Waimate Main School

School Context

Waimate Main School is a Year 1 to 6 school with a roll of 87 students.

The school states that its vision and values are: ‘think (whakaaro), care (tika) and achieve (tutuki)’.

Current priorities include building high levels of critical thinking, academic, cultural and sporting achievement. Targets are set to raise student achievement in writing, reading and mathematics.

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

• progress and achievement in reading, writing and mathematics
• progress and achievement in relation to school targets in writing.

Whole school professional learning has included Accelerated Learning in Literacy (ALL), digital learning and curriculum, Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L), Sensory learning systems and culturally responsive curriculum.

In 2018, the school had the support of a Ministry of Education specialist in achievement.

Leaders and staff are active participants in the Waimate Kāhui Ako|Community of 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?

The school is making progress towards achieving equitable and excellent outcomes for all its students.

School data for 2017 to 2019 shows that:

• reading achievement levels have improved, with most students in 2019 achieving at or above the NZ Curriculum expectations
• achievement for boys in reading shows an upward trend over time
• in writing, a small majority of students are achieving at or above curriculum expectations, which represents a trend upwards in achievement
• achievement in mathematics remains static, with a small majority of students achieving at or above curriculum expectations.

Disparity in achievement outcomes is evident in reading, writing and mathematics for girls. There is a small disparity in reading for Māori students.

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

Leaders and teachers need to more effectively analyse and report on the progress and achievement, over time, of all students who are not achieving at expected curriculum levels across core learning areas.

Achievement information for 2019 shows that a small majority of students included in school targets accelerated their learning during their participation in the ALL (Accelerating Learning for Literacy) writing programme. ERO recommends that the school continues to build on this early success and extend relevant learnings to other core learning areas.

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?

A broad and responsive curriculum provides a range of learning opportunities that promote student engagement and meets their needs, interests and aspirations. Useful systems and processes to support teaching and learning have been developed. These include comprehensive curriculum guidelines and statements that clearly explain learning progressions and expectations. Reliability of student achievement data is promoted through a process of moderation between teachers. There are well thought out systems in place for tracking student achievement.

Students with additional learning needs are well supported. Individual student needs are responded to through access to external resources and agencies, individual education plans and differentiated teaching. There are useful practices to ensure students who need extra support are identified and programmes put in place to improve their learning outcomes.

Teachers work collaboratively and take a shared responsibility for students’ achievement and wellbeing. There is a strong and holistic focus on pastoral care and ensuring students are prepared for learning. Staff provide a wide range of meaningful pastoral and wellbeing support for students that is targeted to their individual needs.

Collaboration of teachers across the Community of Learning provides opportunities for teachers to undertake focused professional learning aligned with the school’s strategic goals.

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

School leaders need to develop more effective ways of improving the analysis and reporting of schoolwide achievement data to better:

• identify the sufficiency of progress of all underachieving students, over time
• enable the setting and pursuing of goals and targets to accelerate the learning, progress and achievement of these students
• support leaders and the board to make well-informed strategic and resourcing decisions based on this progress information.

The recently-developed school curriculum has a number of significant areas which need continued development. The school has identified, and ERO agrees, that it needs to continue to develop and embed the new curriculum so that it includes:

• bicultural perspectives and culturally responsive practices which will support students to learn within their language, culture and identity
• long-term plans for all curriculum areas to ensure students have access to the depth and breadth of the NZ Curriculum
• evaluation of curriculum learning areas so that innovations and initiatives that are improving student outcomes can be identified.

ERO acknowledges that some aspects of internal evaluation are in place. To continue to build internal evaluation capability, ERO recommends professional development at board, leadership and classroom levels to:

• strengthen knowledge and understanding of what, why and how to evaluate
• better identify the impact of initiatives and innovations on student outcomes
• develop and use an effective school evaluation framework and practices.

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 Children’s Act 2014.

4 ERO’s Overall Judgement

On the basis of the findings of this review, ERO’s overall evaluation judgement of Waimate Main School’s performance in achieving valued outcomes for its students is: Developing.

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.

5 Going forward

Key strengths of the school

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

• strong pastoral care in a wide range of ways to ensure students are prepared for learning
• the positive attitude and involvement of staff in professional learning that is focused on continuing to improve students’ wellbeing, learning behaviour and engagement
• the effective use of Community of Learning connections to develop teacher capability and capacity.

Next steps

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

• building understanding and effective use of internal evaluation to guide improvement
• improved analysis and reporting on acceleration outcomes to better identify and support all students whose learning needs to be accelerated
• ensuring the new curriculum guidelines include bicultural perspectives that represent the bicultural nature of Aotearoa New Zealand and effectively respond to students’ cultures.

Dr Lesley Patterson

Director Review and Improvement Services Southern Te Tai Tini

Southern Region

23 June 2020

About the school

The Education Counts website provides further information about the school’s student population, student engagement and student achievement.

Summary

Waimate Main School is a Years 1 to 6 primary school. At the time of this review it had a roll of 79 children including 10 Māori children.

Since the last ERO review (2014) the school has:

• appointed a new principal and a number of new teachers

• joined the Waimate Community of Learning along with six other local schools

• participated in the Ministry of Education’s Accelerating Learning in Mathematics and Positive Behaviour for Learning programmes

• maintained its involvement in the local Connecting Education and Communities and Parenting Hub initiatives.

