School Context
Waihao Downs School is a rural primary school for children in Years 1 to 8. Children learn in three multilevel classrooms. The school began offering education for children in Years 7 and 8 in 2016. It has had some roll growth over the last three years and an enrolment zone is in place. The current roll is 63.
The school’s vision is to be ‘a rural school letting kids be kids and growing futures’. The school aims to support children to be: confident, curious, conscientious, considerate and effective communicators.
To support these outcomes, the school’s current strategic goals are to help children to:
- achieve personal and academic success
- learn in a safe and challenging environment
- develop the strategies and skills to be active, adaptable, lifelong learners
- achieve well in literacy and numeracy.
Building a strong community spirit is also a school priority.
To know the extent to which these goals are being met, leaders and teachers regularly report to the board, schoolwide information about outcomes for children in the following areas:
- progress and achievement in reading, writing and mathematics
- aspects of children’s wellbeing and self-management for learning
The school has had stable leadership and staffing since its last ERO review in 2015 and is governed by an experienced board. It is part of 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 effectively achieves equitable and excellent outcomes for its students.
School information for the last three years shows that:
- most children achieve at or above the school’s expectations in reading, writing and mathematics
- an increasing proportion of children have achieved at expected levels in reading, writing and mathematics over time
- a high proportion of children achieve above expectations in reading.
The school has improved equity of outcomes for most groups over time. Overall, a greater proportion of girls are achieving well in reading.
1.2 How well is the school accelerating learning for those Māori and other students who need this?
The school effectively accelerates the progress of those children needing to make accelerated progress to achieve at expected levels. This is particularly evident in reading.
School information shows that children with additional needs, including English language learning, are well supported to make appropriate to accelerated rates of 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 curriculum effectively enacts the school’s vision and values. It is very responsive to the needs of all children. There is a school-wide focus on teaching children strategies and skills to manage themselves and focus on learning. Teaching practices respond sensitively to children’s learning and needs. There is a deliberate focus on building junior children’s confidence for learning in order to foster engagement and success at later levels.
Leaders and teachers closely monitor all children’s progress and achievement and plan teaching that responds to the learning needs of individuals and groups. They act quickly to identify the needs of children who are new to the school so that they can settle quickly and succeed in their learning. The school has a well-established history of trialling and introducing new programmes and approaches that are designed to meet the specific needs of children.
Children experience a ‘rich, real and relevant’ curriculum that makes connections to their lives beyond school, the local environment and surrounding rural community. Children have authentic opportunities to learn about New Zealand’s bicultural heritage. Senior students have increasing opportunities to develop digital literacy skills.
Children show a sense of pride and ownership in their school. Their perspectives are valued and frequently influence curriculum planning, school systems and practices and developments in the school environment. The curriculum is supported by well-resourced and engaging classroom and outdoor learning environments.
Community and educational collaborations are well used to enrich opportunities for children to develop the school’s valued outcomes for its learners. Leaders and teachers provide many opportunities for parents to know about and be involved in their children’s learning. The school’s strategic commitment to pastoral care for children and their families is evident. It has built productive partnerships with neighbouring rural schools to enhance leadership opportunities for Year 7 and 8 children. Trustees, leaders and teachers are active participants in the local Community of Learning. They regularly share aspects of their practice with schools within and beyond their region.
Systematic, collaborative approaches to reviewing the effectiveness of teaching and planning for improvement supports ongoing teacher development. Leaders and teachers collaborate well to plan, monitor and evaluate teaching practices to raise achievement and accelerate the progress of children needing to do so. This collaboration enables effective practices to be shared and sustained across the school. Positive, respectful relationships at all levels of the school are supporting collaboration and openness to change.
Professional leadership in the school is strongly focussed on achieving excellent and equitable outcomes for all children. Strengths of school leadership include:
- ensuring the school’s vision and values are effectively enacted through curriculum delivery
- leading, promoting and enabling effective teaching practice
- encouraging teachers to undertake relevant leadership and professional development opportunities
- developing school administration systems that support teachers to prioritise their teaching.
Trustees and leaders have developed a strategic plan to ensure they are focused on key development priorities. They provide appropriate resourcing and practical support to maintain and continue to develop the school’s high quality learning environment.
2.2 What further developments are needed in school processes and practices for achievement of equity and excellence, and acceleration of learning?
Leaders and teachers need to update and document the school’s curriculum in practice. This should include extending reporting to the board to show children’s progress and achievement in learning areas other than reading, writing and mathematics. This will enable trustees to be assured about children’s progress and achievement in the breadth of the New Zealand curriculum.
Trustees and leaders should review the consistency and way they frame student achievement targets to report against these. This will enable them to better know the impact of planned actions to raise achievement.
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.
Areas for improved compliance practice
To improve current practice, the board of trustees should:
- increase the frequency of emergency drills
- make provision for direct reporting of abuse in child protection procedures
- extend behaviour management procedures to include guidelines for the management of physical restraint
- improve assurance reporting to the board that policies, procedures and regulatory requirements have been enacted
- update the appointments policy in line with 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:
- the richness and relevance of the school’s curriculum in action that supports engagement and learning of all children
- educationally powerful connections that enhance learning for the school community
- professional leadership and high quality teaching approaches that support all children to develop the skills to be confident, adaptable, life-long learners.
Next steps
For sustained improvement and future learner success, priorities for further development are in:
- documenting the school’s current curriculum so that it can be evaluated and sustained
- strengthening key practices to support the school’s internal-evaluation programme
- refining aspects of the way the school sets and reports against student achievement targets.
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
14 May 2018
About the school
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Location
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Waimate
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Ministry of Education profile number
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3567
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School type
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Full Primary
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School roll
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63
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Gender composition
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Girls: 35
Boys: 28
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Ethnic composition
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Māori: 4
Pākehā: 50
Other: 9
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Provision of Māori medium education
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No
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Review team on site
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March 2018
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Date of this report
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14 May 2018
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Most recent ERO reports
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Education Review: June 2015
Education Review: April 2012
Education Review: January 2010
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