Accountability Information

As part of our Funding Agreement with the Australian Government, we are required to ensure specific ‘School Performance Information’ is made publically available to the school community. When visiting the MySchool website one will notice that all five campuses are represented in the figures rather than individual campuses.

What follows is a report which incorporates specific performance measures as mandated. These are highlighted numerically.

Since 1978, Sunrise Christian School has developed a reputation and tradition for providing excellence in a Christ Centred Education to support parents in their God given mandate to ‘train their children in the ways of the Lord’. The school works closely with the families and their local churches to encourage and nurture the child’s ‘heart and character’ in order for each child to individually find and fulfil the plans God has for them in a loving, safe and secure atmosphere.

Our dedicated staff, who are all committed to Christ, work together with parents and students to ensure that each child’s learning experience is happy, challenging and successful.  Their goal is to see the child thrive in the excellence that is the very nature of God, both in character and academics. The Biblically based curriculum has been developed within the school over the last two decades to produce a quality cyclic approach using traditional methods of pedagogy (teaching) in conjunction with the best of the ‘latest’ practice.

With this in mind our student body is comprised of children from families which place a priority on Christian values and the atmosphere that this creates is our major focus.

The following two quotes from parent interviews highlight our statement of purpose: to assist parents with their God given responsibility of bringing up their children, by providing a God-centered, Bible-based education which reflects the Christian world view.

“I have chosen to enrol my children at Sunrise because it is an authentic Christian school.”

“I want to enrol my children at Sunrise because other parents have told me that it is a school which practices its Christianity.”

The fact that we are genuinely fulfilling our purpose sets us apart as a school and  this feedback from new parents lets us know that it is being noticed in the wider community.

Assisting parents as they seek to develop Godly character in their children continues to be our number one goal.

It saw us begin our year as a staff with a week of professional development where staff from all campuses met together to plan and pray for the year to come. With that we look at some facts and figures related to our staff and students.

Music continued to play a key role in the life of the school. Assembly and class devotion times are all enriched by student participation in vocal and instrumental music.  This includes Monday morning, midweek and Friday assembly times.

A highlight of each campus’s year was the annual concert. In each case it becomes a whole community event celebrating the talents of the children and giving praise to God. 

Each campus hosted various sporting teams that included such sports as netball, basketball, cricket, soccer, and footy.  In each case the teams are in competitions involving other local schools and once again given the chance to develop their testimony in the wider community.

Our annual sport day was another highlight and not only was a testimony to the community who witnesses us as we gather from all campuses, but gives the athletically gifted students a chance to shine.  The year saw us hiring SANTOS Stadium.  Our top athletes in grades 3-7 went on to ably represent us at the annual SACSA sports’ day.  In addition to participating in their own SACSA sports’ day, our high school students helped to run the primary sports’ day.  Parents and teachers alike commented on their helpfulness and overall good example.

Another staple is our endeavours to get the children to engage with mission.  A key in this is our educating them about Sunrise Bethel in PNG and the close engagement we have with the Bethel community.  They have enthusiastically applied themselves to fund raising for various aspects of this outreach.  In addition each campus regularly is involved with outreach to their local community via nursing home visits, shopping center concerts, Grandparent Days and Book Week functions.

Our grade 7’s participated in the traditional grade 7 staples of the Stewardship Programme and the Historical Novel- culminating in their end of year formal dinner and graduation night festivities.

The grade 12’s finished the year with exams followed by their grade 12 camp.  Their graduation was celebrated with an invitation only supper for family and friends.  Their Grade 12 formal brought to a close 13 years of memories built around their school life.

Teacher standards and qualifications

Teacher attendance for 2011 was 97.06%. (Administration attendance was 96.01%.)

Staff Retention

We have retained 81.3% of the teaching staff and 100% of the admin staff from 2011.

Teacher Qualifications

Teaching staff  full-time equivalents             58.3

Total including part-time teachers                   77

Indigenous teachers                                         0

In the area of professional development (PD) we had a focus on not only our classroom staff, but also on our senior leaders and emerging leaders.

All teaching staff were involved with 6 days of in school PD in addition to the rolling review of curriculum and OHSW that is a scheduled component of each weekly staff meeting. Also integrated into PD is a schedule to make sure that each staff member has Basic Emergency Life Support training and Fire Safety training.  Both of these are outsourced to professional trainers.

The senior leadership and emerging leaders were involved with a series of seminars that were hosted by AISSA (Australian Independent Schools of South Australia). The key emerging leaders were also invited to a half day training day at the end of the year as a way of increasing their knowledge base and acknowledging their potential. 

