Thornbury School

1 Context

This is a small school with three classrooms. Teachers know the children well. A strong focus is placed on children's learning and wellbeing. A number of children travel to school from outside the local area.

A particular strength of the school is the way in which children, parents and the local community are made to feel welcome and involved.

Since ERO's last review in 2013, some new trustees and teachers have been appointed. This and previous reviews show that the school has maintained its focus on improvement.

The school's principal effectively leads school improvement and development. Staff and trustees ensure all children have the necessary opportunity to achieve and be prepared for life beyond school.

Children and teachers benefit from the school's involvement with other schools for sport, culture and professional learning. The school maintains and values close links with its community.

2 Equity and excellence

The vision and valued outcomes defined by the school are for all children to:

• have high standards of literacy and numeracy
• have a high standard of oral communication
• be competent e-learners
• have a sound knowledge bank in science, technology and New Zealand history and geography
• be strong in their ability to question to learn
• have the skills they need to problem solve
• be able to manage themselves in their learning and in their ability to be capable, involved citizens in a bi-cultural Aotearoa and in the wider global world
• have empathy for all
• have very strong Thornbury School values and key competencies.

The school’s achievement information shows that a high level of achievement in relation to National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics is consistently achieved.

Mathematics is highest, mainly due to the school's development and use of clearer indicators of mathematics achievement for each year level. These indicators guide more focused teaching and assessment and are used by students to monitor and direct their own learning to a greater extent. Improved indicators for reading and writing are now being used in 2016.

Since the last ERO evaluation, the school has established clearer indicators of success for each year level in reading, writing and mathematics. These have increased clarity for teachers, guide their discussions and teaching, and are supporting children to be self-managing learners. These developments are the result of effective internal evaluations and professional learning in reading and mathematics.

3 Accelerating achievement

The school is very effective in identifying and responding to children, including Māori children, who are at risk of not achieving equitable outcomes. The school provides focused teaching and a variety of supportive interventions that are accelerating the progress of most of the identified children. The school is aware of the success of the teaching and support programmes. For those children still needing to accelerate their progress, the school is persistent in continuing to support them.

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 priorities for equity and excellence?

The school's curriculum and other organisational processes and practices are highly effective to develop and enact the school's vision and valued outcomes for children.

A significant feature of the school is the deep knowledge the teachers have of every child in the school. They build the full picture of each child as a whole person. Children's strengths, interests, needs, health issues and general wellbeing are all considered and/or used as the focus for teaching and learning.

The school's curriculum is soundly based on the breadth and depth of the New Zealand Curriculum - principles, values, key competencies and subject areas. The school's foundation rocks (values and key competencies) guide how adults and children behave and interact with each other.

The principal and teachers understand the benefits of working with families to enhance learning. They communicate with parents in ways that suit the individual families, formally and informally. This includes useful reports sent home to parents that clearly outline the next learning for their children. The principal and teachers are relentless in working with parents to find an effective way to accelerate the progress of at-risk students. The strengths and interests of parents are welcomed and used to help enrich the broad learning for children in activities such as swimming, kapahaka, raranga (weaving) and athletics.

The principal provides strong leadership for the school. She ensures conditions for equity and excellence for all children are always uppermost in adults' considerations and practices. Expectations for teaching are explicitly set out and monitored to build consistency and excellence of practice.

The school's high level of internal evaluation was demonstrated in the teachers' 2015 inquiry into reading teaching programmes. Throughout this inquiry a focus on children and their learning was maintained with a definite link to the school's valued outcome for all children to be competent, confident readers. The inquiry showed the determination of the principal, teachers and trustees to have children take an increased role in their learning process. Children, with teacher support, set meaningful goals and provide evidence to show the achievement of the goals. The model used for this inquiry provides an excellent example for school improvement.

Teachers are increasingly working together, such as in professional learning and planning for the school and for individuals, to support each other to attain high levels of achievement for all children.

Trustees have a strong commitment to school improvement. They have developed useful procedures to evaluate the effectiveness of the board's performance. They are well informed and inquire deeply into the well-analysed information about student learning and achievement to build an understanding of what is going well and where improvements are required. They use this information to inform their funding and planning decisions. The school's strategic and annual plans are well aligned to the teaching and learning programmes. They support the trustees to achieve the school's valued student outcomes. The principal and trustees acknowledge how much more useful it would be for their school planning and evaluation if they received information about all of the desired outcomes.

The principal and teachers have a growing recognition and use of Māori language and culture as part of the school curriculum. The concepts of whanaungatanga/relationships and manaakitanga/caring are highly evident throughout the school. The principal, teachers and trustees provide a safe environment for all cultures, including Māori. A highlight of 2015 was the school's first involvement in the local Polyfest. The preparation and actual performance created a real sense of community and school pride and provided a new opportunity for parents to be involved in the school and their children's learning. The school maintains an annual Māori achievement plan. A key priority on the plan is for Māori children to achieve highly. This report identifies the need for the school to:

• revise documentation through a Māori lens to firstly make sure they capture all that is already happening to assist their sustainability
• identify what else they could be including in their curriculum and/or practices to provide for the ongoing success of Māori students as Māori.

5 Going forward

How well placed is the school to achieve and sustain equitable and excellent outcomes for all children?

Leaders and teachers:

• know the children whose learning and achievement need to be accelerated
• respond effectively to the strengths, needs and interests of each child
• regularly evaluate how well teaching is working for these children
• act on what they know works well for each child
• build teacher capability effectively to achieve equitable outcomes for all children
• are well placed to achieve and sustain equitable and excellent outcomes for all children.

The key actions that support teaching to be effective for all children are:

• the principal has high expectations for children to achieve and provides effective leadership, particularly for teaching and learning
• children receive deliberate teaching and support, particularly for literacy and mathematics
• teachers place a strong emphasis on knowing the 'whole' child and ensuring that children feel cared for and belong
• parents and the community are made to feel welcome and involved
• strong emphasis is placed on improvement through ongoing learning and effective inquiry.

ERO is likely to carry out the next review in four-to-five 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.
• Provision for international students.
• Provision for students in school hostels.

Chris Rowe

Deputy Chief Review Officer Southern (Acting)

24 May 2016 

About the school