Aspects of curriculum development and self-review identified as areas for development in the last review have not been fully addressed.

School achievement information shows improvement over time in children’s achievement in mathematics but declining achievement in reading and writing.

How well is the school achieving equitable outcomes for all children?

This school is somewhat effective in responding to those children whose learning and achievement need acceleration.

Many of the school’s systems and processes for ensuring equity and excellence were not sufficiently sustained during a period of significant change in school personnel in 2016. This has impacted negatively on children’s achievement.

At the time of this review the new principal was in the early stages of addressing many of the recommendations for improvement identified in this report.

The school has the capacity and capability to accelerate learning for all children. However, disparity in achievement for Māori and/or other children remains.

Leaders and teachers:

• know the children whose learning and achievement need to be accelerated
• need to develop and implement approaches that effectively meet the needs of each child
• need to improve the school conditions that support the acceleration of children’s learning and achievement
• need to build teacher capability to accelerate children’s learning and achievement.

The school agrees to:

• develop more targeted planning to accelerate learning for children
• monitor targeted planning, improved teaching, and children’s progress
• discuss the school’s progress with ERO.

ERO will provide feedback and resources to support the development of more targeted planning.

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

Equity and excellence

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

This school is somewhat effective in responding to those children whose learning and achievement need acceleration.

Most children achieved well in relation to the National Standards in reading in 2014 and 2015. In the same period about half of all children achieved at or above expectations in writing. Achievement in both areas dropped in 2016 as a result of changes described in the summary statement above, and a narrow focus on lifting achievement in mathematics. This focus was successful in raising achievement, with about 75% of children achieving at National Standards in mathematics in 2016.

The school has yet to achieve equitable achievement outcomes for Māori children in all areas.

School information shows that the school’s intervention to raise achievement in mathematics was successful in accelerating the progress of nearly all children who participated.

This school is highly responsive to the needs of children with high and complex needs. Targeted support for these children has improved engagement and participation in learning.

The school has adequate processes and practices to enable leaders and teachers to make reliable judgements on children’s achievement in relation to National Standards. The leadership in the school needs to ensure these are well understood and implemented consistently across the school.

School conditions supporting equity and excellence

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

Some school processes are effective in enabling achievement of equity and excellence.

This school effectively builds strong relationships and partnerships with other schools, community organisations and external specialists to support the well-being and learning of children and their families. This has included a collaborative focus on building parents’ and families’ knowledge and understanding of how to support their children’s learning. 

The new principal is strongly focused on lifting student achievement, and is acting quickly to put in place the systems and practices needed to enable this. This includes:

• setting high expectations for staff and children

• implementing school-wide systems for identifying and monitoring the progress and achievement of all learners – particularly those yet to achieve success

• leading and promoting processes for evaluating the quality of teaching and its impact on student achievement and progress

• improving appraisal processes

• reviewing and developing guidelines for curriculum delivery

• building constructive relationships with trustees, teachers, children and families and the wider community.

Trustees, leaders and teachers are actively researching and trialling new and innovative approaches to meeting the needs of children. Teachers have been well-supported to participate in relevant professional learning to implement these approaches.

The school’s values of Think, Care and Achieve are evident and effectively promoted through all school planning and programmes. These are actively supporting positive relationships and behaviours for learning.

Sustainable development for equity and excellence

At the time of this review many school processes needed to be improved in order to effectively promote the achievement of equity and excellence for all children.

What further developments are needed in school processes to achieve equity and excellence?

The school’s charter targets need to be more focused on those children who need to make accelerated progress to be achieving at expected levels. Improving the charter targets will bring greater focus to school plans and actions and enable evaluation of outcomes.

The school does not have well-embedded systems for identifying priority learners, planning targeted actions to lift achievement and monitoring children’s progress and achievement. Establishing more effective systems will enable trustees, leaders and teachers to be more responsive to children’s learning needs.

The school’s evaluation and inquiry practices are not consistently implemented or well-used to inform decisions and improvements. Strengthening evaluation practices will enable trustees, leaders and teachers to know `what is working and for whom’, and provide a basis for ongoing improvement.

Teachers do not have a shared understanding of effective teaching and learning in this school. Reviewing and updating expectations for teaching and learning will ensure good practices are spread and sustained across the school. 

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

• 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.

Going forward

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

The school has capacity and capability to accelerate learning for all children. However, disparity in achievement for Māori and/or other children remains.

Leaders and teachers:

• know the children whose learning and achievement need to be accelerated
• need to develop and implement approaches that effectively meet the needs of each child
• need to improve the school conditions that support the acceleration of children’s learning and achievement
• need to build teacher capability to accelerate children’s learning and achievement.

The school agrees to:

• develop more targeted planning to accelerate learning for children
• monitor targeted planning, improved teaching, and children’s progress
• discuss the school’s progress with ERO.

ERO will provide feedback and resources to support the development of more targeted planning. 

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

Lesley Patterson

Deputy Chief Review Officer Southern (Te Waipounamu)

12 June 2017

About the school 

Location	Waimate
Ministry of Education profile number	3574
School type	Contributing Primary
School roll	79
Gender composition	Boys: 45 Girls: 34
Ethnic composition	Māori: 10 Pākeha: 68 Other: 1
Provision of Māori medium education	No
Review team on site	March 2017
Date of this report	12 June 2017
Most recent ERO reports	Education Review February 2014 Education Review January 2011 Supplementary Review February 2008