Ardmore School

Ardmore School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 18 months of the Education Review Office and Ardmore 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 

Ardmore School is a semi-rural full primary school near Papakura, Auckland. The school aims to nurture, challenge and inspire each child to achieve their unique potential within a rural environment.

Ardmore School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

  • focusing on accelerating learning for all students through the development of an authentic and responsive curriculum and pedagogy that underpins effective teaching and learning
  • developing our people and partnerships for learning.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how well the school is developing and embedding Assessment for Learning pedagogy and giving students greater ownership of their learning.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is to:

  • respond to the identified need to give students greater ownership of their learning
  • motivate and engage students in their learning
  • accelerate and sustain student progress over time.

The school expects to see:

  • teachers effectively using Assessment for Learning pedagogy in the teaching of writing
  • consistent schoolwide practice in the teaching of writing
  • students using and understanding the language of learning and the Ardmore School 'Writing Blocks’ to identify their current learning, where to next and how to get there.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to embed Assessment for Learning pedagogy and give students greater ownership of their learning:

  • leadership that is focussed on continual improvement and reflects an ongoing commitment to achieve the school’s strategic direction and improve outcomes for all children
  • leaders and teachers work collaboratively to develop a relevant pedagogy for the Ardmore Learner
  • high expectations are held by the Ardmore community
  • a well-resourced semi-rural environment that supports the delivery of the New Zealand Curriculum.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

  • using the language of learning across the curriculum
  • strengthening learning-centred partnerships with parents and whānau to build shared understandings and involvement in their child’s learning.

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.

Shelley Booysen
Director of Schools

24 May 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

Ardmore School

Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report 2022 to 2025

As of August 2022, the Ardmore 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 Ardmore 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.

Shelley Booysen
Director of Schools

24 May 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

Ardmore School - 15/05/2017

Summary

Ardmore school currently caters for 315 children from Years 1 to 8. The roll comprises mainly Pākehā children with 28 percent identifying as Māori and seven percent from Pacific nations. A further eight percent of the roll are Indian.

The board is made up of new and experienced trustees. They have a professional approach to their stewardship role and are well led by the chairperson.

Since the 2013 ERO review teachers have participated in professional learning about raising children’s achievement in writing. However, the impact of this learning has yet to be reflected in achievement results.

Achievement information shows that over the previous three years overall school results in reading and mathematics have remained at similar levels and writing achievement has continued to decline. Achievement results for children at Year 8 are not yet meeting the Ministry of Education (MoE)target of 85 percent of children at or above National Standards in reading, writing or mathematics.

How well is the school achieving equitable outcomes for all children?

Ardmore school is still developing effective strategies to respond effectively to Māori and other children whose learning and achievement needs acceleration. The school has some effective processes in place and continues to trial ways to achieve equity and excellence for all children. The highest priority for the school to ensure ongoing improvement is to implement robust and useful internal evaluation processes.

The board has consulted widely and developed a charter that provides a sound foundation for moving forward. However, at the time of this review the board continues to face a number of challenges to do with staffing and property issues.

Senior leaders are focused on building and enhancing relationships with parents and whānau. They use successful strategies to monitor the progress of children with special education needs. Children display social and emotional competence and are building their resilience. Teachers are beginning to implement strategies to promote successful lifelong learning.

The school has the capacity and capability to accelerate learning for all children. However, disparity in achievement for Māori and/or other 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
  • need to build teacher capability to accelerate children’s learning and achievement.

The school agrees to:

  • develop more targeted planning to accelerate learning for children
  • monitor targeted planning, improved teaching, and children’s progress
  • discuss the school’s progress with ERO.

ERO will provide an internal evaluation workshop to support the school to develop effective planning and monitoring processes to support equity and excellence for all children. 

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?

Ardmore School is still developing effective strategies for Māori and other children whose learning and achievement needs acceleration.

The school’s public achievement information for 2016 shows that between 61 and 75 percent of all children achieved at or above the National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics. Achievement results for Māori and Pacific children show a decline since 2013.

There is ongoing and significant disparity for Māori children in National Standards reading and writing achievement. There is also significant disparity between boys’ and girls’ achievement in writing. The gender disparity in reading and mathematics is not as significant.

