Albany Junior High School

Education institution number:
6948
School type:
Secondary (Year 7-10)
School gender:
Co-Educational
Definition:
Restricted Composite (Year 7-10)
Total roll:
770
Telephone:
Address:

Appleby Road, Albany, Auckland

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Albany Junior High School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within six months of the Education Review Office and Albany Junior High School working in Te Ara Huarau, an improvement evaluation approach used in most English Medium State and State Integrated Schools. For more information about Te Ara Huarau see ERO’s website. www.ero.govt.nz

Context 

Albany Junior High School is in Albany on Auckland's North Shore. The school provides education for students in Years 7 to 10. Albany Junior High School is the first purpose built junior high school for the emerging adolescent in New Zealand. A new principal was appointed in 2022.

Albany Junior High School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

  • Developing community partnership of engagement to support student wellbeing and learning
  • Creating a school identity and inclusive culture for adolescent learners to learn and grow in, with confidence
  • Building clarity and understanding of responsive and effective teaching and learning programmes and pathways for improved student progress and achievement.

You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on Albany Junior High School’s website.

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively the school is strengthening meaningful educationally significant connections, communication and relationships with students, whānau, and the wider community.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is to support and enhance:

  • the holistic development of each student as a confident, connected, actively involved lifelong learner
  • student engagement, wellbeing and learning achievement outcomes
  • reciprocal learning partnerships within and beyond the school community.

The school expects to see:

  • equitable and excellent progress and achievement outcomes for all students
  • strengthened processes to support reciprocal learning centred partnerships with students, whānau and teachers 
  • enhanced community collaborations to enrich opportunities for students to become confident, connected, actively involved learners
  • continued strategic support and solutions for improved student attendance, engagement and wellbeing.

Strengths 

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to evaluate how effectively it is strengthening meaningful educationally significant connections, communication and relationships:

  • the school continues to refine and strengthen conditions, actions and practices that promote learner wellbeing, resilience and optimism
  • teachers are using relational and responsive approaches in order to improve student learning
  • leadership is collaboratively strengthening a culture of relational trust and prioritises and plans for school improvement.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

  • embedding and refining assessment and reporting practices that will positively impact on equitable and excellent achievement outcomes for all students
  • reviewing and strengthening community connections and collaboration to enhance reciprocal learning centred partnerships with students, whānau, teachers and the local Kāhui Ako
  • continuing to embed successful strategies and solutions that lead to improved student attendance, engagement and wellbeing.

ERO’s role will be to support the school in its evaluation for improvement cycle to improve outcomes for all learners. ERO will support the school in reporting their progress to the community. The next public report on ERO’s website will be a Te Ara Huarau | School Evaluation Report and is due within three years.

Shelley Booysen
Director of Schools

21 February 2024 

About the School

The Education Counts website provides further information about the school’s student population, student engagement and student achievement.  educationcounts.govt.nz/home

This school hosts a satellite class of Wilson School.

Albany Junior High School

Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report 2023 to 2026

As of November 2023, the Albany Junior High School Board has attested to the following regulatory and legislative requirements:

Board Administration

Yes

Curriculum

Yes

Management of Health, Safety and Welfare

Yes

Personnel Management

Yes

Finance

Yes

Assets

Yes

Further Information

For further information please contact the Albany Junior High School Board.

The next School Board assurance that it is meeting regulatory and legislative requirements will be reported, along with the Te Ara Huarau | School Evaluation Report, within three years.

Information on ERO’s role and process in this review can be found on the Education Review Office website.

Shelley Booysen
Director of Schools

21 February 2024 

About the School 

The Education Counts website provides further information about the school’s student population, student engagement and student achievement. educationcounts.govt.nz/home

Albany Junior High School

Provision for International Students Report

Background

The Education Review Office reviews schools that are signatories to the Education (Pastoral Care of Tertiary and International Learners) Code of Practice 2021 established under section 534 of the Education and Training Act 2020.

Findings

Albany Junior High School is a signatory to the Education (Pastoral Care of Tertiary and International Learners) Code of Practice 2021 established under section 534 of the Education and Training Act 2020. The school has attested that it complies with all aspects of the Code and has completed an annual self-review of its implementation of the Code. At the time of this review there were 36 international students attending the school, and no exchange students.

