Bathgate Park School

1 Context

This school provides education for children from diverse backgrounds. The school was opened on an existing school site in 2012. Since that time significant work has been done to establish and embed the vision and values of the school, systems and practices to support teaching and learning and develop the curriculum.

The school has a Years 1-to-8 Māori immersion class and a Years 1-to-3 bilingual class.

At the time of this review, the principal was about to go on long-term leave to take up another educational role. The experienced deputy principal has been appointed as acting principal.

The new board of trustees are led by an experienced chairperson. The trustees are representative of the school's diverse community.

The school has participated in the Ministry of Education's Accelerated Literacy Learning professional development programme. It has worked with two other local schools in a joint schools' initiative focused on effective teaching and learning in mathematics and writing.

2 Equity and excellence

The school aims to support children, staff and the school community to reach their full potential by:

• using a holistic approach recognising and fostering the learner in each child
• providing a safe and supportive place for learning that reflects a close-knit community that welcomes diversity
• building strong relationships with its surrounding community, including iwi, and responding to needs of its community
• providing a broad range of learning opportunities in technology, performing and visual arts.

The school promotes the values of respect, courage, perseverance and integrity which are expressed in the school's A.R.O.H.A motto.

The school’s achievement information shows that between 50 and 60% of children achieve at the National Standards in reading and writing and a slightly higher proportion in mathematics. The proportion of children achieving National Standards has improved gradually over the last three years. The greatest improvement has been in boys' achievement in mathematics and Māori children's achievement in reading and writing. The school is highly aware that there is still work to do to ensure equity of outcomes for all learners.

This school has a high proportion of children who enter and leave the school during the school year. This means that the school's targeted actions to lift achievement are continually focused on new cohorts of children. This is an important consideration when interpreting the school's achievement information.

Children in the school's Māori immersion classroom are assessed against Ngā Whanaketanga Rumaki Māori in pānui, kōrero and tuhituhi. Mathematics is assessed against the National Standards. The school's information shows that about 70% are achieving at or above expectations in pānui and about 65% in tuhituhi. Approximately 30% of learners achieved at or above expectations in kōrerō.

Since the last ERO evaluation the school has made good progress in the areas identified for development. These include:

• a greater focus on raising student achievement in reading, writing and mathematics
• improvement to assessment practices and building teachers’ confidence in making reliable judgements about students’ achievement against the National Standards
• completion of the school’s social science, science, health and PE curriculum
• more useful ways for talking and working with families of Māori and Pacific students about how the school can best support their children’s learning.

3 Accelerating achievement

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

This school effectively responds to Māori children whose learning and achievement need acceleration. The school's information shows that children do make accelerated progress as a result of targeted actions and interventions.

Children are seen as capable and competent learners whose interests, strengths and special talents are well recognised. Teachers provide a range of opportunities for them to develop these and use them as a basis for accelerating learning.

The school has significantly strengthened its guidelines and practices for identifying and responding to Māori children whose learning is at risk . These now ensure that children needing additional support are identified early and that appropriate, individualised and targeted plans and interventions are put in place. The board, leaders and teachers closely monitor the achievement and progress of these children and adapt plans and strategies to better meet their needs.

Specialist programmes and interventions respond well to a wide range of children's needs including oral language development, physical movement development, social and emotional development and targeted learning support. These programmes are delivered by teachers and teaching assistants with specialist skills.

The school is making concerted efforts to work more closely and purposefully with parents, whānau and families of children receiving additional support. Teachers and leaders are communicating more frequently with families about their children's learning goals and the actions they are taking to support their progress. They are sharing information with families about how they can reinforce children's learning at home, and drawing on families' knowledge of their children to make learning meaningful in class.

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

The school effectively supports other groups of children whose achievement needs acceleration. The systems to identify, support and monitor Māori children's progress and achievement and positive initiatives listed above, apply to all children whose learning is at risk. The school's information shows that children do make accelerated progress as a result of targeted actions and interventions.

