The School Self Audit and Assurance Statement: A New Approach

Overview 

• The Board Assurance Statement and Self-Audit Checklists (January 2022) is a reformatting of the 2021 School Self Audit and Assurance Statement (SSAaAS).  

• The Board Assurance Statement and Self-Audit Checklists combine all the sections of the 2021 SSAaAS into one complete document.  

• A Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report will be published on ERO’s website. 

• A Guidelines document, Guidelines for Board assurance statement and self-audit checklists, is provided as reference material to support boards.

• Schools who began working with SSAaAS prior to Term 3 2021 can continue to use the documents found towards the bottom of this page under the heading "Documents for schools who began working with SSAaAS prior to Term 3 2021. 

• Schools who began working with SSAaAS after Term 3 2021 please use the The Board Assurance Statement and Self-Audit Checklists PDF. 

• These files can be found for download below:
  BAS - Self-Audit Checklists - August 2023 [DOCX, 347.96 KB]
  Guidelines for Board Assurance Statement - August 2023 [PDF, 347.96 KB] 

• Schools who began working with SSAaAS prior to Term 3 2021 can continue to use the documents found towards the bottom of this page under the heading "Documents for schools who began working with SSAaAS prior to Term 3 2021". 

Schools working with ERO since Term 3, 2021  

• Your ERO Evaluation Partner is there to help you through this process and to clarify anything that your Board is unsure about. They will also want to verify specific aspects that potentially have a high impact on student safety and wellbeing.  

• As from Term 3 2021, the full Board Assurance and Attestation process will be completed in the first six months.  

• Doing this early in the process enables your school time to identify and address any areas of non-compliance identified or to improve practice where necessary.  

• At the end of six months a public report will be posted on ERO’s website. The first of these reports were published in December 2021. 

• Reports on ERO’s website share with the public the Board’s attestation to meeting regulatory and legislative requirements and progress towards addressing any non-compliances.  

What remains the same for schools who began working with ERO prior to Term 3, 2021?  

• Your ERO Evaluation Partner will discuss your school's unique context with you. 

• Ideally the SSAaAS should be fully completed by the end of Term 2, 2022.  

What’s the same for all schools? 

1. All the questions are referenced to the most recent Board Assurance Statement. That is the source document.  

2. Schools are asked to answer each question with a Yes/No/Unsure.  

3. Your Evaluation Partner will follow up key entries that relate to student safety and any questions you have or areas where you have entered “unsure”   

4. The Board Chair and Principal sign the attestation (the Assurance Statement) at the front of the Board Assurance Statement or in the introduction section of SSAaAS.  

5. All schools will receive a public report on ERO’s website in due course.  

Documents for schools who began working with SSAaAS prior to Term 3 2021 

The School Self Audit and Assurance Statement consists of 7 MS Word files. Here are the links to download each of the files.

• Introduction to the School Self Audit and Assurance Statement [DOCX, 29 KB]
• Board administration checklist [DOCX, 89 KB]
• Curriculum checklist [DOCX, 101 KB]
• Health, safety and welfare checklist [DOCX, 118 KB]
• Personnel checklist [DOCX,  100 KB]
• Finance checklist [DOCX, 90 KB]
• Asset management checklist [DOCX, 81 KB]

Request for feedback

We are keen to receive feedback on the new format. Please share this directly with your Evaluation Partner or email comments to ERO info@ero.govt.nz.