Albany Junior High School has effective and responsive processes in place to evaluate the quality of provision for international students and to inform planning for continuous improvement. The school board receives appropriate information and staff closely monitor students’ wellbeing, progress and success in their learning. 

International students are encouraged to participate in a wide range of leadership and co-curricular activities. Their wellbeing and academic achievement are well supported, and they are fully integrated into the life of the school.

Shelley Booysen
Director of Schools

21 February 2024

About the School

The Education Counts website provides further information about the school’s student population, student engagement and student achievement. educationcounts.govt.nz/home 

Albany Junior High School - 07/02/2020

School Context

Albany Junior High School is a large suburban school that provides education for over 1300 students in Years 7 to 10. The school is culturally diverse. An enrolment zone is in place to assist the board to manage considerable roll growth.

Satellite classes attached to Wilson School also operate within the school.

The school mission statement aspires to empower students to “excel in a fast-moving world”. The school’s valued outcomes are to develop learners who are ‘literate, numerate, curious and happy’.

Leaders and teachers regularly report to the board schoolwide information about outcomes for students in the following areas:

  • achievement in literacy and numeracy
  • achievement in science, social sciences and health & physical education
  • participation and success in academic, sporting and cultural events.

Three new appointments have been made to the senior leadership team in the last 18 months.

The school is a member of the Whānau ki te Ako Kahui Ako | Community of Learning (COL).

Evaluation Findings

1 Equity and excellence – achievement of valued outcomes for students

1.1 How well is the school achieving equitable and excellent outcomes for all its students?

Albany Junior High School continues to work towards achieving equitable and excellent outcomes for all students.

The school’s 2018 achievement information indicates that:

  • most Years 7 and 8 students achieve at or above expected curriculum levels in reading and mathematics
  • the majority of Years 7 and 8 students achieve at or above the expected level in writing
  • most Years 9 and 10 students achieve at or above expected curriculum level in English
  • the majority of Years 9 and 10 students achieve at or above the expected level in mathematics.

Māori and Pacific student achievement is slightly below that of other groups of students. This disparity is evident in English and mathematics. Girls generally achieve higher than boys in literacy. Disparity is evident for Years 7 and 8 boys in writing and for Years 9 and 10 boys in English.

The majority of students achieve at or above expected curriculum levels in science and social sciences.

1.2 How well is the school accelerating learning for those Māori and other students who need this?

The school continues to find ways to accelerate learning for those Māori and other students who need this. School achievement data for 2019 indicate that many students are making accelerated progress in mathematics.

Students with additional learning needs are supported to experience success through inclusive class programmes, the provision of specialist teaching programmes, and the support of external agencies.

2 School conditions for equity and excellence – processes and practices

2.1 What school processes and practices are effective in enabling achievement of equity and excellence, and acceleration of learning?

Leaders emphasise the importance of relationships and work collaboratively to build a positive school spirit and ethos with students, staff and the community. A committed focus on te reo Māori me ōna tikanga is evident. The whole school involvement in pōwhiri, well led by the kapa haka, contributes significantly to the positive school spirit.

A culture of care and student wellbeing are recognised and promoted as necessary foundations for learning success. The school whānau system enables leaders and teachers to know and understand students’ strengths, skills and needs and provides for close monitoring of pastoral care and wellbeing.

Senior leaders are improving assessment systems and processes. They have recently begun displaying data to better identify and track individual students who need to make accelerated progress. This enables senior leaders to increase their focus on relevant data, identify the necessary actions and closely monitor the rate and sufficiency of progress for these students.

This meaningful achievement information is being updated regularly by the leadership team. Once this initiative is being used by all teachers, it should further assist the school to accelerate the learning of all students who need this.

Since late 2018 a data specialist has collated and aggregated student achievement information. This collation is now enabling senior leaders to strengthen the use of whole school aggregated data to examine and scrutinise achievement trends and patterns.

The experienced principal has accessed relevant professional development for the new senior leadership team and teachers. He now plans to review leadership team roles and schoolwide responsibilities to embed the school vision and achieve greater consistency of classroom practice schoolwide.

