Onerahi School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 18 months of the Education Review Office and Onerahi 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 

Onerahi School is in Whangārei and provides education for students in Years 1 to 6. Since the previous ERO review, the board has appointed a new principal and deputy principal.

Onerahi School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

• strengthen the Onerahi School community’s hauora

• define the kaupapa of teaching and learning

• embed te reo Māori me ōna tikanga.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how well the conditions contribute to students experiencing learning that is relevant and meets their goals, strengths and successes.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is to:

• identify what relevant and meaningful learning experiences look like for learners

• strengthen the connection between student learning and explicit teaching

• develop a shared understanding among teachers, students, whānau and the community about what their expected outcomes are for all learners

• know the knowledge, skills and strategies students need as they transition through school.

The school expects to see excellent and equitable outcomes for all learners. Teachers will consistently use effective teaching strategies and practices that provide students, including Māori and Pacific learners, with relevant and meaningful learning experiences. Every student will receive learning that relates to their strengths and who they are as learners, experiencing growth and success in their learning.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to ensure students experience learning that is relevant and meets their goals, strengths and successes:

• the school’s strategic priorities are collaboratively planned, implemented and refined

• learners with diverse and complex needs are well supported, included and resourced

• the school’s learning culture is characterised by strong and meaningful student, teacher and whānau relationships.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• embedding a shared understanding of expected outcomes for all learners to ensure students receive consistently relevant and meaningful learning experiences

• strengthening the use of evaluation, inquiry and collaborative approaches among teaching staff to enhance the connection between student learning and explicit teaching

• deepening learning-focused relationships and connections with whānau to ensure they are active partners in their child’s learning and that they know their child’s goals, strengths and successes.

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.

Filivaifale Jason Swann
Director Review and Improvement Services (Northern)
Northern Region | Te Tai Raki

19 August 2022 

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

1 Context

Onerahi School has a long-established history in the Whangarei area. This mainly bicultural school caters for learners in Years 1 to 6. The school roll continues to grow substantially each year, particularly in the last six months, and there is increased ethnic diversity amongst children. The experienced principal continues to lead the school well. A new deputy principal was appointed very recently. The school's staff in general has remained relatively constant over time.

2 Equity and excellence

The vision and valued outcomes defined by the school for all children are combined in the statement, Together we shape our future (Tahi te hanga i tātou i tō tātou ananahi). The three school charter goals are collaboration (mahi tahi), ownership (mana) and capabilities (kaha). These goals are expanded into sub-goals to guide the school's vision of thoughtful, creative, inspired learners.

The school’s achievement information shows that from 2013 to 2015 there was significant overall accelerated progress in achieving the National Standards in writing, for children across all year levels. For the same three years, data show little evidence of improvement across the school in mathematics and reading achievement. In mathematics 73 percent of all children, and 60 percent of Māori children achieved at or above the National Standards. Māori children are over-represented in the groups of students below the National Standards.

There has been persistent disparity between Māori and non-Māori children's progress and achievement over time. However, the school's analysis of 2016 data shows significant lifts in achievement in reading, writing and mathematics for nearly all Māori children. This information shows that disparity between the achievement of boys and girls is also decreasing.

Since the last ERO evaluation the school has:

• completed the Ministry of Education funded Accelerated Literacy Learning (ALL) contract
• become involved in the Accelerated Learning in Maths (ALiM) contract
• been part of the well-established local Learning Change Network (LCN)
• recently established a Ka Awatea Mana (cultural awareness) classroom that children can choose to be part of in Years 3 to 5
• built on previous internal evaluation and used carefully selected professional learning opportunities to enhance children's learning.

3 Accelerating achievement

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

The school is becoming increasingly effective in responding to Māori children whose learning and achievement need acceleration. School information for Māori children shows the positive impact of the 2016 focus on accelerating student progress.

Ongoing assessment information is very well used to identify Māori children at risk of not achieving equitable outcomes. This information is well analysed to inform appropriate and relevant programmes for these learners. The three-tiered approach to acceleration is determined by the urgency of proposed interventions.

Leaders and teachers share high expectations for equitable outcomes for Māori learners. Multi-year-level teams work collaboratively to plan and evaluate teaching strategies to improve outcomes for Māori students. Leaders and teachers have initiated meaningful conversations with Māori parents to better understand and respond to the aspirations that they have for their children.

To accelerate progress for children at risk of not achieving equitable outcomes, school leaders and teachers have:

• been very deliberate in building children's ownership of their learning
• prioritised support for children's wellbeing
• used the Ministry's ALL initiative to develop a comprehensive and coherent approach across the school
• engaged the community to build collective ownership and capability for accelerating student progress
• demonstrated their commitment to strengthen productive learning relationships with the parents and family/whānau of each child.

Teachers use well analysed information of 2016 student progress and achievement to design appropriate plans and programmes for students at risk of not making progress, for implementation in 2017.

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

The school responds very well to other children whose learning and achievement need acceleration. The small number of children with Pacific heritage achieve very well at Onerahi School.

