How we work with you
- We are interested in what is working well in your school/kura and what can improve.
- We work differently with each school/kura according to its context, culture and needs.
- We work with you to evaluate how well things are going in your school/kura, then we help you to use the findings to decide your improvement plans and actions.
- We support you to strengthen your internal evaluation practice to evaluate and report on your own progress.
How much and how often we work with you will reflect your strengths and focus for improvement.
We work with you over time
We use our evaluative expertise to support your school’s continuous improvement journey. How we do this will depend on your school’s individual context and needs. We seek to work with your strategic and annual plans, internal evaluation and continuous improvement priorities.
We work alongside you to build your evaluation capability, undertake evaluation and assist in the use of evaluation findings. Our evaluators work with you as an evaluation partner over time and in different ways.
They work with you to build an evaluation-based, professional relationship focused on improving outcomes for all learners. They, like you, will be mindful of equity and excellence as we work together to make a bigger difference for all learners. Your evaluation partner is your key ERO contact person.
Our evaluation approach is based on your participation and framed by Te Tiriti o Waitangi
As we work with you through the evaluation process, we are committed to the Māori concepts of:
- Whakawhanaungatanga: Supporting each other to grow and learn
- Mahi tahi: Doing the best for each other
- Poutokomanawa: High-quality trusted evaluation for improvement.
These values underpin the way we seek to work with you and your communities.
We will work alongside you and others participating in the evaluation process. We will use evaluation to support school improvement, so that all learners have equitable and excellent opportunities to be successful.
An important feature of this approach is Māori succeeding as Māori.
Supporting your internal evaluation practice
We support you to strengthen your internal evaluation practice. How we do this is tailored specifically to your school. It includes ways to:
- do evaluation;
- use evaluation findings to plan and work on improvement over time; and then to
- find out what difference this has made for your learners
Keeping your school/kura and community well informed
We work with you to keep everyone in your school and community well informed. There are several different ways of reporting and in some cases the audience for reports will be different.
The public has an interest in ERO’s reports. Some reports will be published on ERO’s website and others shared with a specific audience, for example, your school community.
Keeping stakeholders informed is an expectation of the review process. Together we will ensure that they know about the evaluation, what we are finding and the priorities moving forward.
Te Ara Huarau
Te Ara Huarau recognises school leaders as key agents for change.
Te Ara Huarau is centered on the role of the school in:
- developing a sound strategic direction towards equity and excellence in outcomes for all learners
- embedding improvement cycles which use evaluation, planning, action and monitoring progress to lift school performance to achieve equity and excellence.
ERO’s role is to support every school’s continuous improvement journey with our evaluative expertise. Our goal is to work with you in a way that demonstrates our values of poutokomanawa, whakawhanaungatanga and mahi tahi.
There are three phases in our review process:
- Hauhake - Evaluation for improvement
- Parekereke - Planning for improvement
- Ngāki/Atawhai - Implementing for improvement
The Board Assurance Statement and Self-Audit Checklists
As part of the review process, we ask boards to attest to meeting regulatory and legislative requirements. Boards do this by completing the Board Assurance Statement (BAS) and Self-Audit Checklists.
You can read more about the BAS here.
Rumaki/bilingual units and classrooms
We are interested in how you are supporting the quality of teaching and learning through the provision of te reo Māori in rumaki level 1 and bilingual level 2 classrooms. We will be in touch to carry out an evaluation of the rumaki and/or bilingual unit, using our Te Pou Reo improvement framework and a specialist team of reo speakers.
International students
If your school is a signatory to the Tertiary and International Learners Code of Practice, we will ask you to discuss this with us during the review process.
We are interested in how you support any international students in your school.
Read more about how we review schools/kura with international students.
School hostels
If your school has a hostel for students, we will ask you to check your compliance with hostel requirements and discuss this with us during the review process.
We are interested in how you support students in your hostel.
Read more about how we review school hostels.
Evaluation tools and resources you can use
We published these tools and resources for you to use for evaluation for improvement in your school. We will use them as we work with you.
- School Improvement Framework
- School Evaluation Indicators: Effective Practice for Improvement and Learner Success
- Effective Internal Evaluation for Improvement
- Wellbeing for Success: a resource for schools
- Effective School Evaluation: how to do and use internal evaluation for improvement
- Internal Evaluation: Good Practice
- School Trustees Booklet: Helping you ask the right questions
What happens after the evaluation
We will prepare and send you a draft school report.
You can send us your comments on the draft report to advise us of any errors of fact or ask about the basis for the judgements, with documentation to support your comments.
We will contact you about your comments and any changes to the report. Once this is done, we will send you the confirmed report and publish it on our website.