RIVER CITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE Wisdom, Integrity, Compassion 2013 Annual Report Reg. No: 1862 A0004832N P.O. Box 2220 29 Rose Street ECHUCA, 3564 Tel: (03) 5482 4594 Fax: (03) 5480 1022 Email: reception@rccc.vic.edu.au Web: www.rccc.vic.edu.au Preamble This document constitutes River City Christian College s report on performance for the 2013 school year as required by Government regulation. Information about a school s performance must be provided to the school community and must include: - contextual information about the school, including the characteristics of the student body, teacher standards and qualifications, workforce composition, including Indigenous composition, student attendance at school, including: o o the rates of attendance for the whole school, and for each year level; and a description of how non-attendance is managed by the school, student outcomes in standardised national literacy and numeracy testing, parent, student, and teacher satisfaction with the school, post-school destinations, school income broken down by funding source.
The SCHOOL River City Christian College is located in Echuca, Victoria. It was established to support parents in the education of their children, and to give parents a school where they can be confident their children can learn and receive a balanced Christian Education. River City is staffed by a team of qualified and experienced teaching and support staff. As committed Christians, they approach their task with dedication, seeking the highest in academic achievement and personal growth for their students. River City encourages all students to honour God, their parents and other people in everyday life. River City is more than a good school. It is an environment that fosters the aspirations of God and the parents of each child and the child for him or herself. It is both an environment and an educational program which: Encourages children to see life from God s point of view, effectively equips children to confront a changing world of uncertain values, actively encourages students to be confident and purposeful, encourages students to strive for excellence, has a personalised education program which takes into account the level the child has reached in the important areas of numeracy and literacy and the gifts and talents of each child. recognises that parents are a child s primary educators, and therefore assists parents in the education of their children rather than taking over from the parent, and, backs up the family home with Christian family values and morality.
2013 Staff Information Staff at River City Christian College comprised of three male and four female teaching staff, and one male and six female aides, grounds and administrative staff. One staff member was from an indigenous background. All teaching staff were involved in professional development during 2013 which included attending Conferences and workshops, including those run by the ISV and CSA, as well as other personal development courses. All teachers were registered with the Victorian Institute of Teaching and had appropriate Tertiary Qualifications. Staff attendance during 2013 was over 97%. Staff attendance reflects the commitment and dedication of all staff. Staff retention rate from 2012 to 2013 was 80%, with one teacher leaving at the end of 2012. One new teacher was employed at the beginning of 2013. Teacher Qualifications The staff of River City Christian School held the following qualifications in 2013: Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) Bachelor of Education (B.Ed Hons) Bachelor of Health and Physical Education (B.HPE) Bachelor Science (B.Sc) Bachelor Business (B.Bus) Graduate Diploma of Education (Grad.Dip Ed) Graduate Institution Fire Engineers (Lond) (Grad. I. Fire E.) Churchill Fellow Diploma of Education (Dip Ed) Certificate 3 in Education (Language and Literacy) Certificate 3 Business Food Handling Certificate Certificate 3 in Management Diploma of Teaching (Dip T) Certificate 3 Education Support Transport Management in Bus and Coach Operations Course Certificate 3 Business Administration Office Management Certificate 3 Home, Community Care & Disability Advance Diploma Christian and Family Counselling Level 2 First Aid
2013 Student Attendance Student attendance for the whole school averaged 91% over the 2013 school year. Student attendance is further broken up in the following year levels: Prep: 88% Year 1 92% Year 2 92% Year 3 87% Year 4 93% Year 5 89% Year 6 96% Year 7 95% Year 8 91% Year 9 92% Year 10 91% A number of absences were due to children from farming families who needed to take holidays when able because of seasonal demands on the farming community rather than being able to tie their holidays to a specific school holiday period. Student non-attendance is managed by following our Student Attendance Policy. In part, the policy states: All absences are recorded electronically on the School s administrative software. The class roll is called in the first period, morning and afternoon. All absences are forwarded to Reception for electronic recording. The reason for all absences will also be recorded. The absences are also noted for safety purposes in the event of an evacuation. Should a student be absent from school without prior notification by the parent/guardian, reception is to call parent/guardian of absent children before 9.30am for the morning check, and 1.30pm for the afternoon check, to notify the parent of their child s absence and seek a reason for the child s absence. If a child is absent from school, a note must be written in the child s diary or sent by email from the parent explaining the reason for the child s absence. Reception must then be notified of the reason for the absence and enter the reason in the electronic register. Students who arrive late or leave the School early for any reason must register on the Sign In/Sign Out register at Reception. Students may only leave the school early (before normal home time) if a written note or phone call from the parent/guardian has been received by the school. To help inform parents of a child s overall progress at school, absences will be reported at the end of each term on the student report.
