St John's School (Ranfurly)

St John's School (Ranfurly)

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within ten months of the Education Review Office and St John’s School (Ranfurly) 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 

St John’s School (Ranfurly) provides education for Years 1 to 8 students. It is a rural, Catholic school with its special-character values underpinning daily life. Students learn in multilevel classes.

St John’s School (Ranfurly)’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are to:

  • raise student achievement in writing

  • further engage parents in a learning partnership to support their children’s literacy skills at home

  • provide a well-resourced and safe learning environment where students have a sense of ownership and pride in their school.

You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on St John’s School (Ranfurly)’s website.

ERO and the school are working together to strengthen evaluation practice across the school and the learning partnership with parents to support improved student achievement in writing.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is the:

  • 2021 writing achievement is not as high as reading

  • school wants parents to be better equipped to support their child’s learning at home

  • school wants all students to experience equitable learning outcomes.

The school expects to see a consistent approach to evaluation, improved student achievement in writing, and for parents to be well engaged and able to support their child’s learning.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support it in its goal to provide an environment where children are encouraged to reach their full potential:

  • the school has experienced classroom teachers who are responsive to their students’ learning needs

  • individual teaching provided by a specialist teacher supports senior students to succeed in literacy

  • there are strong relationships at all levels of the school and school community.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

  • building capability in evaluation across the school

  • ensuring all staff have a shared approach to assessment, particularly in literacy

  • students’ learning being effectively reinforced at home.

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.

Dr Lesley Patterson
Director Review and Improvement Services (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini

10 August 2022 

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

St John's School (Ranfurly)

Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report 2022 to 2025

As of March 2022, the St John’s School (Ranfurly) Board of Trustees 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

Further Information

For further information please contact St John’s School (Ranfurly) Board of Trustees.

The next Board of Trustees 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.

Dr Lesley Patterson
Director Review and Improvement Services (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini

10 August 2022 

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

St John's School (Ranfurly) - 06/05/2019

School Context

St John’s School, Ranfurly is a state integrated Catholic school for students in Years 1 to 8. It has a roll of 56 students, most of whom travel from outside the township to attend.

The school’s vision is to create confident, compassionate and resilient learners who reflect the school’s Christian character through Mercy charism and the teachings of Jesus. The school aims to encourage students to develop and demonstrate the values of faith, respect and honesty.

To achieve its vision the board has identified a number of strategic goals including: to raise student achievement in writing by accelerating the progress of those not yet achieving at expected levels and growing students in their Catholic faith.

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

  • achievement in reading, writing and mathematics
  • progress of students receiving additional learning support
  • student safety and wellbeing.

Since the school’s 2015 ERO review, teachers have participated in a three year Ministry of Education professional learning programme focused on accelerating learning in literacy. The school has responded well to the recommendations in the 2015 ERO review including further developing the strategic plan, ensuring achievement targets convey the need for acceleration, and strengthening documentation for health and safety.

The school has stable staffing and is led by an experienced board and principal. Students learn in three multilevel classes.

The school is a member of the Dunstan Kāhui Ako|Community of Learning.

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 effectively supports students to achieve positive outcomes. School achievement information for the last three years shows most students achieve at expected levels in reading and mathematics. A majority achieve at expected levels in writing. Overall, a higher proportion of girls achieve well in reading, writing and mathematics than boys. Disparity for boys is most evident in writing.

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

The school has yet to develop schoolwide systems to monitor the rates of progress of all students, including those needing to make accelerated progress.

Existing systems show variable results from efforts to accelerate students’ progress. A limited number of students were successfully accelerated in 2018 in reading and mathematics and none in writing despite a number of targeted actions. Targets for acceleration in 2017 and 2016 were more successful.

The school provides additional support for those students who are below expectation in reading and writing with a specialist teacher using intensive intervention programmes.

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 school’s Catholic values and focus on the whole child are strongly enacted in its curriculum. Students have many opportunities to develop and demonstrate these values within and beyond the school. This is particularly evident in the highly respectful relationships amongst students and between teachers and students. Students work collaboratively with teachers and parents to set spiritual, social, academic and personal goals.

The curriculum makes good use of the local environment and community to extend students’ learning and make learning relevant. Students actively participate in and contribute to faith-based activities within the community in meaningful ways.

Trustees, leaders and teachers are committed to the provision of effective teaching to support all students’ learning. Teachers use a wide range of teaching strategies to engage students and respond to their learning needs. They regularly learn about, trial and introduce new approaches to improve outcomes for students. Teachers provide students with timely, specific feedback that helps them to know how well they are achieving and how they can improve.

The board prioritises funding for professional development, curriculum resourcing and learning support. Students who need additional help are quickly identified and provided with one to one or small group support to help them succeed. As a result, students are positively engaged in their learning. They are able to talk about what they were learning, how well they were achieving and what they need to do to improve.

Leaders and teachers foster purposeful partnerships with parents, education specialists and other local education providers. They use these partnerships to collaboratively plan for and respond to the learning needs of students.

Experienced school leadership ensures an orderly and supportive environment that is conducive to student learning and wellbeing. Leaders and teachers collaborate well to plan and deliver the curriculum.

Internal evaluation effectively contributes to improvements in programmes and teaching, provision for a positive learning environment, and informs targets and plans for raising achievement.

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

The principal and teachers need to review assessment practices and expectations for progress. They need to develop systems for analysing rates of progress to build a more accurate picture of how well their practices and programmes are accelerating the learning of those who need it.

The board, principal and teachers need to continue to strengthen aspects of internal evaluation by:

  • deepening analysis of learning information in order to know about the sufficiency of progress all students make, particularly those not yet at expected levels

  • developing teacher capability to undertake systematic inquiries into the effectiveness of their teaching

  • using effective practice indicators better to evaluate the school’s curriculum; and looking at students’ learning outcomes in learning areas other than reading, writing and mathematics

  • ensuring interim reporting to the board shows progress and achievement for target students and whole 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 St John’s 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.

5 Going forward

Key strengths of the school

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

  • the enactment of Catholic values and the focus on the development of the whole child within its curriculum
  • maintaining a positive learning environment that supports student engagement
  • collaborative and supportive relationships at all levels
  • provision of good quality teaching practices and programmes, and extra support for students at risk with their learning so that all students have the best opportunities to learn
  • governance by the board that strongly supports teachers’ ongoing professional development so that they are better able to meet students’ learning needs.

Next steps

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

  • more systematically carrying out internal evaluation to know in greater depth what is or isn’t working well
  • analysing learning information in greater depth to focus on measuring sufficiency of progress
  • ensuring student progress is reported to the board throughout the year to better monitor success in accelerating the progress of those students who have yet to reach achievement expectations.

Alan Wynyard

Director Review and Improvement Services Southern

Southern Region

6 May 2019

About the school

Location

Ranfurly

Ministry of Education profile number

3824

School type

State Integrated Catholic Full Primary (Years 1 to 8)

School roll

56

Gender composition

Boys 31 Girls 25

Ethnic composition

Māori 3
NZ European/Pākehā 48
Filipino 5

Students with Ongoing Resourcing Funding (ORS)

No

Provision of Māori medium education

No

Review team on site

March 2019

Date of this report

6 May 2019

Most recent ERO reports

Education Review December 2015
Education Review September 2012
Education Review April 2009