St Mary's School (Hokitika)

St Mary's School (Hokitika)

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 12 months of the Education Review Office and St Mary’s School (Hokitika) 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 

St Mary’s School (Hokitika) is a Year 1 to 8 integrated Catholic school located in Hokitika. The school vision states that students will be “leading, loving and learning in the heart of the community.” The school’s virtues are Integrity, Service, Faith, and Aroha.

St Mary’s School (Hokitika)’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are to:

  • revisit the local school curriculum to ensure it is still relevant and fit for purpose for all learners

  • investigate the school’s inclusivity and connectedness to te Tiriti of Waitangi

  • ensure that formative assessment tools are effective in meeting the needs of the teachers and the learning need of learners

  • provide students with a faith-based learning environment so all students feel valued and engage positively in all learning and sporting opportunities.

You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on St Mary’s School (Hokitika)’s website.

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate the effectiveness of the school’s localised curriculum with a specific focus on the integration of science, social sciences, te reo and tikanga Māori and technology.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is that whilst student achievement is generally positive, there are some groups of learners who have been identified as needing further support. Senior leaders want to ensure the curriculum is still up to date, meaningful, relevant and is meeting the needs of all learners.

The school expects to see learners achieving strong outcomes across the curriculum and teachers capability improved through the use of ‘spiral learning inquires’ focused on learner progress and achievement.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to ensure the curriculum is relevant and meaningful to all learners:

  • the school’s Catholic character is the foundation for all decision making and guides teaching and learning well

  • experienced staff collaborate well to extend relevant and meaningful learning opportunities and experiences for all students

  • whānau and wider community support, with leadership from the board that enables broader learning opportunities for all learners.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

  • strengthening knowledge and use of evaluation schoolwide to inform improvement

  • designing and undertaking a review of the curriculum to know the impact changes are having on the progress and achievement of all students.

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 June 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

St Mary's School (Hokitika)

Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report 2022 to 2025

As of November 2022, the St Mary’s School (Hokitika) 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 St Mary’s School (Hokitika), 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 June 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

St Mary's School (Hokitika) - 19/02/2018

School Context

St Mary’s School (Hokitika) is a year 1 to 8 Catholic integrated primary school with a roll of 167 students. The school vision states that students will be independent young people learning for life and living the Catholic faith. The vision is underpinned by the school’s virtues, the New Zealand curriculum and key competencies.

The school aims and goals focus on accelerating the progress of students who are low achieving, supporting the education of Māori and students with learning needs, improving the bicultural curriculum and enhancing the outdoor areas.

The school has been in a Ministry of Education project to accelerate literacy learning. All staff have also been involved in professional development to support mathematics teaching.

The school is part of the Westland Kāhui Ako|Community of Learning (CoL). The principal is the lead principal of the CoL.

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

  • achievement in reading, writing and mathematics

  • achievement in relation to school targets

  • progress for students with high learning needs.

Evaluation Findings

1 Equity and excellence – valued outcomes for students

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

Reports to the board over the last four years show that most students achieve at or above school expectations in reading, writing and mathematics. Over this period of time there has been a steady increase in the proportion of students achieving well in reading and writing. Mathematics achievement has remained steady at 80%. There are high levels of achievement for Pacific and Asian students.

In 2017, there has been a noticeable lift in the proportions of Māori students and boys achieving expectations in reading and writing, and for boys in mathematics. The school has sustained or improved the 2016 achievement levels through to the end of 2017 for all year level groups.

1.2 How effectively does this school respond to those Māori and other students whose learning and achievement need acceleration?

The school is very effectively responding to those Māori and other students whose learning needs acceleration.

Reports for 2017 show improved rates of progress for targeted students. All Māori students whose learning was targeted made accelerated progress in reading and writing. There were lower numbers of Māori learners whose progress was accelerated in mathematics. For other targeted students approximately half made accelerated progress in mathematics and writing and two thirds in reading.

2 School conditions for equity and excellence

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

The school has a number of processes and practices that are effective in enabling the achievement of equity and excellence. The school is committed to working together with parents, children and staff to achieve meaningful connections in relation to students’ learning.

Effective teaching strategies are used as part of the responsive curriculum to connect with students’ lives. The school has a deliberate focus on linking the students’ abilities, needs, and interests with learning tasks and teaching activities.

School leaders and teachers have effectively built their own, and collective, capability to improve outcomes for student achievement. Teachers have an increased awareness of the impact their teaching is having. There is a greater use of effective teaching strategies in literacy and mathematics. School targets and the allocation of resources are aligned to meet student needs and achieve school goals.

There is strong professional leadership at St Mary’s school. The leadership has a focus on lifting the achievement levels of all learners, particularly low achievers. Distributive leadership is being built across the school. Teachers are supported by the leadership through a robust appraisal process and targeted professional learning development opportunities. Teacher and student views are used to help evaluate and monitor the impact of professional development learning.

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

The board and leaders need to:

  • refine strategic planning so that it becomes a more useful process for evaluating the effectiveness of the school’s goals and aims in achieving equity and excellence

  • further develop school-wide planning to meet the school’s aim to provide an effective bicultural curriculum

  • clarify and evaluate the effectiveness of the school’s valued outcomes.

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.

4 Going forward

Key strengths of the school

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

  • a curriculum based on effective practices that are deliberately responsive to students’ abilities, needs and interests

  • the increasing teacher capacity and capability to know about the impacts of their teaching

  • leadership that focuses on lifting student achievement and supporting professional inquiry.

Next steps

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

  • identifying clearer valued outcomes, strategic goals and plans to effectively evaluate outcomes for all learners

  • monitoring and evaluating the impact of planning to achieve equity and excellence for all learners.

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

19 February 2018

About the school

Location

Hokitika

Ministry of Education profile number

3536

School type

Full Primary

School roll

167

Gender composition

Girls 51% Boys 49%

Ethnic composition

Māori 17%
Pākehā 72% 
Pacific 2%
Asian 9%

Provision of Māori medium education

No

Review team on site

December 2017

Date of this report

19 February 2018

Most recent ERO report(s)

Education Review October 2014
Education Review July 2011
Education Review May 2008