Pahoia School

Pahoia School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within six months of the Education Review Office and Pahoia 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 

Pahoia School is located north of Tauranga in the Western Bay of Plenty and provides education for students in Years 0-6. The school is committed to developing collaborative, active, innovative, life-long learners.

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

  • to promote effective teaching and learning for engaged, successful learners

  • to develop a school culture that promotes safety, inclusion and a strong sense of belonging

  • to engage community and whānau in effective home-school partnerships.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate the extent to which an engaging, coherent and integrated curriculum is promoting success against the school’s graduate profile.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

  • the need for greater coherence and integration across a broad and varied curriculum

  • a commitment to pursuing the valued outcomes defined in the school’s graduate profile.

The school expects to see excellent and equitable outcomes resulting from:

  • the graduate profile providing a focus for a coherent, integrated, localised curriculum

  • students consistently experiencing rich, responsive and engaging learning experiences, tailored to their needs and interests

  • students demonstrating increasing confidence and competence in the skills and dispositions outlined in the graduate profile.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to enable students to become collaborative, active, innovative, life-long learners:

  • teaching practices that prioritise ‘knowing the learner’ and responding to each student and their learning journey

  • an inclusive learning culture that promotes connection and wellbeing

  • leadership that deliberately pursues the school’s valued outcomes.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

  • building a coherent and integrated curriculum framework based around the graduate profile

  • continuing to develop a rich variety of meaningful and engaging learning experiences that respond to student need and interest

  • developing tools and gathering data to measure the impact of the localised curriculum on student progress, particularly Māori students, against the graduate profile.

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

7 July 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

Pahoia School

Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report 2023 to 2026

As of June 2023, the Pahoia 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

Actions for Compliance

ERO and the board have identified the following areas of non-compliance during the board assurance process:

  • the BOT has not obtained a police vet for every person whom the BOT has appointed to the school

[Education and Training Act 2020, Schedule 4]

  • a police vet had not been obtained every three years for every person, contractor or employee who works at the school

[Education and Training Act 2020, Schedule 4]

  • the child protection policy does not outline how suspected neglect and abuse will be identified and reported
    [Children’s Act, 2014]

  • accurate records of the safety checking process for employees were not kept [Children’s Act 2014]

  • consultation with the community on the delivery of the Health Curriculum and a statement following this has not been undertaken
    [Education and Training Act 2020 Section 91]
  • give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi by achieving equitable outcomes for Māori students.

[Education and Training Act 2020 Section 127 (1d,iii)]

The board has since addressed the first two areas of non-compliance identified and has taken steps to address the four remaining areas.

Further Information

For further information please contact Pahoia 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

7 July 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

Pahoia School - 21/05/2019

School Context

Pahoia School is a rural primary that provides education for students in Years 1 to 6. It is located in the Western Bay of Plenty, between Tauranga and Katikati. The current roll of 174 includes 12 Māori and small numbers of learners from other ethnic backgrounds. Since the previous ERO review in 2014, a new principal has been appointed and all trustees are new to the board.

The school’s mission statement ‘preparing learners for now and the future’ is supported by the vision ‘to be globally aware and locally grounded, confident, life-long learners’. The school charter includes well-defined priorities about:

  • the key competencies of the New Zealand Curriculum

  • shared beliefs about teaching and learning

  • support for students with special education needs

  • cultural diversity and its response to Māori learners.

Recent teacher professional development has focused on the implementation of play-based learning in the junior school, assessment for learning and digital technology. In addition Ministry of Education initiatives Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L) and the Incredible Years Programmes (IY) have been implemented school-wide.

The school has responded positively to the areas for improvement identified in the 2015 ERO report.

Leaders and teachers regularly report to the board, school-wide information about outcomes for students in the following areas:

  • reading, writing and mathematics.

Evaluation Findings

1 Equity and excellence – achievement of valued outcomes for students

1.1 How well is the school achieving equitable and excellent outcomes for all its students?

The school is working towards achieving equitable outcomes for all of its students.

School data for 2018 shows that in writing:

  • approximately two thirds of all students achieved at or above expected curriculum levels

  • girls achieved at higher rates than boys

  • non-Māori achieved at higher rates than Māori.

In mathematics:

  • approximately two thirds of all students achieved at or above expected curriculum levels

  • girls’ and boys’ achievement was the same

  • non-Māori students achieved at slightly higher rates than their Māori peers.

In reading:

  • over three quarters of all students achieved at or above expected curriculum levels

  • girls achieved at slightly higher rates than boys

  • non-Māori achieved at significantly higher rates than their Māori peers.

Data gathered over the last three years shows variability in school-wide achievement.

1.2 How well is the school accelerating learning for those Māori and other students who need this?

The school is able to show acceleration for some Māori and other students who are yet to achieve at expected levels.

2 School conditions for equity and excellence – processes and practices

2.1 What school processes and practices are effective in enabling achievement of equity and excellence, and acceleration of learning?

