachers alike. Schools are able to utilise modern accounting solutions for managing their day-to-day finances, such as world leading accounting software Xero (xero.com) and Hubdoc (hubdoc.com). Using Xero frees up funds for the school to engage service providers, such as Accounting For Schools, to take care of the more complex financial aspects of running a school. There are now approximately 700 New Zealand schools managing their finances via Xero. Accounting For Schools are the foremost Xero experts within the school accounting space, having utilised Xero since 2008. They have obtained the highest level of recognition possible from Xero, as a “Xero Platinum Partner”. With over 100 years of combined experience, the knowledgeable team is able to provide exceptional advice and support, and all in plain English, not accounting jargon. Accounting For Schools add significant value to schools, by providing insightful observations within the monthly reports, assisting with budgeting, forecasting and with planning for the future; Accounting for Schools are always looking ahead, not just thinking about what is happening now. As an example, Accounting For Schools budget templates have comprehensive calculators to ensure risk areas such as staffing and teacher aides are accurately budgeted. As a result of this approach, Accounting For Schools are able to identify the key financial issues a school is facing and provide
accurate guidance, allowing Boards to make decisions quickly and have confidence in the financial direction of the school. As part of giving back to the school community, Accounting For Schools run free group training sessions each year for Office Managers, Executive Officers, Business Managers and Principals. The sessions provide tips and tricks around using Xero, insight around school finance developments, guidance around managing staffing and longer term financial planning. Schools also see this as a great opportunity to discuss other issues with their colleagues. A school does not need to have an existing relationship with Accounting For Schools to attend these sessions. Along with value-adding solutions for schools, Accounting For Schools can manage the preparation of the annual reports and ensure a stress-free audit process, that results in significantly less time demands on the support team. Accounting For Schools are able to tailor an accounting solution that suits the individual needs of each school. By using Accounting For Schools, the school can be assured that all financial aspects are covered and there is access to expert advice, along with ongoing support, so that you can have confidence when making financial decisions. If the school is not getting the support it needs from its current accounting provider, then contact Ben Duflou today for a no obligation chat and let Accounting For Schools help your school plan for the future.
Accounting For Schools Ltd – www.afsl.nz
Ph: 04 909 7729