School Context
Panmure District School is a full primary school for students in Years 1 to 8. Pacific students make up 41 percent of the roll, with small numbers of Māori students and students from other ethnic groups.
Since the 2015 ERO review, a new principal was appointed at the beginning of 2017. New senior leaders have also been appointed. The recently elected board includes new members and trustees continuing from the previous board.
The school charter’s vision and values were developed in 2017 with parent involvement. The vision is ‘Working together to grow innovative, confident, resilient leaders’, and the values are Respect, Integrity, Self-management and Empathy (RISE).
The board’s strategic goals are to grow students academically and holistically, and build effective learning relationships, the school culture, and staff capacity to support these goals.
Leaders and teachers regularly report to the board, schoolwide information about outcomes for students in the following areas:
- achievement and progress in reading, writing, mathematics
- attendance and wellbeing
- participation in school events.
The school is a member of the Maungakiekie Community of Learning | Kāhui Ako.
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 greater equity and excellence in student achievement and outcomes. Unreliable achievement data prior to 2017 hinders the identification of trends or patterns over time. Greater rigour is now evident in assessment processes, data gathering, and the analysis and use of achievement information, to accelerate student progress.
The school’s information indicates that in general, over the past two years, the majority of students achieve well in relation to their expected curriculum levels in reading, writing and maths. Data indicate that there is some disparity in achievement between Asian students and others, and between girls and boys. Leaders and teachers are strategising ways to achieve greater parity between genders, and for Māori and Pacific students.
Writing is the current achievement focus for teachers’ professional development, and is strongly linked to their 2018 professional learning in reading. Teachers moderate their achievement judgements internally. There are also some opportunities to moderate their assessments with staff from other schools in the kāhui ako.
Students demonstrate:
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a sense of pride and belonging in their school, appreciating and learning about diversity
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positive attitudes to learning
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confidence to take on increasing responsibility for their learning
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collaborative learning with and from their peers.
1.2 How well is the school accelerating learning for those Māori and other students who need this?
The school is developing ways to accelerate student learning progress. There is a heightened sense of urgency to support students to make more rapid progress.
Over the past 18 months teachers have been participating in professional learning aimed at accelerating students’ progress in literacy. Teachers receive scaffolded support from the facilitator and senior leaders to change their practice to achieve better student outcomes. The positive impact of this support is beginning to be seen in teacher practice, student achievement, and students’ motivation and confidence to engage in learning.
During the past two years, strategies have been introduced to promote more rapid progress. These strategies include:
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twice termly tracking of individual students’ progress, and adapting programmes to ensure that students have learning opportunities relevant to their achievement
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deliberate planning at expected curriculum levels with scaffolded programmes for students who need this
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relevant learning prompts and progressions in classrooms supporting students to better understand their achievement pathway
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integrating literacy and mathematics through inquiry learning programmes to provide students with more connected learning, and support them to practise skills within the wider curriculum.
A senior leader has developed systems for the early identification of priority learners who have behavioural and/or achievement challenges. The leader is proactive in accessing external agencies’ support to help these students to engage and learn.
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 new principal has led the rapid changes evident across the school. The board has supported these improvements to ensure students have learning opportunities that support their development as confident, self-managing learners.
Professional leadership for student equity and excellence is guided by carefully considered, strategic decision-making. Good appointments have been made. This has resulted in a senior leadership team that has complementary educational strengths and experience. Leaders work with staff collaboratively. They guide changes and developments aligned to the school’s vision. They are pacing change for individual teachers while maintaining the momentum and sense of urgency for improving student outcomes.
Leaders show a strong commitment to adapting systems and practices to ensure a supportive environment for student learning and wellbeing. They have established an environment of ongoing, deliberate, evidence-based and evaluative thinking. Evaluation now includes the perspectives of students, staff and whānau/aiga.
The school curriculum has been developed to coherently link to the new charter vision, values and mission statements. There has been a significant shift to providing a curriculum that responds to student interests and choice. This new curriculum reflects the principles and values of the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC). In particular, the focus now is on supporting students to develop skills and competencies for self-efficacy in their learning.
