Halfway Bush School

Education institution number:
3745
School type:
Contributing
School gender:
Co-Educational
Definition:
Not Applicable
Total roll:
38
Telephone:
Address:

54 Ashmore Street, Halfway Bush, Dunedin

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Halfway Bush School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 18 months of the Education Review Office and Halfway Bush 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 

Halfway Bush school is a contributing school located in a semi-rural hilltop suburb three kilometres from Dunedin City. The school vision is Taputakinoi – Throw the Challenge High to provide an education that meets the needs of all children.

Halfway Bush School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

  • raising literacy achievement levels for all students, with a particular focus on priority learners

  • to monitor and evaluate the impact of structured literacy through improved outcomes for all learners.

You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on Halfway Bush School’s website.

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate the effectiveness of the school wide structured literacy approach that aims to lift and sustain progress and achievement for all learners, with a particular focus on priority learners.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

  • school leaders have identified key groups of priority learners currently needing support to meet progress and achievement expectations in literacy

  • a desire to strengthen specific and targeted structured literacy teaching practices across the school to be more responsive to the needs of learners

  • recent community consultation has indicated support for a structured approach to the teaching of literacy.

The school expects to see:

  • increased success for learners who are not yet meeting expectations in literacy

  • a consistent approach to the explicit teaching practices that positively influence outcomes for learners

  • strengthening partnerships with whānau around children’s literacy learning.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal in literacy teaching, learning outcomes and partnerships with parents:

  • experienced leaders, who build strong learning-focused relationships across the school community

  • pedagogical expertise within the school that supports the implementation of a structured approach to literacy

  • learners’ voices are valued, contributing to student agency across the school.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

  • strengthening internal evaluation capability to analyse achievement data so that the school can be more responsive in forward planning for improving outcomes for learners

  • ongoing professional learning across the school to ensure effective, consistent literacy teaching and learning

  • continuing to build learning-focused relationships with preschool and new entrant parents about the school’s approach to literacy.

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

20 July 2023

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

Halfway Bush School

Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report 2023 to 2025

As of May 2023, the Halfway Bush 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

Actions for Compliance

ERO and the board have identified the following area of non-compliance during the board assurance process:

  • child protection policy - detailed guidance for identifying possible abuse or neglect; reviewed every three years; available to parents.
    [Children’s Act 2014, sections 18 and 19]

The board has since taken steps to address the area of non-compliance identified.

Further Information

For further information please contact Halfway Bush School, 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

20 July 2023

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

Halfway Bush School - 09/04/2018

School Context

Halfway Bush School provides education for children in Years 1 to 6. The school has a roll of 50 children.

The school’s vision is to provide quality education that meets the needs of all children. The school aims to support students to:

  • achieve academic success
  • become well-rounded children able to develop their passions, interests and talents
  • take responsibility for their own learning.

At the time of this review the school’s key strategic goals are to support student achievement, encourage whānau participation in the life of the school, including by recognising the cultures of all children and the unique position of Māori culture within New Zealand.

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

  • achievement in reading, writing and mathematics
  • selected key competencies
  • sport participation levels
  • outcomes for students with special learning needs.

A Kohanga Reo (Māori language preschool) is co-located on the school site.  Kohanga and school staff, whānau and children participate in a range of shared activities and celebrations.

The school is part of a cluster of local schools with a focus on developing future-focused problem-solving skills (project-based learning). 

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?

School information shows that for the last three years the majority of students have achieved at or above the school’s expectations in reading, writing and mathematics.

The school is not yet achieving equitable outcomes for Māori students in reading and writing, and for boys in writing. 

School reports show that almost all children are demonstrating the school’s valued outcomes of relating well to others, managing themselves and contributing and participating positively.

The majority of children participate in a variety of sporting opportunities coordinated by the school.

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

In 2017, the majority of children (including Māori and boys) needing to make accelerated progress did so.

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?

Children experience a calm, positive and caring culture. This provides them with an effective environment for learning. Leaders and teachers communicate and model high and clear expectations for respectful behaviour. Consequently the school’s values of respect/whakaute, honesty/pono and responsibility/kawenga are evident across the school.

Children are well known by their teachers, who take time to get to know children’s interests, strengths and learning needs.  Children learn in multi-level classes and regularly take part in whole-school activities which provide opportunities for older students to develop leadership and support the learning of younger students (Tuakana-teina relationships).

The principal has developed relational trust with staff and the wider school community. Useful school administration systems and practices and effective collaborations ensure an orderly environment for staff and children.  Students and their whānau have a strong sense of belonging in their school.

Children benefit from a curriculum that provides a broad range of experiences.  All children participate in weekly ‘Discovery’ activities which allow them to follow their interests and develop key competencies.

Māori perspectives and local history are valued and meaningfully integrated in learning activities.  The school has intentionally and successfully built its resources to enable children to be more active at school and in after school sports. Good use has been made of specialist teachers to enhance learning opportunities, including in the arts, aspects of science and technology and te reo and tikanga Māori. Teachers are well supported by detailed curriculum guidelines to know what is expected in the delivery of teaching and learning.

Children with additional learning needs are effectively identified and responded to. The board has increased resourcing for teacher aides and learning support. This is enabling teachers to work more effectively with those learners needing extra teaching.

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

Trustees, leaders and teachers need to improve the scrutiny of children’s progress and achievement information, in order to:

  • be better assured that all children are making sufficient progress
  • identify specific and common learning needs within learning areas
  • strengthen reporting to trustees on outcomes for children, particularly those targeted for acceleration
  • more effectively evaluate what is and what is not working to improve outcomes for children.

To lift achievement levels in writing there is a need to develop the collective capacity of teachers for effective teaching of writing. This should include focused professional learning, relevant appraisal goals, robust teacher inquiry and a collective responsibility for the analysis of data, intentional planning and evaluation.

3 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 Vulnerable Children Act 2014.

Areas for improved compliance practice

To improve current practice, the board of trustees should:

  • develop procedures to support policy statements in order to promote knowledge and understanding of current legal requirements and how these are to be applied in the school setting.

4 Going forward

Key strengths of the school

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

  • a calm, positive and caring learning environment that supports all students to develop competencies for relating to others, self-management and contributing to the life of the school
  • a broad and responsive curriculum that provides all children with the opportunity to develop their strengths and interests
  • well-established learning support programmes and resourcing that provide equitable learning opportunities for identified children.

Next steps

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

  • closer scrutiny of progress and achievement information to know about the sufficiency of progress of all students
  • evaluating the effectiveness of writing programmes to better know what is working well and what needs improvement to raise writing achievement overall
  • targeted planning to accelerate learning in writing. 

ERO’s next external evaluation process and timing

ERO is likely to carry out the next external evaluation in three years. 

Dr Lesley Patterson
Deputy Chief Review Officer Southern

Te Waipounamu - Southern Region

9 April 2018

About the school 

Location

Dunedin

Ministry of Education profile number

3745

School type

Contributing

School roll

50

Gender composition

Boys  28

Girls  22

Ethnic composition

Māori    18

Pākehā  18

Pacific     5

Other      9

Provision of Māori medium education

No

Review team on site

February 2018

Date of this report

9 April 2018

Most recent ERO report(s)

Education Review              May 2015

Education Review              June 2011

Supplementary Review     May 2009