- ERO evaluates and reports on the education and care of children and young people in early childhood services and schools.
St Peter’s School is a Year 1 to 8 Catholic school with a roll of 165 children. It is culturally diverse, and includes a small number of Māori and Pacific children.
The school has made significant progress in some of the areas identified for review and development in the 2013 ERO review. These include improved principal appraisal, curriculum provision, strategic planning and community consultation. There have been several changes of board chair and trustees since the last ERO review. Some trustees are new to their roles.
The school is part of Te Mara Akoranga Katorika Kāhui Ako | Catholic Community of Learning (CoL).
The school is achieving many equitable educational outcomes for children.
At the time of this review, the school was responding well to those children whose learning and achievement needed acceleration. The school has the capacity and capability to accelerate learning for all children, including those with additional needs. However, girls continue to achieve better in writing than other groups of children.
The school has many effective processes to enable the achievement of equity and excellence. The school’s inclusive, caring culture helps children to have equitable opportunities to learn. Religious education is a key part of the curriculum and Catholic values are promoted throughout the school.
School leaders agree that the next steps are to better analyse and report the sufficiency of progress to the board and further develop a systematic internal evaluation process.
ERO is likely to carry out the next review in three years.
The school responds well to those children whose learning and achievement need acceleration. Teachers are effective in accelerating the progress of many learners.
Over time, most children (80% ) have achieved consistently at or above the National Standards in reading. Three quarters of children are at or above the National Standards in writing. In this area, there is ongoing disparity regarding boys’ achievement. In 2016 there was an improving proportion (77%) of children achieving at or above the National Standards in mathematics. All Māori children achieved well against the National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics.
Children with additional learning needs are well supported towards achieving their goals. All children are actively encouraged to develop self-management skills and contribute their views and ideas to help leaders and teachers make purposeful changes to school processes and practices.
Teachers use comprehensive assessment practices to make dependable judgements about achievement against the National Standards. They regularly moderate these judgements within and beyond the school.
The school has many effective processes to enable the achievement of equity and excellence.
The school’s inclusive, caring culture helps children to have equitable opportunities to learn. Religious education is a key part of the curriculum and Catholic values are promoted throughout the school.
Leaders and teachers closely monitor the progress and achievement of individual children. They purposefully implement successful, targeted interventions to accelerate children’s progress. The well - analysed assessment information is intentionally used to further promote children’s learning.
Leaders and teachers are reflective and improvement focused. They adapt programmes and practices after careful consideration, in response to children’s feedback and progress. The staff are working together in increasingly collaborative ways to support children’s learning. They promote the special character of the school and a wide range of leadership opportunities through the broad, responsive curriculum. Teachers purposefully encourage tuakana-teina relationships in many areas of the school.
Leaders and teachers foster meaningful community connections and relationships with families to positively support children’s learning. They provide an increasing range of opportunities for children to learn about and show how they value te ao Māori.
The board has a number of useful processes to guide them in their stewardship role.
The school has a range of good quality processes and practices that contribute to the achievement of equity and excellence for all children.
The board now receives curriculum and achievement reports throughout the year. Progress and achievement reports to the board need to provide more comprehensive learning information. Leaders and teachers need to ensure greater alignment with the board’s priorities so that reporting clearly evaluates the sufficiency of progress that individuals and groups of children are making towards identified goals. This reporting should include evaluation of progress towards meeting school-wide targets, the goals for children with additional needs, and strategic goals. In addition, board minutes should clearly show decisions made on the basis of this information.
Internal evaluation processes and practices need to be further developed. The board, leaders and teachers need to ensure that internal evaluation is appropriately recorded. This was an area for review and development in the 2013 ERO report. An agreed next step is to strengthen internal evaluation so that it is systematic and well understood throughout the school.
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 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.
The school has capacity and capability to accelerate learning for all children. However, disparity in achievement for boys in writing remains.
Leaders and teachers:
know the learners whose progress and achievement need to be accelerated
develop and implement approaches that meet the needs of each child
need to improve the analysis and evaluation of sufficiency of progress.
The school agrees to:
better analyse and report the sufficiency of progress
further develop systematic internal evaluation.
ERO will:
provide an internal evaluation workshop in response to a request from the school.
ERO is likely to carry out the next review in three years.
Jane Lee
Deputy Chief Review Officer (Acting)
Te Waipounamu - Southern Region
20 November 2017
|
Location |
Christchurch |
|
Ministry of Education profile number |
3542 |
|
School type |
State Integrated Full Primary (Years 1-8) |
|
School roll |
165 |
|
Gender composition |
49% Females 51% Males |
|
Ethnic composition |
Māori: 6% Pākehā: 65% Filipino: 6% Other: 23% |
|
Provision of Māori medium education |
No |
|
Review team on site |
September 2017 |
|
Date of this report |
20 November 2017 |
|
Most recent ERO report(s) |
Education Review December 2013 Education Review August 2010 Education Review May 2007 |