The local curriculum is well-defined, broad and collaboratively developed. Significant work has been done by leaders, teachers and the school community to review and design a local curriculum that provides meaningful learning across the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC). The curriculum supports seamless transition into the school for new entrants. Contexts for learning support student engagement in authentic experiences and reflect local priorities and environments. The curriculum has been developed as a result of sustained, externally facilitated professional learning for teachers, and consideration of research about teaching and learning. It is also supported by the introduction of a learner profile and school-wide initiatives specifically designed to promote a positive learning culture and shared values. Children with additional needs are well catered for in an inclusive school environment.

Developments in assessment provide a sound foundation for teachers to monitor and track student progress and achievement across the curriculum. Recent review of the assessment schedule and the use of a range of useful assessment tools support assessment of progress across the curriculum and inform teachers’ judgements about each student’s achievement in relation to the NZC. Ongoing moderation of student work is also contributing to increasingly reliable judgements about student achievement and planning students’ next learning steps. Relevant professional learning for leaders and teachers has supported growing teachers’ knowledge about the management and use of assessment information. Teachers’ work collaboratively to gather and analyse student progress in reading, writing, mathematics and foundational skills in literacy and mathematics.

Communication and community partnerships are strongly supportive of teaching, learning and school direction. Parents appreciate the open-door policy. They regularly share information about their children and are well informed about progress and achievement. Parent workshops are held to support their understanding about teaching and learning. These workshops address school-wide initiatives such as the play-based learning programme, digital citizenship and the newly adopted digital portfolios.

Leaders are providing clarity of direction for developments in teaching, learning and community partnerships. The introduction of flexible learning environments, collaborative teaching and learning initiatives in the junior school have been strategically planned and implemented. Leaders have also reviewed the teacher appraisal processes to support the building of teacher capability across the school.

2.2 What further developments are needed in school processes and practices for achievement of equity and excellence, and acceleration of learning?

The school’s approach to setting achievement targets, monitoring and reporting progress in relation to these targets is a key next step. This approach should include a sharper focus on accelerating progress for all at-risk students and enable:

  • increased awareness, visibility and ownership of school-wide targets

  • leaders to more effectively track and monitor rates of acceleration over time for groups of at risk students

  • regular detailed reporting to trustees about how well progress is being accelerated for these learners throughout the year

  • a sound foundation for ongoing school internal review more sharply focused on accelerating achievement.

The school has identified that the use of learning progressions across the school needs to be strengthened. This is necessary to:

  • promote the use of formative teaching strategies
  • support students’ ability to consistently track and monitor their own progress as they move through the NZC
  • increase the range of strategies leaders and teachers use to more closely track and respond to rates and pace of acceleration across the school.

3 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
  • finance
  • 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.

4 ERO’s Overall Judgement

On the basis of the findings of this review, ERO’s overall evaluation judgement of Pahoia School performance in achieving valued outcomes for its students is: Well placed.

ERO’s Framework: Overall School Performance is available on ERO’s website.

5 Going forward

Key strengths of the school

For sustained improvement and future learner success, the school can draw on existing strengths in:

  • a local curriculum that is broad and responsive to students’ learning
  • assessment strategies that provide a sound basis for tracking progress across the NZC
  • community partnerships that promote student learning and wellbeing
  • leadership that is setting clear direction for teaching and learning.

Next steps

For sustained improvement and future learner success, priorities for further development are in:

  • an approach to planning, reporting and review that more sharply focuses on promoting equity for all learners
  • the embedding of recent developments in assessment to maximise the potential and sustain quality practice in the medium to long term.

Actions for compliance

ERO identified non-compliance in relation to:

  • the surrender and retention of property and searches of students
  • staff appointments and safety checking of the workforce
  • receiving and dealing with information about serious wrong doing.

In order to address this, the board of trustees must:

  1. Develop and implement policy and procedures about the surrender and retention of property and searches of students.
    [Education Act 1989 s. 139AAA to 139AAF]

  2. Ensure policy and procedures for staff appointments and safety checking of the work force meet requirements.
    [Vulnerable Children Act 2014]

  3. Ensure policy and procedures comply with requirements in regard to receiving and dealing with information about serious wrong doing.
    [Protected Disclosures Act 2000]

Areas for improved compliance practice

To improve current practice, the board of trustees should review and rationalise policies and procedures to ensure they reflect current best practice and are then implemented appropriately. This should include attention to:

  • items identified in the board initiated health and safety audit
  • formalising a programme of advice and guidance for beginning teachers
  • pandemic planning.

Phillip Cowie

Director Review and Improvement Services

Central Region

21 May 2019

About the school

Location

Western Bay of Plenty

Ministry of Education profile number

1884

School type

Primary (Years 1 to 6)

School roll

174

Gender composition

Boys 55% Girls 45%

Ethnic composition

Māori 7%
Indian 3%
Pākehā 87%
Other 3%

Students with Ongoing Resourcing Funding (ORS)

Yes

Provision of Māori medium education

No

Review team on site

February 2019

Date of this report

21 May 2019

Most recent ERO report(s)

December 2014
November 2011
December 2008