Next steps are for leaders to ensure targets include all students who are at risk of not succeeding in their learning and to better analyse and report children's achievement information and progress.

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 is effective in developing and enacting the school's vision, values, goals and targets for equity and excellence.

Trustees, leaders and teachers are highly focused on improving outcomes for children's learning and have a strong focus on raising student achievement. They are supported in their work by useful school-wide systems, processes and guidelines. Trustees and leaders work collaboratively on developing and enacting the school's vision, values and goals for equity and excellence.

Children benefit from a curriculum that is broad, future focused and supports them to increasingly develop their understanding of the world around them and to make decisions about their learning. Leaders support innovative teaching and learning practices in a well-considered way. A particular feature of the curriculum is the rich arts-based programmes that ignite children's interests, support their abilities and promote children's active engagement and participation in their learning.

This school very effectively responds to children's culture, language and identity. Teachers take time to learn about children's culture and to include this in classroom learning. Māori children are well supported to learn about and experience Māori culture and language. The school has made deliberate efforts to consult with Māori whānau and respond to their wishes. Bicultural perspectives and practices are evident in the school's daily practices and events. School leaders have updated the school's planning and approaches for promoting success for Māori as Māori. These practices are creating a sense of belonging and mana for Māori children.

Leaders and teachers have a deliberate focus on building relationships and consultation with Pacific families to respond to their wishes for their children's learning. This work needs to continue to ensure positive outcomes for Pacific children.

Leaders are building the capability and capacity of staff to better meet the learning needs of the children. Leaders:

• make good use of external professional development to develop and extend teaching practices
• coach and model effective practices
• support teachers to inquire into their own teaching
• collaborate with other schools to improve teaching practice
• build leadership within the school.

To continue to build teacher capability the leaders need to strengthen the appraisal process. This should include cultural competencies, as well as more explicit goal setting linked to outcomes for children. A deeper reflection on goals will help teachers demonstrate how well they are accelerating the progress of children.

The leaders and teachers carry out regular internal evaluations and report findings to the board. These could be strengthened by improving the evaluative focus.

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
• 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 school should continue its current intensive focus and practices that are aimed at accelerating progress for many children.

The leaders, teachers and trustees agree that the next steps to further reduce disparity are to:

• broaden the achievement targets to include all students yet to reach the NS
• analyse and report student achievement and show rates of progress, including for groups of children not achieving as well as expected
• more closely align the appraisal system to the targets
• ensure internal evaluations are more evaluative.

ERO is likely to carry out the next 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

To improve current practice, the board of trustees should strengthen risk-management plans for excursions away from the school.

The board and leaders need to ensure the behaviour-management procedures and guidelines are being followed to ensure consistency in practice.

Trustees and leaders need to ensure that the complaints policy and procedures are used effectively when dealing with all complaints, and that records are accurate and full.

Leaders need to develop a shared understanding and procedures for the safe use of the sensory and reflection rooms.

7 Recommendation

ERO recommends that the board, leaders and teachers address the next steps in the body of the report.

Dr Lesley Patterson

Deputy Chief Review Officer Te Waipounamu Southern

19 January 2017

About the school 

Location	Dunedin
Ministry of Education profile number	647
School type	Full Primary (Years 1 to 8)
School roll	211
Gender composition	Girls: 50% Boys: 50%
Ethnic composition	Māori Pacific Pākehā Asian	40% 13% 44% 3%
Review team on site	October 2016
Date of this report	19 January 2017
Most recent ERO report(s)	Education Review	January 2014

 

1 Context

What are the important features of this school that have an impact on student learning?

As a result of a Ministry of Education (MOE) review of schools in South Dunedin, Bathgate Park School opened in 2012 as a Year 1 to 8 school. Since then, existing buildings have been upgraded to create a more attractive learning environment and a playground built for younger students. In response to parents’ wishes, the school opened a Māori language immersion class in 2013.

