West Rolleston Primary School

West Rolleston Primary School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 12 months of the Education Review Office and West Rolleston Primary 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 

West Rolleston School opened in February 2016. They cater for students in Years 1 – 8. It hosts a satellite class from Waitaha Special School. The teaching and learning programmes are underpinned by the school’s vision of 'growing happy, healthy learners' through values of ako, manaakitanga and tiakitanga.

West Rolleston Primary School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

  • the implementation of PB4L, including the launch of the school’s refreshed vision and values which will help grow healthy and happy learners in a positive, supportive and culturally safe environment which allows our whole school whanau to grow

  • to provide robust professional learning and development opportunities for staff in writing including the use of digital technologies

  • monitoring the provision of quality teaching practices through the use of professional learning communities and the refresh of the school’s local curriculum in accord with the refresh of the New Zealand Curriculum.

You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on West Rolleston Primary School’s website.

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate learner progress and achievement in writing.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is achievement data in writing is lower than in reading and maths.

The school expects to see overall gains in writing achievement data across the school, alignment in writing programmes across the school and increased teacher confidence.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to improve achievement in writing:

  • a clear commitment to focus on each learner’s wellbeing and sense of belonging though lived values

  • strong leadership capability at all levels of the school

  • highly inclusive school with close links with local schools

  • strong governance and community support.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

  • implementing and embedding national education changes through strategic planning that focuses on consistency in programmes for learning in writing

  • continued focus on curriculum refresh and ensuring delivery of high-quality teaching and learning programmes for increased engagement of learners in writing.

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.

Kathy Lye
Director Review and Improvement Services (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini

3 March 2023 

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

West Rolleston Primary School

Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report 2022 to 2026

As of June 2022, the West Rolleston Primary School , School Board has attested to the following regulatory and legislative requirements:

Board Administration

Yes

Curriculum

Yes

Management of Health, Safety and Welfare

Yes

Personnel Management

Yes

Finance

Yes

Assets

Yes

Further Information

For further information please contact West Rolleston Primary School, School Board.

The next School Board assurance that it is meeting regulatory and legislative requirements will be reported, along with the Te Ara Huarau | School Evaluation Report, within three years.

Information on ERO’s role and process in this review can be found on the Education Review Office website.

Kathy Lye
Director Review and Improvement Services (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini

3 March 2023 

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

West Rolleston Primary School - 07/06/2018

School Context

West Rolleston Primary School | Te Kura o Te Uru Kōwhai provides education for children in Years 1 to 8 in Rolleston. The school opened in 2016 for children in Years 1 to 4 and expanded to include children up to Year 8 in 2017. The school has grown from an opening roll of 77 to 400 children at the time of this review. This growth reflects the rapidly growing local community.

The school’s vision is to ‘nurture our learners to GROW’. The school’s charter states that it aims to support children to grow as happy and healthy learners, respect themselves, others and the environment, own their unique learning journey and work individually and collaboratively to solve problems, acquire skills and be creative.

To achieve these outcomes the school has set the following strategic priorities:

  • building a positive, caring and inclusive learning culture

  • supporting all children to succeed in their learning and to enable children to contribute with confidence and creativity

  • valuing all children’s culture, language and identity

  • building partnerships with parents and the education community to enhance learning opportunities for children

  • encouraging sustainable practices.

To know about the school’s achievement of its goals, leaders and teachers regularly report to the board, schoolwide information about outcomes for students in the following areas:

  • achievement in relation to the New Zealand Curriculum and school expectations in reading, writing and mathematics

  • aspects of children’s safety and wellbeing.

A feature of the school is the way children learn together in large, flexible-use learning studios. The school hosts a satellite classroom of the Waitaha Special School. The school is a member of the Ngā Peka o Tauwharekākaho Kāhui Ako|Community of Learning (CoL). Since the school’s New School Assurance Review in 2017, a new deputy principal and a number of new teachers have been appointed. Teachers have participated in whole-school professional learning on positive behaviour management and collaborative teaching and learning practices.

