Waikoikoi School

1 Context

Waikoikoi School is a small rural school that educates children from Years 1 to 6. The school is well supported by the local community. Staffing at the school has remained stable over the last three years. Children are taught in two multi-level classes. Since the 2013 ERO review, the school community has elected several new board members and a new board chair has been chosen. The school has joined the Blue Mountain Community of Learning. This learning community is in the early stages of formation and the principal and board chair have been actively involved in its establishment.

2 Equity and excellence

The vision and valued outcomes defined by the school for all children are that 'Waikoikoi students will be responsible community members who have positive self-esteem, with strong values, beliefs and attitudes which encompass: respect and responsibility for themselves, others and their environment, honesty, willingness, effort, acceptance of others, and an appreciation and a desire for continued learning.'

Most children are achieving at or above the National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics. School achievement information for 2015 and 2016 shows that Māori children are achieving well.

National Standards information for the period 2013 to 2015 identifies a small but persistent disparity between boys and girls achievement, particularly in reading and writing. However, mid-year 2016 data shows that most boys are achieving as well as girls. At the time of this review, there were no significant patterns of disparity for other groups of learners.

A small group of children are receiving additional support with their learning. The data collected about learning for these students is not analysed to show how well students are progressing and if their progress is sufficient.

Since the last ERO review, the school has further incorporated technology into the curriculum with a view to increasing student engagement in learning. Technology is also being incorporated into school systems and processes, including the staff-appraisal process. The school has established a three-year cycle of self review. As part of this cycle, several curriculum reviews have been undertaken and findings reported to the board.

3 Accelerating achievement

How effectively does this school respond to children whose learning and achievement need acceleration?

This school responds well to all children whose learning and achievement need acceleration. There is planning in place to address identified aspects of learning and engagement for these children. However, these plans are very general in terms of expected learning outcomes for children. They need to be refined, particularly in relation to:

• the strategies that will be used to achieve identified outcomes
• a clear timeframe for the achievement of outcomes
• how learning progress will be assessed
• the effectiveness of the intervention in accelerating progress.

The school has an effective method for identifying all children at risk of not achieving equitable outcomes. There is a good system in place for recording progress and achievement information for these children. However, this gathered information about learning is not fully analysed. A more comprehensive analysis of learning information will support the principal, teachers and the board to decide whether or not children have made sufficient progress as a result of a particular learning intervention or teaching strategy, and whether or not a particular intervention is worth continuing.

4 School conditions

How effectively do the school’s curriculum and other organisational processes and practices develop and enact the school’s vision, values, goals and targets for equity and excellence?

The school's curriculum and other organisational processes and practices promote the school's vision, values, goals and targets for equity and excellence. Children learn in an inclusive and respectful environment. The board is improvement focused and very willing to direct resources to support teaching and learning, particularly for children requiring additional support. The board and principal have developed useful strategic planning and relevant targets to ensure that a focus is maintained on specific groups of learners.

The information on which the board bases its resourcing decisions needs to be more evaluative. This will help trustees to make resourcing decisions which ensure that children receive the most appropriate support at the right time. It will also assist the board to understand which interventions or teaching practices are effective for learners.

There are clear curriculum guidelines in place for teaching and learning. These include expectations for teachers related to teaching as inquiry, assessment practices, goal setting, and feedback to learners. The guidelines need to be followed more closely in relation to planning and teaching. When this happens, teaching will be more targeted in relation to meeting the needs, interests and abilities of learners. This also includes meeting the needs of children who require more challenging learning experiences.

There are specific guidelines in place for how teachers make reliable National Standards overall teacher judgements (OTJs) in reading, writing and mathematics. These guidelines need to be implemented more consistently. The leaders and teachers in the school need to ensure that assessment information is systematically gathered and recorded from the depth and breadth of the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC). This means improving the balance between the use of standardised assessment information and class assessment. These improvements will add rigour and reliability to OTJs.

Some aspects of internal review need to be strengthened. The school does not comprehensively evaluate the impact of programmes designed to bring about positive changes for learners. The school should adopt a manageable framework for timely evaluations that is consistently and appropriately applied in line with the school's review schedule. This will help the school to manage change as new ideas and resources are introduced into the school curriculum, as well as to sustain and improve its performance.

5 Going forward

How well placed is the school to accelerate the achievement of all children who need it?

Leaders and teachers:

• know the children whose learning and achievement need to be accelerated
• need approaches that effectively meet the needs of each child
• need to ensure the school is well placed to accelerate the achievement of all children who need it.

The school needs to establish an evaluation framework so that judgements about the impact of teaching and learning programmes, resourcing decisions and learning opportunities for all children are appropriate and likely to result in high quality learning experiences for all learners, and for priority learners in particular.

Action: The board, principal and teachers should participate in an internal evaluation workshop. They should use this workshop, the Internal Evaluation: Good Practice exemplars and the School Evaluation Indicators to address the findings of this evaluation and develop more targeted planning that includes a significant focus on building teacher capability to accelerate learning and achievement.

As part of this review, ERO will continue to monitor the school’s planning and the progress the school makes. ERO is likely to carry out the next full review in three years.

6 Board assurance on legal requirements

Before the review, the board of trustees 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

• 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

• processes for appointing staff

• stand down, suspensions, expulsions and exclusions

• attendance

• compliance with the provisions of the Vulnerable Children Act 2014. 

7 Recommendations

The school should implement the next steps identified in this report which are to:

• add more specific detail to plans for accelerating learning for children who need additional support so that the impact of interventions can be evaluated
• analyse learning information for individual children and for groups of learners more rigorously in order to judge sufficiency of progress
• adopt an evaluation framework for curriculum reviews and gauge the impact of teaching and learning programmes on children's progress and achievement
• ensure that curriculum guidelines are enacted
• ensure that a balance of assessment tools are used to make OTJs and that assessment information is gathered from the depth and breadth of the NZC.

Dr Lesley Patterson

Deputy Chief Review Officer Southern (Te Waipounamu)

23 February 2017

About the school