West Gore School

West Gore School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 12 months of the Education Review Office and West Gore School 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 

West Gore School is situated in Gore. It provides education for students in years 1 – 6. Their mission statement is: ‘Our Place to Grow – E Kikiri Tātou.’

West Gore School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

  • raise the achievement of Māori students

  • engage students in learning through play as a developmentally and culturally centred approach

  • build educationally powerful connections within the school and local community

  • improve educational outcomes in literacy.

You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on West Gore School’s website.

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively the school’s play-based curriculum is strengthening and developing students’ ‘skills for growing’.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

  • the school has developed a ‘skills for growing’ framework to support students to strengthen and develop their key competencies

  • school leaders want to better understand the impact of recent play-based curriculum developments on student engagement and their ‘skills for growing’.

The school expects to see teachers better responding to the unique needs, interests, and abilities of each student in order to improve student engagement and personalise learning pathways. This includes excellent and equitable outcomes across the curriculum particularly for Māori learners.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to evaluate how effectively the school’s play-based curriculum is strengthening and developing ‘skills for growing’:

  • a collaborative leadership team with a focus on continuous improvement for excellence and equity 

  • high expectations for student achievement across the curriculum 

  • teachers notice, recognise, and respond to individual student’s needs, interests, and abilities. 

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

  • continued professional learning to further upskill teachers in culturally centred play-based learning approach

  • building learning focussed partnerships with parents to improve students’ achievement levels and wellbeing

  • embedding the ‘skills for growing’ framework so that student progress can be monitored, and key evaluation activities can be undertaken. 

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.

Kathy Lye
Acting Director Review and Improvement (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini

11 April 2023 

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

West Gore School

Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report 2022 to 2025

As of May 2022, the West Gore School Board has attested to the following regulatory and legislative requirements:

Board Administration

Yes

Curriculum

Yes

Management of Health, Safety and Welfare

Ye

Personnel Management

Yes

Finance

Yes

Assets

Yes

Further Information

For further information please contact West Gore School, School Board.

The next School Board 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.

Kathy Lye
Acting Director Review and Improvement (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini

11 April 2023 

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

West Gore School - 07/06/2019

School Context

West Gore School is a Years 1 to 6 school in Gore with a roll of 216 students. Sixteen percent of students identify as Māori.

The school’s vision is: ‘e kikiri tatou: our place to grow’. Valued outcomes are for students to become lifelong learners, feel empowered and prepared for the future, and to experience self advocacy and agency.

Current school priorities are to introduce innovative practices across the curriculum for increased student engagement, have Māori learners experience success as Māori, and lift achievement levels in writing.

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

  • achievement in reading, writing, mathematics, science, technology and the arts
  • progress and achievement in relation to targets in writing and mathematics
  • aspects of the key competencies.

Since ERO’s 2014 review, there have been changes in senior leadership and teaching staff. The school has implemented Ministry of Education professional learning for building students’ social competency, and for teaching mathematics and writing.

West Gore School is a member of the Eastern Southland Kāhui Ako I 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 is effective in supporting students to achieve its valued outcomes and is moving towards achieving equitable outcomes for all its learners.

Over the last three years, most students have achieved at or above school expectations in reading, writing and mathematics, and in aspects of the arts, science and technology. Parity of achievement has been reached between boys and girls in writing. Disparity for Māori learners in reading, writing and mathematics remains.

In 2018 the school reported that almost all students were self-managing according to school criteria.

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

Targeted responses to accelerate students’ progress have been effective for identified groups of learners. The majority of targeted students made accelerated progress in writing and mathematics.

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?

Students participate and learn in caring, inclusive learning communities. Trustees and leaders have a commitment to forming educationally powerful relationships with parents and the community. Students are well supported in their transition to school. Their cultures and identities are recognised and valued. They have a strong sense of belonging to their school and community because they know their voice is heard.

Trustees, leaders and teachers are united in their purpose to realise the school’s vision. Leaders collaboratively develop and pursue strategies for innovative teaching and learning for all students. The principal has set, and models, the conditions for innovation at the school. Teachers work within a culture of high relational trust.

There are meaningful opportunities for teachers to continue to improve their practices and build a cohesive approach to teaching and learning across the school. These are achieved through:

  • building leadership capabilities that utilise individual teacher’s strengths

  • purposeful teacher inquiries for professional improvement

  • professional dialogue and sharing of good practice

  • ongoing coaching and teacher development.

The leaders and teachers are collectively building capability in order to better respond to students’ strengths, needs and interests.

Strong systems and structures are in place to support all students to make sufficient progress. Close scrutiny of learning information leads to the establishment of relevant targets. The board makes effective decisions to prioritise resourcing for those students who need it most. Actions and strategies are put in place for teachers to meet the needs of students. These systems and structures provide equitable opportunities for students whose wellbeing and learning need accelerating.

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

Leaders and teachers need to use the information gathered to evaluate the impact of teaching programmes and innovations, and measure the sufficiency of progress for all students.

The school has identified, and ERO’s evaluation confirms that leaders and teachers need to continue to refine structures and systems that support the school’s curriculum and other innovations. This should help to ensure learning is cohesive and coherent for students throughout their time at 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 West Gore 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:

  • culturally responsive practices that recognise student identity and purposefully connect with whānau
  • its culture of collaboration and professional dialogue that leads to carefully considered innovations for improvement
  • clear alignment of purpose between trustees and leaders that maintains a commitment to equity and excellence.

Next steps

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

  • evaluating a range of achievement information to effectively identify what is working well for students’ learning and where improvements are needed
  • further integrating skills and knowledge from the breadth and depth of the curriculum, for better cohesion of learning for all students.

Alan Wynyard

Director Review and Improvement Services Southern

Southern Region

7 June 2019

About the school

Location

Gore

Ministry of Education profile number

4050

School type

Contributing primary (Years 1 to 6)

School roll

216

Gender composition

Male 55%, Female 45%

Ethnic composition

NZ European/Pākehā 82%
Māori 16%
Other ethnicities 8%

Students with Ongoing Resourcing Funding (ORS)

Yes

Provision of Māori medium education

No

Review team on site

April 2019

Date of this report

7 June 2019

Most recent ERO reports

Education Review October 2014
Education Review October 2011