Student achievement information is well used to identify children at risk of not achieving equitable outcomes. The board and senior leadership team continues to investigate a variety of information and strategies to build their knowledge of children's wellbeing. The school prioritises assistance for children who are not making accelerated progress to enable them to have equitable opportunities for success. Transient children are always included in the priority group so that the school can make a difference to their learning while they are in the school's care.

As for prioritised Māori learners, there is convincing evidence of accelerated progress for almost all learners towards achieving equitable outcomes, particularly in 2016.

4 School conditions

How effectively do the school’s curriculum and other organisational processes and practices develop and enact the school’s vision, values, goals and targets for equity and excellence?

The school's curriculum and other organisational processes and practices are very effective in developing and enacting the school's vision, values, goals and targets for equity and excellence. The school has an inclusive culture where diversity is respected and valued. Ownership, collaboration and sharing are strongly evident in school practices.

The child is at the centre of the school curriculum that strongly reflects the vision, values and principles of The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC). The school's values are strongly aligned with NZC key competencies and are a valued aspect of teaching and learning. The curriculum is learner-centred and each child is fully involved in creating their learning pathway. Children enjoy intellectual engagement and working collaboratively and independently. They have numerous opportunities to explore their interests.

Sound foundations for successful learning are built through the school curriculum. Children are developing responsibility for themselves and their learning. They demonstrate fairness and social justice in their interactions with others.

Children are confident in their cultural identities and languages. The school successfully encourages and supports Māori children to be successful as Māori. Tuakana/teina relationships are a strong feature in the school. Māori children are confident in a variety of leadership roles and lead the large kapa haka. Whole-school pōwhiri are enthusiastically supported by all children and teachers. School kawa is well established with children leading karakia and waiata at the beginning of the school day. Learning in the Ka Awatea Mana classroom is focused on identity and connectedness for children as successful Māori.

Professional learning and development has focused on strategic leadership at various levels within the school. The school completed the ALL contract in 2015, and became involved in the ALiM contract in 2016. The school has a lead role in a cluster of seven schools for Asian Language Learning in Schools and have been part of a well-established local Learning Change Network (LCN).

Building on previous ERO evaluations, the school has prioritised the shared ownership and implementation of charter goals and strategic planning. This shared ownership includes children, their whānau and all school staff as a community of learners.

The school has developed an innovative approach to strategic planning. Based on charter goals, it has a clearly articulated vision, focused on valued learner outcomes and the acceleration of student achievement.

Sustainability is built on respectful relationships and equitable outcomes for all learners. Key components of sustainable practice in this school include:

• the future-focused curriculum with learners as integral decision makers
• continually strengthening and clarifying evaluation, inquiry and knowledge building for improvement and innovation
• leadership that is valued, encouraged and nurtured at all levels to grow individual and collective expertise
• a sincere commitment to enabling and empowering Māori children to be successful as Māori, and building a sound foundation of positive and productive relationships with the Māori community.

The principal and leadership teams lead the school very well. The board of trustees has a sound understanding of its stewardship role and has high expectations for all children. 

5 Going forward

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

Leaders and teachers:

• know the children whose learning and achievement need to be accelerated
• respond effectively to the strengths, needs and interests of each child
• regularly evaluate how well teaching is working for these children
• act on what they know works well for each child
• build teacher capability effectively to achieve equitable outcomes for all children
• are well placed to achieve and sustain equitable and excellent outcomes for all children.

The school is well placed to continue to accelerate the progress and achievement of all children who need it.

Children in this school know they are valued owners of their learning and are very well supported. School leaders work well together to strengthen work that promotes equitable outcomes for all children. Leaders place emphasis on the effective promotion of teaching strategies that will have positive outcomes for all children. The performance management system demands a high level of teacher accountability for learner success through relevant teacher inquiries.

The school charter provides the underpinning framework for school improvement. The school is now well poised to:

• continue to develop and formalise robust self-scrutiny as a process for ongoing evaluation of board performance
• continue to sharpen and refine data analysis to particularly focus on and reflect accelerated student progress for groups and initiatives over time
• continue to build children's knowledge and ownership of their learning.

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

6 Board assurance on legal requirements

Before the review the board of trustees 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

• processes for appointing staff

• stand down, suspensions, expulsions and exclusions

• attendance

• compliance with the provisions of the Vulnerable Children Act 2014

• provision for international students.

7 Recommendations

School leaders and the board agree that they need to continue to identify successful strategies to reduce and eliminate disparities in student progress and achievement. The board and school leaders should continue to refine internal evaluation processes to evaluate how effectively the school's vision and strategic goals are implemented. 

Graham Randell

Deputy Chief Review Officer Northern

20 February 2017

About the school 

Location	Onerahi, Whangarei
Ministry of Education profile number	1062
School type	Contributing (Years 1 to 6)
School roll	504
Number of international students	0
Gender composition	Girls 54% Boys 46%
Ethnic composition	Māori Pākehā British/Irish other	37% 52% 2% 9%
Review team on site	November 2016
Date of this report	20 February 2017
Most recent ERO report(s)	Education Review Education Review Education Review	December 2013 August 2011 January 2007