Manuka Primary School

Manuka Primary School

School Evaluation Report

Tēnā koutou e mau manawa rahi ki te kaupapa e aro ake nei, ko te tamaiti te pūtake o te kaupapa. Mā wai rā e kawe, mā tātau katoa.

We acknowledge the collective effort, responsibility and commitment by all to ensure that the child remains at the heart of the matter.

Context

Manuka Primary School is located on Auckland’s North Shore and provides education for students in Years 1 to 6. The school’s vision of Inspiring Today’s Learners for Tomorrow’s World is underpinned by the three core values of Be Respectful|Whakaute, Be Resilient|Manawaroa, and Be Responsible|Takohanga. 

The school has two Wilson School satellite units onsite

There are two parts to this report.

Part A: An evaluative summary of learner success and school conditions to inform the school board’s future strategic direction, including any education in Rumaki/bilingual settings. 

Part B: The improvement actions prioritised for the school’s next evaluation cycle. 

Part A: Current State

The following findings are to inform the school’s future priorities for improvement.

Learner Success and Wellbeing 

Learner outcomes are increasingly equitable and excellent.
  • Most learners achieve at and above expected curriculum levels for mathematics, and the large majority of learners achieve these expectations in reading and writing.
  • The school continues to respond to inequity in achievement for some groups of learners, particularly in writing and mathematics; addressing this remains an identified priority for leaders and teachers. 
  • Learners have a strong sense of wellbeing and belonging; they experience a positive and inclusive learning environment.
  • The majority of learners attend school regularly; the school is not yet meeting the 2024 Ministry of Education target for regular attendance.

Conditions to support learner success

Effective leadership works collaboratively and strategically to improve outcomes for learners. 
  • Strategic leadership determines areas for school improvement and actions are carefully planned to achieve positive outcomes for learners. 
  • Leaders create a culture of collaborative inquiry among staff where they question, discuss and adapt teaching practices to effectively respond to learner strengths and needs. 
  • Shared leadership responsibility ensures that systems, practices and teaching and learning approaches are clear and consistent across the school. 
Responsive, engaging teaching practices create positive and respectful learning environments. 
  • Teachers plan and implement highly engaging learning experiences that support students’ many different needs and interests; staff know their learners well, and relationships are warm and respectful. 
  • Learners speak confidently about their current learning goals and are well supported by teaching staff to take increasing ownership of their learning. 
  • Leaders and teachers continue to refine the school’s localised curriculum so that it better reflects the aspirations of learners and the wider community.
The school continues to strengthen and refine systems and processes that promote positive outcomes for all learners. 
  • Learners requiring additional support are identified promptly and provided with effective support that enables them to learn and progress at an appropriate pace. 
  • Parents are valued partners in their child’s education; regular communication from leaders and teachers ensures that parents and whānau are aware of their child’s learning goals and progress. 
  • Te reo Māori and tikanga Māori are increasingly integrated into teaching and learning across the school, building staff and learner confidence in their knowledge and understanding of Aotearoa New Zealand.
  • Leaders gather a range of achievement information; they are strengthening their analysis of this to ensure they respond effectively to the needs of all learners.

Part B: Where to next? 

The agreed next steps for the school are to: 

  • continue to develop effective strategies and initiatives to improve the attendance, progress and achievement of all learners
  • refine the localised curriculum, reflecting the aspirations of learners and the wider community and integrating the new literacy and mathematics requirements 
  • strengthen schoolwide analysis and use of achievement information to effectively respond to learner needs.

The agreed actions for the next improvement cycle and timeframes are as follows.

Within six months:

  • consult with whānau and the wider community to gather their input and aspirations to inform the refinement of the localised curriculum
  • continue to provide professional learning opportunities that strengthen teachers’ understanding and use of the new literacy and mathematics requirements 
  • investigate high quality examples of schoolwide data analysis and design a framework for reporting that shows learner progress and achievement over time.

Every six months:

  • review the impact of initiatives to improve students’ regular attendance and identify further action
  • monitor and report to the board on rates of progress for all students at risk of underachieving to further inform effective teaching and learning practice.

Annually:

  • review and report to the board on student attendance, progress and achievement information to support ongoing strategic decision making
  • evaluate the progress made with refining the localised curriculum to inform future planning and action.

Actions taken against these next steps are expected to result in:

  • improved attendance, progress and achievement for all learners
  • a responsive localised curriculum that provides high quality teaching and learning and captures the aspirations of learners and the wider community
  • effective use of schoolwide student learning information to continue to improve student attendance, progress and achievement.

ERO’s role will be to support the school in its evaluation for improvement cycle to improve outcomes for all learners. The next public report on ERO’s website will be a School Evaluation Report and is due within three years.

Me mahi tahi tonu tātau, kia whai oranga a tātau tamariki
Let’s continue to work together for the greater good of all children

Shelley Booysen
Director of Schools

28 January 2025

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

Manuka Primary School

Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report 2024 to 2027 

As of August 2024, the Manuka Primary School Board has attested to the following regulatory and legislative requirements:

Board Administration

Yes

Curriculum

Yes

Management of Health, Safety and Welfare

Yes

Personnel Management

Yes

Finance

Yes

Assets

Yes

Further Information

For further information please contact Manuka Primary 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.

Shelley Booysen
Director of Schools

28 January 2025

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

Manuka Primary School

Provision for International Students Report

Background

The Education Review Office reviews schools that are signatories to the Education (Pastoral Care of Tertiary and International Learners) Code of Practice 2021 established under section 534 of the Education and Training Act 2020.