The number of Pacific children is small. They are achieving better overall results than other children in writing. However, there is significant disparity for Pacific children in mathematics achievement that needs to be addressed.

Teachers use several strategies to ensure that teachers’ overall achievement judgements are robust. The school is considering implementing the Ministry of Education’s Progress and Consistency Tool to further help teachers to produce accurate and useful achievement information.

The school values children learning resilience and perseverance. This learning is supported by environmental, financial and specialised science and arts education programmes. To show the impact of these programmes, senior leaders could report evidence of children’s progress in these areas over their time at the school.

School conditions supporting equity and excellence

What school processes are effective in enabling achievement of equity and excellence?

The school has some effective processes in place and continues to trial ways to enable achievement of equity and excellence. Children learn in caring and inclusive environments in three age-related teams. Team leaders know the children and teachers within the teams well. Teachers have a shared responsibility for all children in their team.

The board has recently updated the school charter, which includes a modified mission statement and the community’s aspirations for the school.  The board’s evidence-based targets for raising student achievement are also included in the charter. The board has developed a useful long-term plan to implement its vision, with a strong focus on the school’s heritage and environment.

The principal has recently created the position of ‘leader of Māori’. The aim of this role is to increase the extent to which the bicultural heritage of Aotearoa New Zealand is reflected in the curriculum. The board and senior leaders are developing effective and useful relationships with local iwi and marae. These relationships are helping to foster learning about te reo me ōna tikanga Māori for both teachers and children.

Children identified as requiring extra learning support are closely monitored by the Special Education Needs Coordinator. They participate in a wide variety of programmes to improve their learning.

The school’s curriculum is aligned with The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) and is currently under review. There is potential to develop the curriculum to make better use of children’s interests as a vehicle for learning, and to develop children’s inquiry skills through authentic and purposeful learning. The principal is enhancing and broadening the use of e-learning in the senior part of the school.

Parents and whānau have opportunities to share in their children’s learning. The school has introduced a variety of ways of communicating digitally with families. The principal is building positive, educational relationships and partnerships with the community and external agencies to support the school’s ongoing improvement. The board is working with the MoE to join a Community of Learning|Kāhui Ako that has a relevant pathway for the children of Ardmore School.

Sustainable development for equity and excellence

What further developments are needed in school processes to achieve equity and excellence?

The board and senior leadership team agree that the school’s priority for ongoing improvement centres on the implementation of useful internal evaluation processes. Greater use of evaluation would help to assure the board that the goals of equity and excellence are being advanced. At present the board is not:

  • receiving regular, well-analysed information about children’s progress towards the school’s targets
  • getting evidence-based information about the differences in achievement between the genders, and between Māori and non-Māori students, or about effective strategies to reduce disparity
  • systematically evaluating its own performance in relation to the school’s targets and mission statement.

It will be necessary for leaders and teachers to work collaboratively to embed the revised curriculum that reflects current good practice and meets the aspirations of the school’s community. 

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:

  • 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. 

Going forward

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

The school has the capacity and capability to accelerate learning for all children. However, disparity in achievement for Māori and/or other 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.
  • need to build teacher capability to accelerate children’s learning and achievement.

The school agrees to

  • develop more targeted planning to accelerate learning for children
  • monitor targeted planning, improved teaching, and children’s progress
  • discuss the school’s progress with ERO.

ERO will provide an internal evaluation workshop to support the school to develop effective planning and monitoring processes to support equity and excellence for all children. 

ERO is likely to carry out the next review in three years.

Recommendation

ERO recommends that the Ministry of Education consider providing support for the school in order to bring about sustained improvement to student achievement with a priority on lifting children’s achievement in writing. 

Steffan Brough
Deputy Chief Review Officer Northern (Acting)

15 May 2017

About the school 

Location

Papakura, Auckland

Ministry of Education profile number

1208

School type

Full Primary (Year 1-8)

School roll

315

Gender composition

Girls 52%  Boys 48%

Ethnic composition :

 

Māori

Pākehā 

Indian 

Samoan 

African 

other Pacific 

Chinese 

other  

28%

48%

8%

4%

3%

3%

2%

4%

Provision of Māori medium education

No

Review team on site

March 2017

Date of this report

15 May 2017

Most recent ERO report(s)

Education Review

Education Review

Education Review

 

December 2013

February 2011

October 2007