State-wide Testing and examination Results The College recognises the need to maintain confidentiality of student records, including reporting of student progress. The school has therefore adopted the Australian Government s policy of not publishing information about student performance relative to a child s peer group at the school, where the number of students in that peer group is below the reporting threshold of 5 students. Below reporting threshold: A school s results are not reported when there are fewer than five students with NAPLAN results. This rule is applied for reasons of statistical reliability, as well as to protect the privacy of students in small schools. ( http://www.myschool.edu.au/aboutus/glossary) RCCC is able to assist students from a wide range of abilities, including those who have not been able to achieve well at other schools. This is largely due to the individual care and attention we give to each student and because a significant proportion of our methodology is individualised in its application. This is achieved by the individual application of our learning methods in our core subject areas. It means that students who are able to go ahead in their studies are not held back by having to work with the larger class group. On the other hand, those who are not able to keep up with the larger class group are able to work at their own pace on the core subject areas. Therefore, rather than seeing a larger group of students clustered around a mid-point, it is quite possible to see a more scattered spread of results in each set of test results. However it should be recognised that due to the small sample sizes, the NAPLAN data alone is not a reliable indication of performance. Students who completed their year 10 at this school went on to Yr 11 at other schools or into employment.
2013 Financial Activities The schools accounts have been Audited and adopted at the Annual General Meeting of River City Christian College Inc., the Governing Body of the College. The 2012 annual Income of the school is represented in the graph below: $1,400,000.00 $1,200,000.00 $1,000,000.00 $800,000.00 $600,000.00 $400,000.00 $200,000.00 $- Private Income Income State Government Recurrent Income Australian Government Recurrent Income Government Capital Grants Total Income RCCC is very appreciative of the Australian Government providing Capital Grants to assist the school in redeveloping its facilities. The Capital Grants have assisted the school in replacing its buildings which were 50-60 years old and had extensive white ant infestation.
Parent, Staff and Student Satisfaction During 2013 River City Christian College continued to monitor the level of satisfaction of parents, staff and students, to determine what improvements may be incorporated throughout the College to improve the satisfaction of the major stakeholders. All stakeholders continued to endorse the use of the ACE resource materials and methodology for the core subject areas, and were pleased with the way the College integrates faith based learning throughout its educational program. The College made use of the LEAD survey from Independent Schools Victoria. The College community holds the school in high regard with good results being achieved across a broad range of areas. The College Board has recognised the need to modernise the facilities offered at the school. To this end, the Board has embarked on a rebuilding program which, over a staged process, will replace the older buildings on the campus with new buildings. The College community looks forward to a renewed look and feel of the College facilities. Construction of a new Administration/Library/ICT building was completed at the end of Term 3, 2013. Stage 2, which incorporates classrooms and break-out areas, was commenced in December, 2013. Student satisfaction continued to be enhanced by the active commitment of the staff and parents of the College. The SRC contributed to the welfare of the student body and is considered a valuable vehicle of student involvement by the College community. Many positive comments have been received regarding our school chaplain. He is a real asset to the school and has greatly enhanced the support of students, staff and families. Bruce Hogan Principal June, 2013