Mulberry Grove School

Mulberry Grove School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 12 months of the Education Review Office and Mulberry Grove 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 

Mulberry Grove School is a full primary school catering for children in Years 1 to 8 in Tryphena on Aotea, Great Barrier Island. The school uses its unique location and the local environment to inform the curriculum and children's learning.

The school values its place, role and connections to the community, and has links with the other two schools on Aotea.

Mulberry Grove School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are to:

  • develop the quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning practices that ensure successful outcomes for all children

  • develop a local curriculum that is relevant and meaningful for our children and our school

  • develop an actively engaged confident school community

  • evaluate school performance through regular self-review

  • provide the optimum environment that is conducive to meeting the school’s vision of teaching and learning in the 21st Century.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively teachers respond to learners needs to ensure successful outcomes of all learners.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is to:

  • align teaching and learning with the strategic priorities of the school

  • focus the learning on effective and meaningful local curriculum context.

The school expects to see teachers planning that reflects individual learners needs and interests. Teachers will be able to effectively use assessment information to inform planning and develop a local curriculum that is relevant and meaningful for learners.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to evaluate how effectively teachers respond to learners needs to ensure successful outcomes of all learners.

  • an inclusive school culture that supports the wellbeing of learners

  • stable staff who know their learners and community well and have a wide range of experience

  • teachers effectively support learners with a focus on mathematics, reading and writing.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

  • refining of school wide assessment and relational practices to inform planning and learning that further develops student agency and self-regulating learners

  • developing individual education plans for all learners

  • developing an integrated curriculum that includes mātauranga Māori perspectives of science

  • engaging the community in consultation with a particular focus on the local curriculum.

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.

Filivaifale Jason Swann
Director Review and Improvement Services (Northern)
Northern Region | Te Tai Raki

6 April 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

Mulberry Grove School

Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report 2022 to 2025

As of May 2022, the Mulberry Grove 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 Mulberry Grove School Board of Trustees.

The next Board of Trustees 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.

Filivaifale Jason Swann
Director Review and Improvement Services (Northern)
Northern Region | Te Tai Raki

6 April 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

Mulberry Grove School - 27/02/2017

1 Context

Mulberry Grove School is a full primary school catering for children in Years 1 to 8. The school was completely rebuilt on its original site in 2015. It now consists of two collaborative teaching spaces, a library, and community and administration areas. It is a well-resourced school that continues to make very good use of its unique location and the local environment to enhance the curriculum and children's learning.

The school values its place, role and connections to the community, and has links with the other two schools on Aotea (Great Barrier Island). Since the last ERO evaluation teachers have undertaken professional learning programmes that support children's progress and achievement. The principal and teachers continue to work collaboratively with the board, to ensure continuous improvement, and positive learning outcomes for children.

During 2016 the school has been working to resolve challenges affecting community confidence and the emotional climate of the school. A recently developed action plan provides a framework for addressing this issue.

2 Equity and excellence

The vision and valued outcomes defined by the school for all children are "A tatou tamariki ngā wa e tu mai nei . Me ngā tumanako nui."(Our Children, Our Future, Great Expectations) define the school's philosophy.

The vision and valued outcomes defined by the school for all children are: to grow resourceful, self-managing learners, who can contribute confidently and positively to sustainable communities.

The school's graduate profile clearly describes the skills and attitudes that the community wants children to leave with at the end of Year 8. A key attribute of this graduate profile is that children will be able to demonstrate an appreciation of, and confidence and skills in and around the sea.

The school’s achievement information shows that, over the last three years the majority of children achieve at or above the National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics. Over 70 percent of all children achieve are at or above the standards in reading and over 80 percent of all children are at or above the standards in mathematics.

The data shows some slight disparity for Māori children in achievement across the standards. There are also some gender based differences with the overall achievement of girls exceeding that of boys in reading and mathematics. In response to these differences, the school continues to focus on deliberate actions to accelerate the achievement of children below the standards in order to reduce disparity.

The school's internal moderation processes are effective. All teaching staff work collaboratively to ensure their overall teacher judgements are valid and reliable. The school has plans to continue moderation with other schools on the island and with literacy facilitators on the mainland. 

Since the last ERO evaluation the school has:

  • extensively researched new flexible collaborative learning spaces and visited numerous schools on the mainland
  • further developed students' ownership of their learning
  • implemented effective systems and processes to track and monitor the progress of all children
  • surveyed and consulted with the community to inform the review of the school values, vision, direction and priorities
  • expanded e-learning and Information Communication Technologies provision and learning opportunities for children and teachers.

3 Accelerating achievement

How effectively does this school respond to children whose learning and achievement need acceleration?

Mulberry Grove School responds effectively to children whose learning and achievement need acceleration.

The school has a strong focus on 'knowing the learner' and their whānau. They have clear and coherent systems and procedures to respond to children's individual strengths and learning goals. Children benefit from teachers' detailed knowledge of their interests, strengths and learning needs gathered from parents and whānau, achievement information, and from the children themselves.

Achievement information is analysed well by teachers to identify and specifically target children achieving below the national standard. Appropriate classroom based strategies and programmes are in place to accelerate target students achievement in reading, writing and mathematics. The school makes referrals to external agencies to assist teachers with accelerating individual children's progress.