Inquiry learning contexts are relevant to student interests, and provoke their interest in and actions for social responsibility. Play-based learning in the junior classes, and innovative learning environments in senior classes, have been introduced during the last two years.
Another significant shift is evident in the school’s energised professional learning environment. This has resulted from leaders’ high expectations for teaching practices to support students’ ownership of their own learning. Collaborative, supportive, learning-focused dialogue is encouraging teachers’ confidence to trial new approaches and change their practice. Relevant internally and externally facilitated professional learning is scaffolding teachers’ professional growth and understanding of effective practice.
During the past two years, the school has also undergone a significant culture change. Parents are now encouraged to come into the school, and their contributions are valued. Their perspectives and aspirations helped to shape the school’s new vision, values and curriculum. Parents who spoke with ERO appreciate the new leadership’s inclusion and valuing of the children and their families.
Since 2017 leaders have proactively established and maintained relationships with external agencies, local school networks, and the kāhui ako for better student outcomes. Personnel from many business organisations and education agencies show a strong commitment to supporting the school and its community.
2.2 What further developments are needed in school processes and practices for achievement of equity and excellence, and acceleration of learning?
Senior leaders have relevant plans to consolidate and continue improving the initiatives introduced during the past two years. Their main priority is to continue growing student agency in their learning. The aim is for all students to know about their current achievement, their goals and next steps, and their strategies to get there. To support this growth leaders have plans for:
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further developing students’ use of learning progressions
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embedding acceleration-focused teaching and learning
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continued development of teaching practices that support student self-efficacy
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further developing learning-focused partnerships with parents to support their children’s progress
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providing English language learning programmes to support students with English as an additional language.
Work is currently underway to enhance the school curriculum with more local content, context and connections. This has included establishing a relationship with the Ruapotaka Marae. The marae is supporting the development of school protocols that align with local tikanga. It will also help to develop teachers’ understanding of local Māori history.
Senior leaders plan to continue developing teachers’ capability in evaluation and inquiry. In particular they will support teachers to strengthen their reflection on the impact of teacher practice and inquiry on student outcomes.
3 Other Matters
Provision for international students
The school is a signatory to the Education (Pastoral Care of International Students) Code of Practice 2016 (the Code) established under section 238F of the Education Act 1989. The school has attested that it complies with all aspects of the Code. The school has not had international students attending the school for the past two years.
4 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 Children’s Act 2014.
5 ERO’s Overall Judgement
On the basis of the findings of this review, ERO’s overall evaluation judgement of Panmure District School’s performance in achieving valued outcomes for its students is: Well placed.
ERO’s Framework: Overall School Performance is available on ERO’s website.
6 Going forward
Key strengths of the school
For sustained improvement and future learner success, the school can draw on existing strengths in:
- leadership for student equity and excellence that is guided by carefully considered, strategic decision-making
- an inclusive culture where the perspectives of students and their families are valued and used to guide key developments in the school
- a curriculum that responds to students’ interests, and grows their self-management and ownership of learning
- adapting systems and practices to ensure a supportive environment for student learning and wellbeing.
Next steps
For sustained improvement and future learner success, priorities for further development are in:
- continuing to grow students’ agency in their learning
- embedding acceleration-focused teaching and learning
- continued development of teaching practices that support student self efficacy
- further developing learning-focused partnerships with parents to support their children’s progress.
Steve Tanner
Director Review and Improvement Services Northern
Northern Region
5 August 2019
About the school
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Location
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Panmure, Auckland
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Ministry of Education profile number
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1420
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School type
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Full primary (Years 1 to 8)
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School roll
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128
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Gender composition
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Boys 54% Girls 46%
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Ethnic composition
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Māori 13%
Tongan 21%
Indian 17%
Samoan 17%
Filipino 13%
other Asian 7%
other ethnic groups 12%
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Students with Ongoing Resourcing Funding (ORS)
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No
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Provision of Māori medium education
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No
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Review team on site
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June 2019
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Date of this report
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5 August 2019
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Most recent ERO report(s)
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Education Review May 2015
Education Review April 2012
Education Review May 2010
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