Administrative staff were also involved with specialist training during the Mid-year Staff Conference and Office Managers and Assistants continue to be certified in Senior First Aid.

The average expenditure on Professional Development per teacher was $1048.00.

*Reception, 11 and 12 are averages based on primary and secondary figures.

Average attendance for the whole school was 93.1%.

2011 still saw the school managing attendance with pen and paper roll book with the trialling of an electronic roll system in term 4.  This software will be school wide in 2012. 

Nonattendance is managed via a Day Book which is sent to the office each morning after roll call.  All unexplained absences are noted and parents are rung to ascertain the reason.  Applications for exemption from attendance are handled based on state government requirements.

Student development and achievement

National Standards are a set of indicators or descriptors which represent nationally agreed minimum acceptable standards for literacy and numeracy at a particular year level. In this context ‘minimum acceptable standard’ means a critical level of literacy and numeracy without which a student will have difficulty making sufficient progress at school.

The information I am sharing is gathered from a single source, the NAPLAN Tests in the areas of reading, spelling, writing and numeracy. These Government approved tests are given on an annual basis to Grades 3, 5, 7, and 9 and are graded outside the school to maintain a high level of impartiality.

Although we look forward to the results each year, we are reminded that this is only one test and cannot provide the full picture of the progress of any student. These results should be read in conjunction with the termly school reports to get a more accurate picture of a student’s progress.

The results of the children at or above the National Standard are framed in terms of a percentage.  

In addition to our good results in National testing, a highlight for each campus was the end of year awards’ night.  Each child was individually acknowledged for a character trait that their teacher had seen exhibited during the year.

In addition a School Council representative assisted the Campus Principal in presenting Sport, Arts, Academic and Character awards to a boy and girl representative in the R/1, 2/3, 4/5, 6/7, 8/9, 10/11 age groups.

We surveyed the parents in the school and collected electronic and hard copy feedback on the following areas:

Christian character and spiritual, school governance, school leadership, curriculum content, student academic performance, quality of teaching, quality of assessment and reporting, meeting student special needs, behaviour management, management of bullying and harassment, wearing of school uniform, qualifications and professional development of teachers, school communication with parents, provision of facilities and equipment, uniform shop service,  administration staff, school bus, and safe school environment.

The community was asked to rate these based on the following descriptors:  below acceptable standard, more development required, consistently delivered at a competent standard, consistently delivered at a high standard, consistently delivered at an exemplary standard, or N/A.

Christian character and spiritual life and administration staff service came back with “consistently delivered at an exemplary level” as the majority response.

The bus service was not an applicable issue to most of the school as only a minority of parents make use of such a service.

An area which had achieved an improved rating was in the area of management of bullying and harassment.  Over half of the responses rated our efforts in the top two categories.  This gave us some confidence that our efforts with the "Friendly Schools" programme were finding success.  

The staff are happy and understand that to maintain high standards we must have high expectations of each other and our students’ abilities.

As a leadership team of the school, we appreciate the staff, realising that they are our most valuable ‘asset’.  We are particularly aware of the importance that relationship plays in managing the stresses that the staff experience.  Of the ten areas surveyed six were rated predominately as being delivered at a consistently high standard.  Christian character and spiritual life and school leadership each received over half of their responses in the top two categories. 

Student feedback is ongoing via class management plans and teachers report a high degree of student satisfaction.  In the high school this is fostered particularly by home teachers which stay with a class from year 8-12.  It is further fostered via the student leadership forum in the form of a student nominated Student Service Committee.  For the first time a random selection of students in grade 4-12 were also given the opportunity to respond to an online survey.  The top approvals came in the areas of quality teaching, safe school environment, and Christian character and spiritual life.

Senior Secondary outcomes

Eleven students undertook year 12 studies with nine receiving Year 12 certificates.  Two of these students participated in VET courses.  Seven of the group took a tertiary entrance exam with six receiving ATAR equivalency scores. 

2011 

Australian Government recurrent funding                                  $ 4,933, 510

State/Territory Government recurrent funding                           $ 1,807, 418

Fees, charges and parent contributions                                       $ 2,198, 532

Other private sources                                                                  $116, 079

Total gross income                                                                   $9, 055, 539

(Excluding income from government capital grants)

2011 saw much growth in students, staff and facilities.  All glory goes to God for the accomplishments.

We look forward to 2012 with much anticipation.