Wairau Valley School (Blenheim)

School Context

Wairau Valley School is a small, rural school providing education for 37 children in Years 1 – 8. The roll, which has increased over the past three years, includes a growing number of children who move into and out of the school within a year.

The vision of the school is for children to manage successfully in a complex world. The school’s valued outcomes focus on excellence, innovation, active participation in the community and ecological sustainability. The aims are to improve rates of progress for children in writing and reading and support teachers to develop culturally inclusive practices.

Since the last ERO review the school has moved from working with a commissioner to having a board comprising two Ministry of Education appointees and elected parent representatives. The school has also had additional assistance with student achievement.

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

• children’s achievement in reading, writing and mathematics 
•  outcomes for children with additional learning needs.

The school is a member of the Piritahi Kāhui Ako/Community of Learning (CoL) and accesses targeted professional development through this involvement.

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 not yet achieving equitable and excellent outcomes for all its children.

The highest schoolwide achievement is in reading, especially for girls and Māori children. Almost all girls achieve well in writing and reading and most children are achieving well in mathematics. There is very low achievement for boys in writing. The school data does not clearly show children’s progress and achievement over time. The school effectively monitors children’s wellbeing.

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

It is unclear how well the school is accelerating the learning for all children who need to make additional progress. The school has not yet established reporting systems to clearly record the rates of progress of all children needing to make accelerated progress and to track this over time.

Identified targeted children are achieving significant acceleration in writing. Children with additional needs are very well supported to make progress.

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?

The school’s board and the staff have a strong child-centred focus and sense of purpose, which is aligned with the charter and values. They actively seek to promote home-school partnerships and engage parents in achieving positive outcomes for their children. Children and their families are known well and staff communicate regularly with families.

Leaders and teachers understand the importance of the reciprocal relationship between the school and the wider community to achieve positive outcomes for children. They have effectively built sound community connections and respectful relationships to enhance children’s wellbeing and increase learning opportunities. The school participates in local events and accesses a diverse range of community resources to support the delivery of a localised curriculum that builds on children’s interests.

There is an open, inclusive and welcoming school culture based on clear expectations and understandings. Children are well supported to develop key competencies such as self-management and are able to work alone or collaboratively. Comprehensive pastoral care is responsive to children’s needs and includes accessing a range of specialist support. Individual learning needs are identified and personal interests are utilised to increase engagement in learning. Teachers actively trial different strategies to improve progress and achievement. The strengths of all staff are recognised and fostered in order to build teaching and learning capacity.

The board of trustees ensures that the school is well resourced to meet children’s diverse needs, both in the classroom and in the outdoor environment. Children’s learning opportunities are enhanced by the provision of additional staffing. This allows targeted teaching and learning. The employment of a specialist teacher of te reo and tikanga Māori, has promoted the development of greater bicultural understandings.

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 develop a deeper understanding of, and strong systems to support, ongoing internal evaluation across school operations. This will enable them to understand the effectiveness of what they are doing and to use this knowledge for improvement-focused decision making.

The school gathers a considerable amount of data. Leaders have identified that a next step is to develop systems to manage, understand and use this in order to improve outcomes for students, especially with regard to progress and achievement. Teaching as inquiry should be further embedded in teaching practice.

The school needs to complete documentation of its localised curriculum to fully reflect school and community aspirations for learning. The curriculum should also include strategies that enable students to be more involved in, and take ownership of their learning, and enable greater personalisation of programmes for all students.

The board of trustees must ensure that there is a planned programme of ongoing training for board members, including induction processes for new trustees.

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 cohesive staff with a shared vision that focusses on positive outcomes for children
• effective, reciprocal relationships with the community which enhance children’s learning opportunities
• a positive learning culture where the learning and pastoral needs of children and their families are understood, and their individual strengths, interests and needs incorporated into programmes. 

Next steps

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

• ensuring planning and decision-making at Board, school and learner levels is informed by strong internal evaluation and is outcomes-focused
• managing learning information to more clearly report rates of progress 

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

Te Waipounamu - Southern Region

9 May 2018

About the school