Over the past two years the roll has grown rapidly. Many students had attended two or three schools before arriving at this school. The school values and celebrates students' diverse cultural backgrounds. Each year, new teachers and support staff have been employed, including staff with Pacific and Māori backgrounds.

The principal and staff have worked hard to develop a positive school culture, pride in the new school and high expectations for behaviour. The school’s guiding motto is 'A.R.O.H.A.' and this is constantly talked about. This and the school values are very evident in the respectful way adults and children relate to each other.

Adults in the school ‘go the extra mile’ for children. Students who spoke with ERO were very enthusiastic about their school. They felt that adults in the school cared about them, their learning and wellbeing. The school provides students and their families with a range of practical support.

The school has a welcoming, open-door approach to parents and whānau. Parents and other community members often help in classrooms, with cultural and sports activities, special events and projects like the school-community garden.

Several MOE and health services are based at the school. There is also a technology block. Students from this and several other schools benefit from the technology resources and specialist staff.

Many of the areas for review and development in this report had already been identified by the school. This shows that the board and school leaders are well informed about what is going well in the school and what they need to do to improve.

2 Learning

How well does this school use achievement information to make positive changes to learners’ engagement, progress and achievement?

Overall, teachers and senior leaders use assessment information well.

As a new Year 1 to 8 school, senior leaders and teachers have had to develop assessment guidelines, expectations and systems. This work continues.

Most of the students in this school have transferred from other schools. Presently, achievement against the National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics is low when compared with national figures. This means that many students need to make more than expected progress with their learning so that they can catch up.

An MOE advisor has been working with the school to lift student achievement. ERO, the board and principal see this as an urgent priority.

Most teachers know their students well as individuals and as learners. These teachers use assessment information well to plan for small group or individual instruction in reading, writing and mathematics. Teachers are held accountable for their students’ progress in these areas. For example, they meet regularly with the principal to discuss how they are meeting the needs of their students and what difference they have made.

Senior leaders and teachers have worked hard to develop and implement school-wide assessment expectations and systems. Systems are now in place for identifying, monitoring and supporting students who need extra help with their learning. Students with special needs are also identified. The school works closely with outside agencies to support these students.

The board receives regular reports on student achievement in reading, writing and mathematics. These reports include useful information about what teachers and senior leaders are doing to raise student achievement.

Senior leaders and members of the board work constructively with the MOE advisor and other experts to implement good assessment practices and raise achievement levels.

The next steps for this school are to continue to:

• focus on raising student achievement in reading, writing and mathematics
• improve assessment practices
• build teachers’ confidence in making reliable judgements about students’ achievement against the National Standards.

Senior leaders need to:

• extend targets to raise achievement to include targets for writing and reading and targets for specific groups of students who need extra help
• improve aspects of how they report on school-wide achievement
• report on what difference any support programme or initiative has made.

3 Curriculum

How effectively does this school’s curriculum promote and support student learning?

Students enjoy interesting and broad learning experiences. Most students show good levels of engagement in their learning and work in settled and well-managed classrooms.

Since opening in 2012, the school has had to develop its curriculum. This work continues.

The views and ideas of students, staff and parents continue to be gathered and acted on as the school develops its unique curriculum. This includes careful consideration as to what the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) principles will look like in this school.

There is a strong focus on caring for and growing the child as a whole person. Emphasis is placed on teachers getting to know each student, his/her strengths, interests and background. It also includes teachers recognising and valuing students’ cultural backgrounds, and encouraging students to be respectful and display A.R.O.H.A.

Within class time, teachers prioritise reading, writing and mathematics. Over time, these areas are being more purposefully woven into other learning areas. Strengths of the school are its performing and visual arts, and technology programmes.

Students spoke very positively about their learning at this school. They appreciated:

• the broad range of learning experiences across the curriculum
• that adults in the school care about them and their learning
• that they have choice in their learning and are listened to.

The next steps are to:

• complete the development of the school’s social science, science, health and PE curriculum
• continue to implement the school’s expectations for teaching and learning
• continue to build the confidence and capacity of staff to include Māori language and culture in mainstream class programmes
• develop plans as to how the school will support students with special abilities and talents.