Teacher Inquiry is contributing to accelerating children's progress at Mulberry Grove School. Teachers analyse the impact that their teaching and intervention initiatives have on children's' progress. This work is also linked to the school's strategic achievement targets, and to the teacher appraisal process.

In 2016 the school introduced a well-considered daily tutoring programme. It involves teachers allocating additional targeted teaching time for children who need to make accelerated progress in reading, writing and mathematics. The school has also developed new curriculum and achievement planning documents that are designed to identify and target individual children's learning needs. The school now plans to share these documents with parents and further strengthen learning partnerships between home and school.

Through 2016 teachers and children have been transitioning to new teaching spaces. The new spaces offer teachers different ways to group children for learning and provide new opportunities for children to have greater choice in their learning programmes. 

4 School conditions

How effectively do the school’s curriculum and other organisational processes and practices develop and enact the school’s vision, values, goals and targets for equity and excellence?

The school's curriculum and other organisational processes and practices are effective in developing and enacting the school's vision, values, goals and targets for equity and excellence.

The curriculum reflects The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC). It appropriately prioritises reading, writing and mathematics as the foundations of learning. The curriculum is broad and responsive. It reflects the school's unique location, natural environment and community resources and expertise.

Effective use of e- learning and digital technologies are enhancing the curriculum and providing opportunities for children and teachers to collaborate with other schools and educators off the island. The beach and sea programme is a special feature of the curriculum. Teachers are continuing to review and refine the curriculum to enhance children's ownership of learning and to ensure programmes are sufficiently challenging. Teachers now plan to formally document the 'Beach and Sea' programme.

Children are well engaged in classrooms. They take pride in the presentation and display of their work and have increasing opportunities to direct and manage aspects of their own learning. Children are increasingly able to make choices about where they work. They are benefiting from strategies that help them to understand how to learn, set goals, use success criteria, and identify their own next learning steps.

The principal keeps trustees well informed about curriculum activities and student progress and achievement. She plans to further develop school achievement reports in 2017. The board uses this information well to make appropriate resourcing decisions. For example, the board has provided additional teaching hours to support initiatives to accelerate children's progress and is funding professional learning programmes for teachers. The principal and teachers actively seek on- going learning opportunities. Teachers continue to be involved in a number of Ministry of Education literacy and mathematics professional development initiatives.

At the time of this review, the principal, teachers and board of trustees have been responding to a number of challenges to do with children's behaviour and emotional safety and timely and responsive communication with whānau. The principal and teachers have taken a number of steps during 2016 to address these issues and concerns. These have not all been effective. They now plan to introduce a Ministry of Education positive behaviour for learning programme in 2017.

The board of trustees has completed an extensive survey of children, staff and parents regarding children's wellbeing and learning. The analysed results of this survey have been used to develop an action plan and implement initiatives to better address these issues. The board and ERO agree that a summary of the findings of the community survey and the action plan should now be shared with the parent community. 

5 Going forward

How well placed is the school to accelerate the achievement of all children who need it?

Leaders and teachers:

  • know the children whose learning and achievement need to be accelerated
  • respond effectively to the strengths, needs and interests of each child
  • regularly evaluate how well teaching is working for these children
  • act on what they know works well for each child
  • build teacher capability effectively to achieve equitable outcomes for all children
  • are well placed to achieve and sustain equitable and excellent outcomes for all children.

The principal has been leading the school through a period of considerable change and challenge. She has maintained a clear focus on the curriculum and children's progress and achievement.

Parents who spoke with ERO, identified strengths of the school and feel well informed about their children's progress. They receive useful written reports about their children showing their achievement in relation to the National Standards and their next learning steps. Parents value the opportunity offered by the community survey to improve aspects of communication and responses to concerns. They look forward to being informed of the survey's findings and recommendations.

A committed board has established processes to carry out its stewardship role and ensure its responsibilities are met. The board is now considering delegating areas of responsibility for trustees to better support the work of the principal, who will have further teaching responsibilities in 2017.

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

Next Steps:

  • continue to build on achievement information reports to the Board of Trustees
  • continue to develop and strengthen whānau learning partnerships to further accelerate children's progress and achievement
  • continue to strengthen timely and consistent communication and follow up with/to whānau/community
  • share a summary of the findings and the action plan developed on the basis of the community survey with whānau and community
  • explore board of trustee delegations/ portfolios to better support the work of the teaching principal

6 Board assurance on legal requirements

Before the review the board of trustees 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

  • 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

  • processes for appointing staff

  • stand down, suspensions, expulsions and exclusions

  • attendance

  • compliance with the provisions of the Vulnerable Children Act 2014.

To improve current practice the board of trustees should ensure that all staff are police vetted.

7 Recommendations

ERO and the board of trustees have agreed that ERO will monitor the implementation of the board's action plan for improving community engagement and the processes for following up on decisions made with parents and whānau in relation to concerns.

On this basis ERO will evaluate the school's progress in 2017, and it is likely to carry out the next review in three years.

Graham Randell

Deputy Chief Review Officer Northern

27 February 2017

About the school 

Location

Tryphena, Great Barrier Island

Ministry of Education profile number

1385

School type

Full Primary (Years 1 to 8)

School roll

25

Gender composition

Girls 14 Boys 11

Ethnic composition

Māori

Pākehā

others

8

16

1

Review team on site

December 2016

Date of this report

27 February 2017

Most recent ERO report(s)

Education Review

Education Review

Supplementary Review

June 2014

March 2011

December 2007