St Leonards Road School

School Context

St Leonards Road School is a multicultural school in Kelston, Auckland, catering for students in Years 1 to 6. The roll includes 20 percent who identify as Māori, 23 percent Samoan, and 13 percent Tongan. There are also smaller groups from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds. There has been significant roll growth across all Year levels.

The school’s stated vision is ‘Ma te mōhio ka ora, ma te ora ka mōhio, Learn to Live, Live to Learn’. This is underpinned by the values of ‘Belonging - Whānau whānui’, ‘Excellence - Hiranga’, ‘Show Integrity - Mana tangata’, and ‘To Persevere - Manawanui’.

School priorities are to improve student achievement, develop a quality learning environment, and refine school organisation and systems. These priorities are underpinned by acknowledgment of Māori as tangata whenua and recognition of the many diverse cultures within the school. The school’s 2019 achievement targets focus on accelerating students’ progress in writing across all Year levels.

Recent changes in the senior leadership team include the introduction of a new, extended middle-leadership tier. The board is currently appointing a new principal. There are likely to be further changes with a complete change of trustees in the 2019 board elections. Recent developments include a new system that clusters students into two whānau groupings. School leaders and teachers have reviewed and refined the school values and there have been some building improvements.

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

• achievement in reading, writing, mathematics and other learning areas
• progress and achievement for students with diverse needs
• specific learning programmes such as Reading Recovery and ‘Speedy Bee’.

Whole-school professional learning and development (PLD) for 2019 is focused on written language.

The school is part of the Te Whānau Mātauranga O Kerehana Kāhui Ako | Community of Learning (CoL) which has a focus on cultural responsiveness and impact coaching for teachers.

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 working towards equitable and excellent outcomes for all students. The board and school leaders are aware that there have been no significant shifts in student achievement levels in the last four years.

While the majority of students achieve at expected levels in reading, writing and mathematics, disparity between the achievement of girls and boys continues. Overall achievement for both Māori and Pacific students has continued to show a slight downward trend over time.

Leaders and teachers use good assessment approaches to track, monitor and analyse achievement data. This has helped to identify pockets of student progress, achievement and acceleration at all levels. Assessment of student achievement is moderated within the school, and moderation is also being developed across the Kāhui Ako.

School leaders and teachers support learners to achieve the school’s valued outcomes. Most learners:

• can demonstrate the school values
• are building skills and attitudes that support citizenship and sportsmanship
• are respectful of themselves and others, and have a strong sense of pride in the school.

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

The school is actively implementing strategies to support accelerated learning for Māori and other students who need this. Ngā Raranga o Kerehana, a culturally responsive framework, has been developed through the Kāhui Ako to support these strategies.

School leaders and trustees prioritise raising achievement levels overall, as well as addressing disparities in achievement for Māori students, and for boys in reading, writing and mathematics. In order to address these disparities, they have initiated whole school PLD in writing and effective teacher practice.

Extensive interventions and programmes support those students with additional learning needs. Leaders and teachers are highly responsive and collaborative in providing individualised support where needed.

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?

Areas of board stewardship and the school’s leadership and culture, support progress towards the school achieving excellence and equity for its students.

The board represents and serves the school’s education community well. Trustees identify with the school values and culture. They have been active in establishing a community engagement group, and strongly value ongoing positive relationships with parents/whānau. Trustees bring a variety of strengths to their role and contribute to school decision making. The board effectively meets its statutory requirements.

Leaders strategically build teacher capability and leadership through evaluation, inquiry and PLD. They actively promote and grow relational trust, participation and collaboration at every level of the school community. This is helping to create an orderly and supportive environment conducive to student learning and wellbeing.

The school’s organisational culture promotes inquiry, knowledge building and evaluation. Leaders facilitate engagement with external evaluation and with the wider education community. Effective communication across the school supports teachers to share new knowledge that promotes improvement.

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

Over time, the board, leaders and teachers have developed strong relationships with parents/whānau. The school is now ready to refine and deepen these relationships with a focus on creating learning partnerships. This would involve teachers helping parents provide relevant learning opportunities, resources and support for their children at home. It would also require teachers to develop more in-depth knowledge of home practices and interests that could be incorporated into school activities to make learning more relevant and authentic for students.

An important next step is to strengthen teacher practices that effectively support and promote students’ understanding of, and decision making about, their own learning. This would include teachers continuing to provide opportunities for increasing students’ understanding and use of the learning progressions.

Leaders acknowledge the need to continue building professional capability and collective capacity in order to support the achievement of equity and excellence. They recognise the importance of embedding team leaders’ skill and competence to help teachers accelerate the learning progress of target students.

To further strengthen the board’s functioning and sustainability, trustees should establish processes for annually assessing the board’s effectiveness and for formal succession planning.

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 Vulnerable Children Act 2014.

4 ERO’s Overall Judgement

On the basis of the findings of this review, ERO’s overall evaluation judgement of St Leonards Road School’s performance in achieving valued outcomes for its students is: Developing.

5 Going forward

Key strengths of the school

For sustained improvement and future learner success, the school can draw on existing strengths in:

• a supportive board that works strategically and collaboratively with school leaders to realise the school vision and values
• leadership that is cohesive and able to identify the developments necessary to realise the school’s strategic vision
• leaders’ and teachers’ willingness to use information and evaluation to promote improvement.

Next steps

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

• establishing deeper learning partnerships with parents/whānau to support all students to reach their potential
• strengthening teachers’ practices for accelerating student learning
• continuing to build professional capability and collective capacity across the school to support teacher development and improve outcomes for students.

Steve Tanner

Director Review and Improvement Services Northern

Northern Region

10 May 2019

About the school