The Tutor Group
“A high quality education starts with relationships”.
(The Council of Essential Schools’ handbook for 21st Century education).
Tutor Groups
Rationale
At the core of our student support system is a determination to make sure that every student at South Island School is safe, healthy, nurtured, active, respected, responsible and included. This serves as our overarching approach of Getting it Right for Every Child and helps promote an ethos and culture of collaborative working that places the students' interests at the centre of all dialogue between students, staff, parents and all partnership agencies.
Structure
The school is aligned into a vertical system of three Learning Families, comprising of six houses which span two Learning Phases- a Foundation Phase of Years 7 and 8 and a Pathways phase from Years 9 to 13.
In the Foundation phase there is a Learning Family team which comprises Director of Learning Carolyn Andrews and two Heads of Family, Victoria Butcher and Clare Anderson.
In the Pathways Phase there are two Learning Family teams:
Family Banyan
Director of Learning Family, Senior Years - Annette Chapman and Heads of House- Lucy White (Bahay), Karen Hartcher (Casa) and Susan Carey (Shtepi).
Family Bamboo
Director of Learning Family, Senior Years - Mark Healy and Heads of House- Fran Crouch (Namas), Sarah Bolland (Maison) and Paul Gardner (Kuca).
All students from Years 7-13 are aligned into six houses, with each year group being sub arranged into two tutor groups per house.
Tutor Groups
Each Tutor group is made up of 18 students. The Tutor and students remain together throughout Years 7 to 13. These small student adult ratios are achieved by having nearly every member of staff take responsibility for a Tutor group.
Each Tutor group is made up of 18 students. The Tutor and students remain together throughout Years 7 to 13. These small student adult ratios are achieved by having nearly every member of staff take responsibility for a Tutor group.
Tutor Role
The role of the Tutor is a crucial one as they are advocates for their students and they serve as the main adult point of contact, gathering information from other teachers about what the student needs and spearheading efforts to support them. Tutors make every effort to ensure that the relationships fostered between the student, home and school is positive. Qualities that our students expect from our tutors are being trustworthy, fair and consistent, sensitive, caring, enthusiastic, having high expectations and a sincere interest in them as an individual.
The role of the Tutor is a crucial one as they are advocates for their students and they serve as the main adult point of contact, gathering information from other teachers about what the student needs and spearheading efforts to support them. Tutors make every effort to ensure that the relationships fostered between the student, home and school is positive. Qualities that our students expect from our tutors are being trustworthy, fair and consistent, sensitive, caring, enthusiastic, having high expectations and a sincere interest in them as an individual.