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’s 2017 achievement information shows that most children achieve at or above the school’s achievement expectations in reading and the majority of learners achieve well in writing and mathematics.

It is too soon to evaluate how well this new school is achieving equitable and excellent outcomes for all of its students. The school has worked quickly to set up systems and practices to get to know the learning needs of all children enrolled in the school. These systems are starting to help teachers and leaders to know about children’s progress and achievement over time.

The school is not yet reporting on children’s achievement and progress in other learning areas or against the school’s other valued outcomes.

1.2 How well is the school accelerating learning for those Māori and other students who need this?

Similarly, it is too soon to evaluate how well the school is accelerating learning for all children who need to. The school is in the early stages of setting up systems to analyse the rate of progress all children make. This information will assist leaders to evaluate the effectiveness of plans and actions to accelerate learning.

School information about children targeted for acceleration in 2017 shows that the school was more effective at accelerating children’s learning in literacy than in mathematics.

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 curriculum effectively enacts the school’s vision and values. Children participate and learn in caring, collaborative learning communities. They are encouraged and supported to develop skills to be self-managing and lead aspects of their learning. A broad, future-focused curriculum caters well for children’s interests and strengths. It reflects and responds to children’s diverse cultures and New Zealand’s bicultural heritage. Children are actively involved in and engaged by authentic contexts and purposes for learning.

School leaders are effectively and collaboratively developing conditions for equity and excellence across the school. This is evident in the way they:

  • lead and model high expectations and clear processes and practices for the development of a positive, relationship-focused school culture

  • ensure effective leadership, planning and coordination of the school’s curriculum, teaching and learning

  • build educationally powerful connections with parents, whānau and the wider education community to enhance learning opportunities for children

  • effectively plan for and manage rapid roll growth and the ongoing development of school processes and systems

  • support and promote teacher development and leadership capability.

Leaders and teachers are actively building their professional capability and collective capacity to achieve excellent and equitable outcomes for children. Teachers are highly engaged in systematic, collaborative and individual inquiry processes focused on improving learning for children. They are participating in well-planned professional learning which is clearly aligned with the school’s vision and valued outcomes for children. Teachers and leaders are working constructively as a new learning community on developing and implementing shared understandings of effective teaching practice.

2.2 What further developments are needed in school processes and practices for achievement of equity and excellence, and acceleration of learning?

The school has had an appropriate focus in the last two years on the development of a positive school culture, core learning programmes and setting up key school practices and processes. ERO, trustees and leaders agree that it is now timely to:

  • build collective capacity to undertake internal evaluation

  • ensure internal-evaluation processes are robust and well aligned with the school’s strategic priorities, annual goals and progress and/or achievement targets

  • further develop curriculum guidelines and assessment practices to enable evaluation of how well children achieve the school’s valued outcomes, and learning across the breadth of the New Zealand Curriculum.

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.

4 Going forward

Key strengths of the school

For sustained improvement and future learner success, the school can draw on existing strengths in:

  • a positive, caring learning culture that values each child as a unique individual

  • a broad, future-focused curriculum that engages children through authentic learning opportunities

  • a collaborative leadership and teaching staff that are working constructively to build effective teaching and learning practice.

Next steps

For sustained improvement and future learner success, priorities for further development are in:

  • building collective capacity and robust processes for internal evaluation, in order to know how effectively school processes and programmes are supporting excellent and equitable outcomes for all children

  • developing guidelines for the assessment of the wider curriculum to enable the school to know about all children’s achievement and progress in learning areas beyond reading, writing and mathematics.

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

7 June 2018

About the school

Location

Rolleston

Ministry of Education profile number

584

School type

Full Primary

School roll

400

Gender composition

Girls: 50%

Boys: 50%

Ethnic composition

Māori: 12%

Pākehā: 67%

Pacific: 3%

Other: 18%

Review team on site

April 2018

Date of this report

7 June 2018

Most recent ERO reports

New School Assurance Review: March 2017

New School Readiness Review: May 2016