School Context
Woodbury School is a rural school in Canterbury providing education for children in Years 1 to 6. It has a roll of 102. It has experienced steady roll growth in recent years and now has an enrolment zone in place.
Valued outcomes for children are that they will:
- have strong skills and a positive attitude toward literacy and mathematics
- become effective communicators
- care for the environment
- have the skills and attitudes for healthy living and to operate in a changing world
- be motivated to explore new learning pathways.
The school values are: perseverance, empathy, acceptance and knowledge.
To achieve these outcomes the school board of trustees has the following strategic priorities:
- positive partnerships with families and the community
- provision of a localised curriculum
- inclusive teaching practices
- professional development for teachers
- provision of a safe and healthy environment
- accelerating the progress of those students below curriculum expectations in writing and mathematics.
Leaders and teachers regularly report to the board schoolwide information about outcomes for students in the following areas:
- student achievement in reading, writing and mathematics
- student wellbeing.
Since the school’s 2016 ERO review, there is a new principal and there have been a number of staff changes. Teachers have participated in collective professional learning in mathematics and junior literacy.
The school is a member of the Ka Awa Whina Community of Learning|Kahui Ako.
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 increasingly effective in achieving equitable and excellent outcomes for its students.
In 2018, most students achieved at expected curriculum levels in reading, writing and mathematics. This was an improvement on the previous two years when a lower proportion achieved at these levels in writing and mathematics. Overall there is parity in the achievement of girls and boys, and Māori and non-Māori students.
School information shows most students report feeling safe and included in their school.
1.2 How well is the school accelerating learning for those Māori and other students who need this?
The school is effective in accelerating the learning of those students who need to make faster progress to achieve at expected levels.
In 2018, around half of those students targeted in reading and writing accelerated their learning.
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 a caring, collaborative and inclusive learning community. Relationships between teachers and students, and between students, are characterised by respect, empathy, acceptance and cooperation. The school’s values are well known by adults and children and effectively enacted through classroom programmes and school practices.
Community collaborations enrich opportunities for students to develop and demonstrate the school’s valued outcomes. The school proactively identifies and draws on community resources to enhance student learning opportunities, achievement and wellbeing. This includes providing contexts for learning that reflect the rural environment and community in which students live. Active community support is used well to provide additional learning opportunities for those learners who need it. Participation in the local Kahui Ako has promoted improved communication and collaboration around students’ transitions from early learning settings to school.
The curriculum is well aligned with, and enacts, the school’s vision and valued outcomes for children. It gives emphasis to building students’ skills and positive attitudes toward literacy and mathematics. Students have increasing opportunities to learn about local Māori knowledge, history and language and about how to be a good guardian (kaitiaki) of the environment. Senior students value the opportunities they have to show leadership and contribute in meaningful ways to what happens in their school.
All students, including those with special needs or abilities, participate in learning opportunities that provide appropriate support and challenge. Teachers effectively use a variety of teaching strategies to engage students in learning and critical thinking. There are useful systems for identifying and responding to those students who need additional support. As a result these students are quickly identified and appropriate plans, strategies and programmes put in place to promote positive learning and wellbeing outcomes.
School leadership and governance ensures an orderly and supportive environment which is conducive to student learning and wellbeing. The new principal has appropriately focussed on building relationships and collaboration for improvement with the board, staff, students and the community. Together with staff, the principal is developing useful systems for tracking student progress and achievement and monitoring curriculum delivery. These systems are supporting a strengthened school-wide focus on effective teaching and learning.
2.2 What further developments are needed in school processes and practices for achievement of equity and excellence, and acceleration of learning?
Trustees need to expand the school-wide reporting they receive to be better assured about students’ progress and achievement in the breadth of the New Zealand Curriculum. Reports to the board should include how well students are progressing toward achieving the school’s valued outcomes.
Trustees need to receive reporting on the rate of progress all children make, particularly those targeted for acceleration. This is likely to enable them to more effectively evaluate the performance of the school in supporting all students to make expected rates of progress, and the success of plans and strategies for accelerating learning.
Leaders should continue to promote collective responsibility for accelerating the progress of students through collaborative planning, tracking and evaluation of outcomes.
School leaders and teachers need to complete the documentation of the school curriculum. Clear guidelines for teaching and learning should support greater coherence and consistency of practice across the school. Curriculum guidelines need to provide sufficient direction for:
- coherent curriculum design
- assessment practice, including expected rates of progress
- expected teaching practice, including those for building students’ ability to lead and assess their own learning.
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 Children’s Act 2014.
4 ERO’s Overall Judgement
On the basis of the findings of this review, ERO’s overall evaluation judgement of Woodbury 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:
- provision of a positive, inclusive culture that supports all students’ wellbeing and opportunity to learn
- community partnerships that support and enhance the localised curriculum
- curriculum provision that provides all students with the opportunity to develop identified valued outcomes
- collaborative leadership focused on high quality teaching and learning.
Next steps
For sustained improvement and future learner success, priorities for further development are in:
- developing systems for assessing and reporting on students’ progress and achievement across the curriculum to be assured that the school’s vision and valued outcomes are met
- knowing more about the rates of progress all students make and using this information to evaluate the effectiveness of strategies and approaches to accelerating learning
- documenting expectations for curriculum delivery to support greater consistency and coherence in teaching and learning.
Areas for improved compliance practice
To improve current practice, the board of trustees should:
- ensure that cyber bullying is included within the current bullying prevention programme.
Dr Lesley Patterson
Director Review and Improvement Services Southern
Southern Region
21 August 2019
About the school
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Location
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Geraldine
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Ministry of Education profile number
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3599
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School type
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Contributing Primary, Years 1 to 6
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School roll
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102
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Gender composition
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Girls 50%, Boys 50%
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Ethnic composition
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Māori 6%
NZ European/Pākehā 94%
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Students with Ongoing Resourcing Funding (ORS)
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No
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Provision of Māori medium education
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No
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Review team on site
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June 2019
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Date of this report
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21 August 2019
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Most recent ERO reports
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Education Review March 2016
Education Review November 2012
Supplementary Review July 2010
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