Marfell School - 03/08/2017

Summary

Marfell School, is a Years 1 to 6 primary in New Plymouth. At the time of this ERO evaluation, 107 children were enrolled, with 67% identifying as Māori. The school site hosts the Marfell Community Trust and Te Kopae Piripono, an early childcare service. A specialist unit caters for children with high and complex learning needs, in two classrooms.

The principal and many members of the board are experienced in their roles. The leadership team includes a deputy principal, who is new to the role, and a special education needs coordinator (SENCO), who began at the school this year.

Teachers have participated in literacy professional learning and development (PLD) in 2016, which has now been extended into 2017. Other ongoing PLD focuses include: Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L) and Schools that Deliver. The school continues to be involved the New Plymouth Māori Achievement Collaboration project.

The school has developed strong relationships with the community to support children and their families. Tama Tu Tama Ora – Happy Healthy Learners: is the school’s vision, and MANA values, manaakitanga, ako, ngāwari and āwhina, (respect, learning, tolerance and caring), support the enactment of this.

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

Student achievement data shows steady improvement in writing since 2015. However, many children are not achieving in relation to National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics, especially Māori learners and boys.

Positive relationships across all levels of the school’s community support the school’s vision, values, priorities and direction.

There is a supportive board of trustees and strong relationships with parents, family and whānau and the wider community.

The school has processes in place to support student learning. Better aligning these to targeted student outcomes to reduce schoolwide disparity is a next step. This includes improving tracking, monitoring and evaluating the progress of targeted children.

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.

The school has requested an internal evaluation workshop to support it to develop effective planning and monitoring processes that 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?

School leaders, teachers and trustees need to focus more deliberately on their response to Māori and other children whose learning and achievement need acceleration.

School data shows steady improvement in the percentage of learners at or above in writing since 2014. However, in 2016 many children were not achieving in relation to National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics. There is significant disparity for Māori and boys across all areas.

The school’s annual achievement targets identify numbers of children in ethnicity, year level and gender groups. In 2016, some targeted students accelerated their progress. The school is not yet sufficiently successful in using targeted actions to reduce disparity between groups of students. School leaders acknowledge the urgency of the need to accelerate many children’s progress to achieve equity and excellence in outcomes.

Teachers have worked collaboratively, using a range of resources, to develop school indicators of expected learning and progress. This helps teachers to make more dependable judgements about children’s progress and achievement.

School conditions supporting equity and excellence

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

The school has processes in place and continues to build its capability in refining and using these to more successfully support equity and excellence.

MANA values are well enacted, fostering respectful relationships and a settled learning environment. ERO observed a range of teaching practice and children engaged in learning activities.

The leadership team works collaboratively to support teaching and learning. Teachers and leaders discuss and share strategies and practices that are impacting positively on improving outcomes for children. This fosters shared responsibility for all children at the school.

The newly appointed SENCO is supporting cohesion of the special needs unit and mainstream, as well as a culture of inclusiveness across the school. Processes and systems are being developed to assist referral for additional support and reporting of outcomes.

The integrated curriculum includes focuses that reflect the school’s locality and context. Children’s culture and identity are evident in the curriculum. There is an appropriate focus on literacy and mathematics in programmes of learning.

Trustees and staff, in consultation with the community, have developed the school’s strategic goals, vision and values. The school is involved with the wider community to support learning. A parent partnership initiative, ‘He Ara Hou’, fosters learning connections with whānau.

The board is informed about curriculum practice, school operation and student achievement. Trustees respond to requests for resourcing for PLD, personnel and interventions.

Sustainable development for equity and excellence

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

School operational conditions require strengthening and better alignment to achieve equity and excellence.

The school has processes in place to support student learning. Better aligning target setting, teacher inquiry and appraisal to more clearly focus on children whose progress needs accelerating and reduce schoolwide disparity is a next step.

School leaders, trustees and teachers need to better evaluate the effectiveness of teaching and initiatives used to support learning for Māori students and boys. This includes reviewing systems to track, monitor and report these children’s progress.

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 children (including prevention of bullying and sexual harassment)
physical safety of children
teacher registration and certification
processes for appointing staff
stand down, suspension, expulsion and exclusion of children
attendance
school policies in relation to meeting the requirements of the Vulnerable Children Act 2014.

Appraisal audit

School leaders are investigating how to more consistently align the appraisal process with the school’s targeted actions. Trustees should better demonstrate that teacher registration has complied with current requirements.

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 boys remains.

Leaders and teachers:

know the children whose learning and achievement need to be accelerated
need to develop and implement approaches that effectively meet the needs of those children
need to improve the school conditions that support the acceleration of children’s learning and achievement.