The responsive, future-focused curriculum continues to be reviewed and evolves to meet the interests, strengths and needs of students. Informed by research and community consultation, senior leaders have several new curriculum initiatives planned for 2020 and beyond. These initiatives are designed to increase opportunities for project-based learning and embedding the school’s learning progressions and assessment framework.

2.2 What further developments are needed in school processes and practices for achievement of equity and excellence, and acceleration of learning?

The school’s next challenge is to ensure that there are more equitable outcomes for all students. The school is well placed to evaluate the effectiveness of new initiatives. The principal’s 2018 analysis and evaluation of the student survey is a very sound model for internal evaluation. This approach and model could be used to evaluate the effectiveness of recent initiatives designed to achieve greater equity and excellence for all students.

Deeper analysis and interrogation of aggregated school achievement trends is needed. This should enable the school to rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of initiatives and interventions aimed at reducing ongoing in-school disparity between groups of students. This information should better inform the board about the effect of their allocation of resources to accelerate student progress and achieve equitable outcomes for all students.

3 Other Matters

Provision for international students

The school is a signatory to the Education (Pastoral Care of International Students) Code of Practice 2016 (the Code) established under section 238F of the Education Act 1989. The school has attested that it complies with all aspects of the Code.

At the time of this review there were 64 international students attending the school. International students are well integrated into the school community and benefit from the school’s educational programmes and pastoral support. Leaders and teachers monitor the progress and wellbeing of these students.

4 Board Assurance on Legal Requirements

Before the review, the board and principal of the school completed the ERO board assurance statement and self-audit checklists. In these documents they attested that they had taken all reasonable steps to meet their legislative obligations related to the following:

  • board administration
  • curriculum
  • management of health, safety and welfare
  • personnel management
  • finance
  • asset management.

During the review, ERO checked the following items because they have a potentially high impact on student safety and wellbeing:

  • emotional safety of students (including prevention of bullying and sexual harassment)
  • physical safety of students
  • teacher registration and certification
  • processes for appointing staff
  • stand down, suspension, expulsion and exclusion of students
  • attendance
  • school policies in relation to meeting the requirements of the Children’s Act 2014.

5 ERO’s Overall Judgement

On the basis of the findings of this review, ERO’s overall evaluation judgement of Albany Junior High School’s performance in achieving valued outcomes for its students is: Well placed.

ERO’s Framework: Overall Findings and Judgement Tool derived from School Evaluation Indicators: Effective Practice for Improvement and Learner Success is available on ERO’s website.

6 Going forward

Key strengths of the school

For sustained improvement and future learner success, the school can draw on existing strengths in:

  • a collaborative school culture and a responsive learning community that is open to new learning
  • opportunities for students to experience a future focused and broad curriculum including education outside the classroom
  • a learning environment that values inclusion, diversity and wellbeing.

Next steps

For sustained improvement and future learner success, priorities for further development are in:

  • embedding the vision - further clarifying and developing teachers’ shared understandings about schoolwide expectations for classroom practice
  • continuing to build the school’s collective evaluation capacity to accelerate learning and achieve equitable and excellent outcomes for all groups of students
  • reviewing schoolwide leadership responsibilities to strengthen the focus on strategic oversight and direction for improvement.

Areas for improved compliance practice

To improve current practice, the board of trustees should:

  • receive evaluative reports from leaders on student stand down trends and how the school is working to reduce these trends.

Steve Tanner

Director Review and Improvement Services Northern

Northern Region

7 February 2020

About the school

LocationAlbany, Auckland
Ministry of Education profile number6948
School typeSecondary (Years 7 – 10)
School roll1336
Gender compositionBoys 50% Girls 50%
Ethnic composition

Māori 7%

NZ European/Pākehā 52%

Chinese 9%

South East Asian 5%

Indian 4%

other European 10%

other Asian 8%

other ethnic groups 5%

Students with Ongoing Resourcing Funding (ORS)Yes
Provision of Māori medium educationNo
Review team on siteOctober 2019
Date of this report7 February 2020
Most recent ERO report(s)

Education Review June 2016

Education Review June 2013

Education Review February 2010