School Context
Pūrākaunui School is a small rural school with a roll of 14 children. The school currently provides education for children in Years 1 to 6. Children learn together in one or two multilevel classes.
The school’s vision for children is that they will: value themselves, others and the environment; love learning, and care about and contribute to their community. This is expressed through the school values of whanaungatanga (sense of family/belonging); tuakana-teina (supporting each other’s learning) and kaitiakitanga (guardianship of the environment and the school culture).
To support these outcomes the board of trustees has the following strategic priorities:
-
supporting all children’s progress and achievement in the breadth of the curriculum, including the development of key social and learning competencies
-
strengthening knowledge and respect for te reo and tikanga Māori
-
equitable achievement for all groups of learners
-
promotion of environmental sustainability through all school operations, including the curriculum.
In recent years the school has had specific goals to raise achievement in mathematics, science and oral language.
To know about its performance against these goals, trustees regularly receive school-wide reporting on student achievement, and rates of progress against New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) levels, in mathematics, reading and writing.
There has been stable leadership and staffing since the school’s 2016 ERO review. In this time, teachers have participated in Ministry of Education funded professional learning on the teaching of literacy and mathematics and te reo Māori. The school is a member of the Three Peaks (East Otago) cluster of eight schools.
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?
Overall the school is effective in achieving equitable and excellent outcomes for students.
The small numbers on the roll make it difficult to identify trends and effectively evaluate equity of outcomes. However, school information for 2018 and 2019 shows that a large majority of students achieve at or above the school’s curriculum level expectations in reading, and the majority achieve well in writing and mathematics. Most children sustain or improve their rates of progress over time in reading, writing and mathematics. The school is not yet reporting to the board on students’ achievement and progress in other learning areas or of other valued outcomes.
1.2 How well is the school accelerating learning for those students who need this?
School information shows that, over time, the school is effective in accelerating the learning of the majority of students who need this.
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 broad, localised and responsive curriculum is effectively enabling positive learning outcomes for students. The curriculum is well aligned with the school’s vision for students and strategic priorities. Students experience and demonstrate the school’s values of whanaungatanga, tuakana-teina and kaitiakitanga. They report a caring and inclusive learning culture. Older students value their role as tuakana in supporting the learning of younger ones. The curriculum provides many opportunities for students to learn about environmental sustainability and contribute to initiatives to protect and restore the environment. Māori perspectives, knowledge, language and customs are meaningfully incorporated throughout the curriculum. Students value their developing te reo Māori skills and knowledge of local Māori history. All children’s cultures and identities are celebrated and valued.
Teachers foster students’ engagement and love of learning through the provision of ‘real-world’, authentic and experiential learning opportunities. Teachers know students very well as individuals and learners. They take a personalised approach to supporting each student’s learning. This includes encouraging students to develop and follow their interests. Teachers plan purposefully to ensure that students’ learning across the curriculum is coherent and well integrated.
The school makes very good use of a wide range of educational partnerships to provide rich learning opportunities for students, and to build the capability of teachers. This includes well-established relationships with local rūnaka and community environmental projects. Students benefit from frequent visits from, and field trips with, local experts and specialists in archaeology, ecology, environmental science and Māoritanga. Strong use is made of the local environment, events and community resources to extend learning. Teachers participate in professional development and research opportunities to continue to improve their teaching practice. Parents have many opportunities to be informed about and involved in their children’s learning.
2.2 What further developments are needed in school processes and practices for achievement of equity and excellence, and acceleration of learning?
The board and principal have identified the need to build governance and leadership capability and are in the early stages of addressing this. ERO agrees that this is needed in order to:
-
ensure all legislative requirements are met
-
strengthen review and evaluation of key aspects of school planning and operations (including strategic and annual planning, policies, procedures and curriculum).
To enable trustees to know more about how well students are progressing and achieving across the breadth of the curriculum, the principal needs to extend reporting on student outcomes.
To build on existing approaches to raising the achievement of individual students, teachers need to:
-
more regularly review, evaluate and update their planned strategies for boosting the learning of individual students
-
involve students more in knowing about their intended learning, progress and expected levels of achievement.
The principal and teachers need to review guidelines and practices for making overall teacher judgements about student achievement, to improve the reliability and consistency of reporting against the curriculum levels of the NZC.
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 Pūrākaunui School’s performance in achieving valued outcomes for its students is: Developing.
ERO’s Framework: Overall School Performance 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:
- caring and inclusive school culture that supports the wellbeing of students
- broad, localised and integrated curriculum that effectively reflects the priorities of the school community for environmental and bicultural education
- strong use of the local environment, community and resources to provide ‘real-life’, authentic learning experiences that support student engagement and love of learning.
Next steps
For sustained improvement and future learner success, priorities for further development are in:
- building governance and leadership capability to better monitor compliance with legislative requirements, and to strengthen evaluation of key aspects of school planning and operation
- extending the reporting of student outcomes to know more about students’ achievement in the breadth of the school’s curriculum
- more regularly reviewing and evaluating planned strategies for boosting the learning of individual students
- developing practices that help students to be more involved in monitoring their own progress and achievement.
Actions for compliance
ERO identified non-compliance in relation to: surrender and retention of property, aspects of behaviour management, safety checking of the workforce, reporting on personnel practices and principal appraisal.
In order to address this, the board of trustees must:
-
further develop policies, procedures and practices on good behaviour management practice, including elimination of seclusion and the need to minimise physical restraint for students and staff wellbeing that follow the Ministry of Education’s guidelines for Registered Schools in New Zealand on the Use of Physical Restraint (Sections 139AB to 139AE Education Act 1989)
-
develop policies, procedures and practices for the safety checking of the workforce in line with the requirements of the Children’s Act 2014
-
annually appraise the principal against all the professional standards for principals (NZ Education Gazette and relevant Collective Employment Agreement)
-
develop policies, practices and procedures on surrender and retention of property and searches of students under sections 139 AAA and 139AAF of the Education Act 1989 and ensure they comply with relevant guidelines and rules (s.139AAH; s 139AAI, 139 AAA to 139AAh)
-
report in its annual report on the extent of its compliance with the personnel policy on being a good employer (s 77A State Sector Act 1988).
To improve compliance trustees need to:
- develop emergency planning, including emergency procedures for civil emergencies, crisis situations, including pandemic planning and lockdown
(National Civil Defence Emergency Plan Order 2015, NAG 5).
ERO recommends that the school seek support from the New Zealand School Trustees Association in order to bring about improvements in:
- meeting all legislative requirements
- strengthening the review and evaluation of key aspects of school planning and operations.
Dr Lesley Patterson
Director Review and Improvement Services Te Tai Tini
Southern Region
27 November 2019
About the school
|
Location
|
Pūrākaunui
|
|
Ministry of Education profile number
|
3807
|
|
School type
|
Full primary
|
|
School roll
|
14
|
|
Gender composition
|
Male 8, Female 6
|
|
Ethnic composition
|
Māori 3
NZ European/Pākehā 8
Other 3
|
|
Students with Ongoing Resourcing Funding (ORS)
|
No
|
|
Provision of Māori medium education
|
No
|
|
Review team on site
|
September 2019
|
|
Date of this report
|
27 November 2019
|
|
Most recent ERO reports
|
Supplementary Review May 2016
Supplementary Review June 2014
Education Review February 2011
|