Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report
Background
This Profile Report was written within six months of the Education Review Office and Sawyers Bay 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
Sawyers Bay School provides education for students from Years one to six. It focuses on knowing individual students well to meet their learning needs. It’s close connections with the local community and harbour enable students to set their learning in authentic contexts.
Sawyers Bay School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are to:
- ensure every learner gains sound foundation skills including language, literacy and numeracy
- ensure barrier-free access to learning for every learner
- incorporate te reo and tikanga Māori into everyday life at school
- support staff to strengthen teaching, leadership, and learner-support capability.
You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on Sawyers Bay School’s website.
ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effective the school’s literacy curriculum is in raising at-risk students’ achievement and providing equitable opportunities to learn.
The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:
- a cohort of students appear to have historical barriers to learning and so far, haven't responded well to efforts to accelerate their progress
- the need to achieve equitable outcomes (success) in literacy for at-risk students
- teachers have high expectations and want all students to achieve well.
The school expects to see a positive change in the historical underachievement for some students. It also expects that through rigorous evaluation, it will know the impact on students’ learning of specific support programmes and teaching approaches.
Strengths
The school can draw from the following strengths to support it in its goal to strengthen students’ core literacy and numeracy skills and for every child to reach its full potential.
- positive learner-focused relationships with whānau and community
- relevant professional development focuses to support the continual improvement of teacher practice
- highly capable teaching team that prioritises the needs of students.
Where to next?
Moving forward, the school will prioritise:
- implementing internal evaluation processes to create better outcomes for students
- embedding internal evaluation processes into curriculum review cycles
- continuing to focus on raising student achievement, particularly for those students who need extra support to succeed.
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
12 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