Summary
Carisbrook School has a roll of 337 children. This includes 100 Māori children and 46 Pacific children. In the last 18 months the school has welcomed a number of children and their families from Syria. A large number of children enter and leave the school during the year. The school has significant numbers of children who have additional learning and/or behaviour needs. It provides comprehensive support for these children.
Since the last ERO evaluation in 2014 the school has:
- moved from a dual to a single site
- reviewed and improved its appraisal system
- continued to access resourcing from the Ministry of Education for targeted literacy and mathematics programmes
- made good progress in most areas identified as needing further development in the 2014 ERO report
- continued to host a range of community-based programmes on the school site.
Over the past three years, whole-school achievement levels in relation to the National Standards have remained at about two thirds of children reading at or above expected levels. There have been increases in the proportions of children achieving at or above expected levels in mathematics and writing. A drop in mathematics achievement was reported in 2016. Pacific children’s achievement has improved in writing over the past three years. Some Māori and Pacific children, and Year 7 and 8 children have not had their learning needs effectively met in some areas of literacy and mathematics.
How well is the school achieving equitable outcomes for all children?
Teachers and school leaders have effective processes in place to support the achievement of equity and excellence for many children. The school is working hard to achieve equitable outcomes for those children whose learning and achievement need acceleration. Trustees implement a useful self-review process to understand school-wide achievement, and are working hard towards strengthening aspects of internal evaluation in order to make more effective use of achievement data.
The school is well supported by its diverse community. It is a very inclusive school. The number of enrolments, in particular of children with additional needs, is a challenge to which the school responds positively.
At the time of this review the school had capacity and capability to accelerate learning for all children. However, disparity in achievement for Māori and some other groups of children remains.
Leaders and teachers:
- know the children whose learning and achievement need to be accelerated
- need to improve the school conditions that support the acceleration of children’s learning and achievement.
The school agrees to:
- continue to develop more targeted planning to accelerate learning for children
- continue to monitor targeted planning, continuous improvement for teaching, and all children’s progress
- discuss the school’s progress with ERO.
ERO will provide feedback and resources to support the development of more targeted planning.
ERO is likely to carry out the next review in three years.
Equity and excellence
How effectively does this school respond to Māori and other children whose learning and achievement need acceleration?
The board, senior leaders and teachers are working collaboratively to achieve outcomes for those children whose learning needs acceleration.
The school has effective assessment and moderation procedures to support the reliability of the teachers’ judgements about children’s achievement.
School information shows that actions taken to accelerate children’s progress in reading, writing and mathematics were successful for most children participating.
Children with high and/or additional needs are well supported to learn alongside their peers.
School information, in relation to National Standards, for the last three years shows:
- two thirds of the children were reading at or above expected levels
- increasing proportions of children achieving at or above in writing, with just over half achieving this in 2016
- increasing proportions of children achieving at or above in mathematics in 2014 and 2015, with just over half achieving this in 2016.
The school is not achieving equitable outcomes for:
- Māori children in writing
- Pacific children in writing and mathematics
- boys in writing and reading
- Years 7 and 8 children.
School conditions supporting equity and excellence
What school processes are effective in enabling achievement of equity and excellence?
The school has effective processes in place to support the achievement of equity and excellence for many children. The trustees, leaders and teachers continue to work collaboratively on developing and enacting the school’s vision, values and goals.
Children learn in a positive, caring learning environment. This is well supported by the school’s curriculum that explicitly focuses on teaching the values of respect, responsibility and resilience to children.
Adults are aware of and responsive to children’s wellbeing needs to support their learning. Effective use is made of internal and external specialists, and community organisations, to support the development of the whole child. Children benefit from effective and specific teaching strategies in their classrooms and additional learning programmes.
Teachers are:
- supported by purposeful and strategically planned professional learning and development, and leadership
- guided by useful curriculum documents
- making good use of learning information to plan for purposeful teaching
- supporting children to know about and be involved in their learning
- effectively inquiring into the impact their teaching is having on selected learners at risk of underachievement.
Teachers collaborate effectively, building their collective capacity to better meet the learning needs of students.
The design of the school curriculum, and related teaching and learning programmes, is strongly based on authentic learning and assessment. It encourages children to be more engaged in their learning. This engagement includes children having input into topics of study and their learning pathways. They are able to increasingly demonstrate the extent of their learning through carefully designed assessment tasks.
Sustainable development for equity and excellence
Trustees implement a useful self-review process to understand school-wide achievement. However, the school needs to strengthen aspects of internal evaluation to continue developing those processes that are effective in achieving equity and excellence.
What further developments are needed in school processes to achieve equity and excellence?
The school needs to analyse their achievement information in enough detail to be assured of the sufficiency of progress of all students, both within a year and over time.
Leaders need to extend their evaluation to better understand the impact of teaching programmes and why success has or has not occurred.
School leaders and trustees need to make more effective use of their self-review findings to inform school-wide planning and targets.
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
- asset management.
During the review, ERO checked the following items because they have a potentially high impact on student safety and wellbeing:
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emotional safety of students (including prevention of bullying and sexual harassment)
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physical safety of students
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teacher registration and certification
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processes for appointing staff
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stand down, suspension, expulsion and exclusion of students
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attendance
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school policies in relation to meeting the requirements of the Vulnerable Children Act 2014.
Going forward
How well placed is the school to accelerate the achievement of all children who need it?
The school has capacity and capability to accelerate learning for all children. However, disparity in achievement for Māori and other groups of children remains.
Leaders and teachers:
- know the children whose learning and achievement need to be accelerated
- need to improve the school conditions that support the acceleration of children’s learning and achievement.
The school agrees to:
- continue to monitor and develop more targeted planning to accelerate learning for children
- continue to monitor targeted planning, continuous improvement for teaching, and all children’s progress
- discuss the school’s progress with ERO.
ERO will provide feedback and resources to support the development of more targeted planning.
ERO is likely to carry out the next review in three years.
Dr Lesley Patterson
Deputy Chief Review Officer Southern (Te Waipounamu)
11 September 2017
About the school
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Location
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Dunedin
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Ministry of Education profile number
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648
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School type
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Full Primary (Years 1 to 8)
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School roll
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337
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Gender composition
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Boys: 53% Girls: 47%
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Ethnic composition
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Māori: 30%
Pākehā: 50%
Pacific: 14%
Other: 6%
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Provision of Māori medium education
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No
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Review team on site
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June 2017
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Date of this report
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11 September 2017
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Most recent ERO reports
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Education Review May 2014
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