Bathgate Park School - 19/01/2017

• On this page:

• 1 Context
• 2 Equity and excellence
• 3 Accelerating achievement
• 4 School conditions
• 5 Going forward
• 6 Board assurance on legal requirements
• 7 Recommendation
• About the school 

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