St Joseph's School (Port Chalmers)

1 Context

This is a small, Catholic primary school where children learn in two multilevel classes. They have many opportunities to learn about the Catholic faith and participate in church activities.

At the time of this review (2016), a relieving principal had been leading the school for two years. She is participating in the First-Time-Principals' Mentoring Programme.

2 Equity and excellence

The school aims to provide students with an excellent all-round education founded on the beliefs of Christ, preparing them to be respectful and caring, and showing integrity with both their words and actions. It also aims to have learners achieve their potential and have the self-confidence to undertake challenges in a culturally diverse and technological world. The valued outcomes for children are that they will be known as: having integrity, being confident thinkers, effective communicators, enthusiastic learners and confident leaders.

The school’s achievement information for the past three years shows that most children achieve at or above the National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics. This information has fluctuated over time as a result of children with learning needs coming into and moving on from the school.

The principal and teachers are beginning to establish a greater consistency in their judgements about children's levels of achievement through the use of the Ministry of Education's Progress and Consistency Tool.

There has been some progress in the areas identified for development in ERO's last education review. However, significant work remains in other areas.

3 Accelerating achievement

How effectively does this school respond to children whose learning and achievement need acceleration?

The school's information shows that some children needing to make accelerated progress in their learning do so, particularly in reading. There is evidence that the school effectively supports children to develop confidence and a sense of themselves as capable learners. This provides a positive foundation for accelerating their learning.

Children's learning needs are quickly identified on arrival at the school. Teachers use this learning information to inform their planning and teaching for children in small groups and as individuals. The board sets specific goals to accelerate the learning of most students whose learning is at risk. It funds specialist teachers and assistants to provide additional support for individual children, alongside classroom programmes. Specific assistive technology and relevant e-learning programmes are also used to support some children's learning. Small class sizes enable children to have a high level of one-to-one attention. Teachers communicate effectively with children and parents about children's progress, achievement and next learnings steps.

To more effectively accelerate the learning of children who are yet to achieve the National Standards, the school needs to:

• ensure that all children whose learning is at risk are identified in school achievement targets and closely monitored (including those who arrive through the year)
• plan more specifically the actions needed to raise student achievement
• make sure that activities-based learning purposefully supports children's learning of core skills in literacy and mathematics
• develop a planned approach to professional development that is focused on building teacher capability to respond to children's learning needs
• strengthen the focus in appraisal and teacher evaluations on raising student achievement
• use internal evaluation more effectively to know what works, what does not, and what to do differently.

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 vision and values are effectively upheld by its curriculum. It needs to further develop other organisational processes and practices to more effectively achieve its goals and targets for equity and excellence.

Children told ERO that they appreciate the caring and friendly relationships they have with each other and with adults. The school's Catholic values and inclusive culture are strongly evident in daily programmes and interactions. Trustees, the principal and teachers pay careful attention to children's wellbeing as a necessary foundation for learning. Children learn in well-managed, calm environments where expectations for learning and behaviour are very clear. Within their multilevel classes, children demonstrate their ability to work independently and alongside other learners of different ages. There is an increased focus on children knowing about their progress and achievement and what they need to do to improve. Practices to support this need to become more consistent across the school.

Parents are welcome and are becoming more involved in contributing to decisions about what is important at this school. This includes the development of the current vision.

Children benefit from a broad curriculum that makes good use of local events, people and resources. Efforts are made to collaborate with other small schools to enable children to participate in sporting activities. The principal and teachers now need to ensure:

• the documented curriculum is aligned with the school's new vision, reflects shared understandings, is implemented in line with expectations, and kept up-to-date
• a regular cycle of robust evaluation to identify 'how well' key aspects of the curriculum are being implemented
• adequate plans and guidelines are in place for learning at Years 7 and 8, which include level 4 expectations from the New Zealand Curriculum.

The relieving principal has worked constructively to involve trustees, teachers and parents more actively in decisions about teaching and learning priorities. All of these stakeholders report improvements in communication, reporting on student achievement, opportunities to collaborate and a sense of ownership of the direction of the school.

There has been some improvement in the appraisal process. This should be further strengthened by:

• having clear goals and indicators of success related to raising student achievement
• more purposeful observations of teaching
• critical, high quality feedback to the principal and teachers on their teaching
• teachers critically evaluating the impact of their teaching and programmes on children's learning.

The 2013 ERO review identified the need for the board, principal and teachers to develop their knowledge and capability to undertake robust internal evaluation. This is necessary to inform ongoing improvement. This has not been addressed and is now a matter of urgency.

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
• need approaches that effectively meet the needs of each child
• need to ensure the school is well placed to accelerate the achievement of all children who need it.

ERO has concerns about the lack of internal evaluation at all levels of the school and how the school therefore knows what will work best to accelerate the learning of their children. ERO and the board agree that the school would benefit from external support to implement the next steps identified in this report, and ensure that they are sustained and result in positive outcomes for learners.

ERO intends to carry out a process of ongoing evaluation to support the school's development over the course of one-to-two 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 update its appointments policy and procedures to include the identity/safety checking component of the Vulnerable Children Act 2014.

7 Recommendation

ERO recommends that the Secretary for Education considers intervention under Part 7A of the Education Act 1989 in order to bring about the following improvements:

• raising student achievement through targeted actions
• developing rigorous internal evaluation
• developing aspects of governance, such as scrutiny of achievement information and principal appraisal.

Dr Lesley Patterson

Deputy Chief Review Officer Te Waipounamu Southern

22 December 2016

About the school