Taradale School

Summary

Taradale School is located in a township near Napier. Since the May 2014 ERO report, the roll has grown to 468 students and is becoming culturally diverse. Sixty six Māori students attend the school.

The school enjoys significant continuity of staffing including school leaders while most members of the board are relatively new to their roles. Two trustees support continuity in governance.

Staff participate in mathematics professional learning and development. In-school literacy capacity building of teaching continues and includes accessing external expertise when needed.

How well is the school achieving equitable outcomes for all children?

The school has made good progress in how well it responds to those Māori and Pacific children whose learning and achievement need acceleration. Improved classroom and team tracking and monitoring of all children not yet achieving in relation to National Standards is evident.

Good progress is evident in reducing disparity of Māori children’s earning outcomes in reading. This includes more students achieving above in relation to the National Standard. Writing and mathematics remain areas of focus. Continuing to improve equity and excellence in learner outcomes is ongoing and supported by sound classroom and team monitoring.

At the time of the review, the school is well placed to further strengthen its focus and understanding of the role of acceleration in working towards equity and excellence. This includes refreshing the curriculum and strengthening culturally responsive approaches for Māori learners. Continuing to develop school systems and processes within a robust governance framework is a key next step.

Children are achieving well. The school demonstrates strong progress towards achieving equity in outcomes, supported by effective sustainable processes and practices.

ERO is likely to carry out the next review in three years.

Equity and excellence

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

The school has made good progress in how well it responds to Māori and Pacific children whose learning and achievement need acceleration. Teachers continue to strengthen their understanding of how best to increase the achievement of targeted students.

Since 2013, Māori students’ achievement has lifted in reading. Progress is less evident in writing and mathematics. The school is able to demonstrate that over a third of targeted Māori learners made accelerated progress in 2016. This is higher than for other targeted groups.

Overall schoolwide achievement patterns in reading, writing and mathematics since 2013, show a levelling off. The school recognises the need to continue to improve Māori achievement in writing and mathematics to reduce disparity in learner outcomes, including gender differences. Further analysis and evaluation of reported achievement information should enable the board and staff to better consider in-school disparity.

The school is well placed to further clarify its understanding of the importance of accelerated progress to support equity and excellence in learner outcomes. Appropriate processes are in place to monitor Pacific and Asian students’ progress, including setting targets to improve their performance.

Assessment practices continue to be based on a wide range of useful approaches including regular team and external moderation. Developing a schoolwide moderation system should further improve the consistency and dependability of National Standards data.

School conditions supporting equity and excellence

What school processes are effective in enabling achievement of equity and excellence?

The areas of strength noted by ERO in 2014 continue to be sustained in relation to teaching programmes and opportunities for learners. Recent notable developments include more robust classroom monitoring and planning for students not yet achieving in relation to the National Standard. Learners benefit from increased opportunities to participate in kapa haka and te reo Māori programmes.

Students learn in calm, supportive, well-organised and resourced learning environments. Caring and respectful relationships prevail. A wide range of experiences in the arts, cultural, physical activity and education outside the classroom, provide breadth to the school curriculum. A focus on growing students’ self-management is encouraging their independence.

Teachers continue to access appropriate professional development and learning opportunities that extends their range of effective teaching strategies, particularly in mathematics.

Provisions for students who require support to achieve is developing with an increased number of students involved in additional programmes. Teacher aides benefit from access to professional development and clearer expectations for their roles.

School leaders work purposefully to support high quality team practices. Curriculum leadership teams provide schoolwide guidance for coherence in programmes. Leaders and teachers are regularly encouraged to inquire, reflect on and review their practices. This contributes to the identification of priorities for development.

The board of trustees are building their capacity to govern as a new board. Regular professional learning and development is appropriately accessed. They are focused on positively responding to recent changes in the health and safety legislation and are well informed about areas of school operations. 

Sustainable development for equity and excellence

What further developments are needed in school processes to achieve equity and excellence?

Strengthening schoolwide understanding of the role of acceleration to achieve equity and excellence should promote alignment in school systems and processes. Further development of the school curriculum and governance framework should underpin this work.

Refreshing the school curriculum to make the role of learners and culturally responsive teaching explicit are key next steps. This work should reflect the principles of The New Zealand Curriculum. Other areas for development include:

• using schoolwide community consultation to inform curriculum change and to further develop the key role of parent, whānau and family in partnerships for learning

• developing a shared understanding of and approaches for accelerating student achievement and teacher moderation of judgements against National Standards

• ensuring that school guidelines for teaching and learning reflect current practices, including schoolwide expectations for effective literacy teaching

• undertaking the planned engagement with whānau Māori to progress culturally responsive teaching and learning experiences within the curriculum and the school’s strategic direction.

Further development is needed to improve the robustness of the board’s policy and procedure framework. This includes ensuring:

• that the policy framework is reviewed in relation to changes in legal requirements and supported by procedures to guide school operations

• that trustees receive student achievement reports to assist them to see progress with reducing disparity in student outcomes from accelerated achievement

• use of internal evaluation to determine the impact of school developments on valued student outcomes.

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

• 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. ww

Appraisal audit

The school has yet to develop a full understanding of the Education Council requirements for teacher appraisal. A significant redevelopment of the appraisal system is required. Strengthening the use of teaching as inquiry and including a leadership component should assist with this work. The induction and mentoring programme for provisionally certificated teachers is suitable.

Actions required

ERO identified areas of non-compliance.

In order to address these the board must:

1. ensure that all teachers hold a current Practising Teacher Certificate [Education Act 1989]

2. adopt a health curriculum statement after consultation with the school’s community [Section 60B, Education Act 1989]

3. develop a policy or procedure for the surrender, retention and search of student property. [Sections 139 AAA-AAH, Education Act 1989]

To improve current practice, the board of trustees should:

• ensure school policies and procedures for police vetting adults includes a central record of who has been vetted and dates for renewal

• develop a governance manual to guide board operation, including in-committee procedures for meetings

• further progress health and safety practices to include regular hazard monitoring and management, procedures for students with severe behaviour and surveying student wellbeing

• ensure teachers are part of an appropriate appraisal process based on the Education Council requirements. 

Going forward

How well placed is the school to accelerate the achievement of all children who need it?

Children are achieving well. The school demonstrates strong progress toward achieving equity in educational outcomes, supported by effective, sustainable processes and practices.

Agreed next steps are to:

• review the curriculum in consultation with the school’s community to increase student leadership of learning

• develop a clear understanding about the role of accelerated learning to increase equity and excellence in learner outcomes, particularly for those Māori learners and others not achieving as well as other successful groups of learners

• develop a robust governance framework, including the teacher appraisal process

• improve schoolwide use of internal evaluation to support progress and achievement of equity and excellence.

ERO is likely to carry out the next review in three years.

Alan Wynyard

Deputy Chief Review Officer Central (Acting)

4 September 2017

About the school