Findings

The school is a signatory to the Education (Pastoral Care of Tertiary and International Learners) Code of Practice 2021 established under section 534 of the Education and Training Act 2020. The school has attested that it complies with all aspects of the Code. 

No international students were enrolled at the time of the ERO review.

Shelley Booysen
Director of Schools

28 January 2025

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

Manuka Primary School

School Context

Manuka Primary School, located in Glenfield on Auckland’s North Shore, provides for children in Years 1 to 6 and serves an ethnically diverse community. The school roll has remained steady. Approximately 19 percent of children are Māori and 10 percent have Pacific heritage. There are two Wilson School satellite classes on site.

The school’s vision and mission statements are about inspiring learners for tomorrow’s world, providing accepting, supportive environments, and encouraging students to be lifelong learners who strive to reach their potential. The school promotes respect - whakaute, resilience - manawaroa, and responsibility - takohanga.

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

  • reading, writing and numeracy achievement
  • attendance, stand downs and suspensions
  • health and safety
  • learning support
  • wider curriculum areas.

Since the 2016 ERO review, a new principal and one deputy principal have been appointed from within the school. A second deputy principal was appointed from another school. Two team leaders from the junior and senior school are also part of the leadership team. New staff appointed include teachers who are new to the teaching profession.

The school is a member of the Kaipātiki Community of Learning| Kāhui 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 making very good progress in achieving equitable outcomes for all children. Most children, across all cultural groups, are achieving at expected levels in reading, writing and mathematics.

Over the past three years, most children have consistently achieved at the expected New Zealand Curriculum level in reading, writing and mathematics. Overall achievement has been trending upwards in the last three years.

Māori and Pacific students consistently perform well in mathematics and have better achievement than other groups of students in reading and writing. There is some disparity for Pacific students in mathematics and for boys in writing and mathematics.

The school has identified groups of students whose achievement needs accelerating. Leaders and teachers set specific targets and put useful interventions in place to support these students. The challenge now is for school leaders to more deliberately gather and use schoolwide achievement information to increase in-school parity.

Students achieve well in relation to other valued outcomes. They demonstrate school values, and use self-assessment and the “Manuka Learner” profile.

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

The school has very good systems in place to identify children who need targeted support, including those with additional needs. School achievement data show that some individuals and groups of children have made accelerated progress.

The school offers a number of interventions and programmes to support students who are at risk of underachieving. Teachers and leaders meet regularly to discuss target students and to share practices. The board of trustees provides sufficient resourcing for teacher aides, teacher professional learning and development, and digital and other learning resources. Some programmes have proven to be successful in contributing to students making accelerated learning.

Leaders now need to build teacher capacity, schoolwide, to identify successful acceleration strategies and to use context specific approaches to develop teacher knowledge and adaptive expertise.

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?

The principal provides strategic, systematic and organised leadership. Leaders collaboratively develop and enact the school’s vision, values and goals. They establish an orderly, supportive and caring environment that is conducive to student learning. Leaders support collaboration, risk-taking and openness to change and improvement.

A key feature of the school’s development has been a focus on building professional capability and collective capacity. There is high relational trust between school leaders, teachers, trustees, staff and parents. This provides a safe and supportive environment for teachers to take risks, to experiment with innovative practices and to build professional expertise that enhances student learning. Effective induction processes support new staff. Sound schoolwide systems and processes support student learning well.

A more responsive curriculum and increasingly effective teaching practices are promoting in-school equity, excellence and acceleration of learning. Senior leaders and teachers have broadened the curriculum in response to student input and ideas. They are developing a curriculum that builds on students’ strengths and interests. A key aspect of this is a focus on increasing students’ ownership of their learning through more effective use of assessment practices. Greater use of digital devices is supporting students’ learning.

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

Further development is needed in establishing frameworks for internal evaluation. These should include schoolwide collaborative sense-making practices. The aim should be building teacher capacity to identify, and effectively create, the conditions that support equity and excellence for all children. Leaders and teachers should continue to gather and use relevant schoolwide information to support this development.

School leaders and teachers should also:

  • continue to consider ways to increase students’ sense of ownership in their role as learners
  • increase learning connections with whānau and the wider community through the further development of a culturally responsive curriculum.

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 Mānuka Primary 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:

  • leadership that enacts the school’s vision, values and goals
  • leaders who encourage risk-taking, innovation and are open to change
  • a supportive, collaborative learning environment that is based on high relational trust
  • assessment practices that are increasing students’ ownership of their learning.

Next steps

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

  • developing teacher capacity to strengthen internal evaluation
  • increasing opportunities for students to make decisions about their learning
  • developing a more culturally responsive curriculum.

Steve Tanner

Director Review and Improvement Services Northern

Northern Region

11 July 2019

About the school

LocationGlenfield, Auckland
Ministry of Education profile number1350
School typeContributing Years 1 -6
School roll297
Gender compositionBoys 51% Girls 49%
Ethnic compositionMāori 16% 
NZ European/Pākehā 36%
Indian 10% 
Filipino 7% 
Chinese 6% 
Tongan 6% 
Samoan 5%
other ethnic groups 14%
Students with Ongoing Resourcing Funding (ORS)Yes
Provision of Māori medium educationNo
Review team on siteMay 2019
Date of this report11 July 2019
Most recent ERO report(s)Education Review May 2016
Education Review November 2011 
Education Review August 2008