How effectively does the school promote educational success for Māori, as Māori?

Over a third of the students identify as Māori. A small number of these students are in the Māori immersion class, Te Rakiatea. Others learn in classes across the school.

Overall, Māori students in this school achieve better than other groups of students in the school in reading, writing and mathematics.

The school leaders, staff and students value Māori language and culture. In a short time adults in the school have built a culture of manaakitanga (caring) and whanaungatanga (family-like relationships). This is evident in the widespread ownership of the school values - A.R.O.H.A.

The views and aspirations of Māori parents, students and community are valued and used to inform decision making. Adults in the school have worked hard to develop meaningful relationships with the parents and whānau of their Māori students. They feel welcome and are often involved in school activities.

Students seeking a Māori immersion learning context can join the Te Rakiātea class. This class provides a good quality programme of learning in te reo Māori for students from Years 1-8. It benefits from the active support of its parent-whānau group.

All students at Bathgate Park School have genuine opportunities for learning about Māori culture. This occurs within their classrooms and in whole-school activities. On these occasions, students and adults benefit from the modelling and leadership of the principal, teacher of Te Rakiātea and other staff.

The next step is for school leaders to support all teachers to confidently integrate te reo and tikanga Māori into classroom programmes.

How effectively does the school support Pacific students to be successful in their learning?

About 11% of students have Pacific origins. Most identify as Samoan and Tongan. For some, English is their second language.

Pacific students who spoke with ERO liked their school. They felt well supported, encouraged and safe.

The school has several Pacific staff, representing different island groups. This provides students with adults they can identify with and aspire to be like. It also helps Pacific parents feel more comfortable in the school.

Area for review and development

The school leaders recognise the urgent need to raise the achievement of Pacific students. The next steps are to:

• develop comprehensive plans and targets to raise Pacific achievement
• provide the board with regular reports on Pacific students’ progress and achievement
• find more useful ways for talking and working with families of Pacific students about how the school can best support their children’s learning.

4 Sustainable Performance

How well placed is the school to sustain and improve its performance?

The school is well placed to sustain and improve its performance.

The present board has been in place since early 2013. This is the third board in three years.

The board, senior leaders and teachers are committed to raising student achievement and ensuring ongoing improvement in the school.

There are good relationships among the principal, other senior leaders, teachers and support staff. All these groups work as a team to make a difference for the students.

Some trustees have had many years experience on school boards. Trustees have benefitted from relevant learning about their governance role. They show a good understanding of effective governance. Good governance structures and practices are in place.

The principal and board often gather student, parent and teacher perspectives on what is going well and what could be done better.

Teachers have benefited from ongoing and purposeful professional development. They have found the appraisal system useful.

Areas for review and development

The next steps are to:

• review and improve aspects of strategic and annual planning
• consolidate the recent professional learning and ensure that it has a direct impact on lifting student achievement.

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:

• board administration
• curriculum
• management of health, safety and welfare
• personnel management
• financial management
• asset management.

During the review, ERO checked the following items because they have a potentially high impact on student achievement:

• emotional safety of students (including prevention of bullying and sexual harassment)
• physical safety of students
• teacher registration
• processes for appointing staff
• stand-downs, suspensions, expulsions and exclusions
• attendance.

When is ERO likely to review the school again?

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

Graham Randell National Manager Review Services Southern Region

30 April 2014

About the School

Location	South Dunedin
Ministry of Education profile number	647
School type	Full Primary (Years 1 to 8)
School roll	194
Gender composition	Girls: 50%; Boys: 50%
Ethnic composition	NZ European/Pākehā Māori Pacific Asian	51% 34% 11% 4%
Special Features	Base school for Resource Teachers for Learning and Behaviour and Social Workers in Schools; site of Technology block used by this and other schools
Review team on site	February 2014
Date of this report	30 April 2014
Most recent ERO report	No previous ERO reports