Birchwood School

20 Jul 2022

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 20 months of the Education Review Office and Birchwood 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 

Birchwood School is situated in Stoke, Nelson and provides education for students in years 1 to 6. Their vision is ‘together we learn together we grow, kotahi te ako kotahi te tipu’. In recent times there have been significant changes in leadership which have now settled.

Birchwood School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

Ensure the Birchwood curriculum meets student needs.
Develop leadership capability to enable excellent outcomes for learners.
Embed culturally responsive pedagogies across the school.
Enhance Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnerships at our kura.
Teacher actions are aligned with Birchwood kaupapa and ensure all learners experience success.
Using student voice and experience to improve outcomes for all learners.
Create strong partnerships with our community.
Enhance learner wellbeing through support initiatives.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate communication for learning to understand and ensure parity for all learners.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

strengthening communication is identified within the current strategic goals
the school sees a need to focus on regular and consistent collection of student voice to inform responsive teaching practices and
to ensure equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners.

The school expects to see a strengthening of teacher and student learning centred relationships which will impact positively on student engagement and parity for all learners.

Students will:

participate and learn in caring, collaborative, inclusive learning environments
have effective, sufficient, and equitable opportunities to learn
experience effective, culturally responsive pedagogy which supports and promotes student learning.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to enhance communication for learning and enhance parity for all ākonga.

a focused and strategic approach to further strengthening learning centred relationships
teachers and leaders critically reflect on teaching and learning to strengthen outcomes
leaders and teachers are committed to enhancing the cultural capability of the community.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

strengthening learning centred relationships between students, whānau and teachers through improving systems to gather and respond to stakeholder voice.

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.

Dr Lesley Patterson
Director Review and Improvement Services (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini

20 July 2022

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

Birchwood School