Western Heights School (Auckland)

Western Heights School (Auckland)

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 12 months of the Education Review Office and Western Heights School (Auckland) 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 

Western Heights School (Auckland) is located in Henderson, Auckland and caters for Years 0 - 6 ākonga. The school’s vision is for all ākonga to ‘Love to Learn to Lead’, through relationships that connect learning through tamariki/children, to the whenua/land and the apōpō/future.

Western Heights School (Auckland)’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

  • Whanaungatanga – Family, Manaakitanga – Caring, Whakamana – Leadership, Whakapono – Integrity, and Tūrangawaewae – Belonging, underpin all teaching and learning.

  • Each child will achieve at least one year’s progress for one year’s learning, and target children will make accelerated progress to meet expected levels.

You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on Western Heights School (Auckland)’s website.

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate the impact of the school’s lived, and community understood kaupapa, on equitable and excellent ākonga learning outcomes.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is as follows:

  • kaimahi/all staff know their ākonga; they understand their needs; they build capability through the strong, connected relationships which directly contribute to the school’s kaupapa

  • the school’s kaupapa supports a child-centric, child-responsive curriculum which begins with play-based learning to build on learner interests in a child’s first year at school

  • explicit core values and foundational learning are prioritised drivers of the kaupapa

  • barrier free learning underpins the kaupapa which is focused on all ākonga achieving personal success

  • whānau and school partnerships, built on relational trust and aligned aspirations, underpin the school’s kaupapa and result in equitable and excellent ākonga learning outcomes.

The school expects to see the school’s kaupapa positively impacting on:

  • ākonga agency, resilience and self-determination through the school’s vision, ‘Love to Learn to Lead’

  • prioritisation and monitoring of literacy and numeracy practices that best enable a minimum of one year of progress for one year’s learning in foundational skills

  • teacher expertise being realised and utilised across the school to further develop schoolwide innovative practices

  • sustainability of practices and processes, including whānau partnerships that support ākonga to experience success in who they are

  • research-based practice focused on further enhancing the school’s kaupapa and monitoring the improvement journey.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to evaluate the impact of the school’s kaupapa on equitable and excellent learning outcomes:

  • ākonga who live the school’s culture and can articulate a strong sense of school belonging and care

  • kaiako who authentically know tamariki interests, and what they bring to their learning from day 1 of being at school, who focus on learning engagement for all ākonga

  • flexible, connected, collaborative and innovative kaiako and rangatira

  • high capability in school leadership who encourage staff to live the vision

  • partnership and relational trust are embedded across the school’s learning community.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

  • establishing an evaluation planning and development team

  • reviewing a range of evaluation success criteria relevant to each stakeholder group, linked to the school’s kaupapa

  • set out the evaluation parameters by determining key questions, types of data gathering and synthesis expectations.

  • evaluate what is currently successful and impactful and be able to show evidence as to why.

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 its progress to the community. The next public report on ERO’s website will be a Te Ara Huarau | School Evaluation Report, due within three years.

Shelley Booysen
Director of Schools

14 November 2023 

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

Western Heights School (Auckland)

Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report 2023 to 2026

As of March 2023, the Western Heights School (Auckland) 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 Western Heights School (Auckland), 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

14 November 2023

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

Western Heights School (Auckland)

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

14 November 2023

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

Western Heights School (Auckland) - 14/07/2017

Summary

The school’s roll of 635 children comprises 12 percent Māori, 31 percent NZ Pākehā, eight percent from Pacific nations and 35 percent from Asian nations. The school celebrates diversity, is responsive to children’s wellbeing and learning, and caters well for children who need additional learning support.

The board demonstrates a professional approach to its stewardship role and consists of experienced and new trustees. Trustees and senior leaders have made very good use of the findings of ERO’s 2014 evaluation and have sustained and continued to make very good progress in relation to the school’s strategic goals.The school is a member in the Waitakere Community of Learning|Kāhui Ako (CoL). School leaders have established pathways within Western Heights School and the wider Waitakere CoL to build coherence and capability for the benefit of children.

How well is the school achieving equitable outcomes for all children?

Western Heights School responds very effectively to Māori and other children whose learning and achievement need acceleration. Achievement information is used very well by leaders and teachers to shape programmes to accelerate children’s progress.

The school is responding well to all children who need to make accelerated progress in order to meet the National Standards. The school’s curriculum and teaching programmes are very effectively supporting children to achieve the valued outcomes identified in the school’s charter and The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC).

The school’s mission, vision and values firmly underpin all school systems and processes. They are also clearly enacted through the curriculum and are well communicated to children and the school community. As a result the school’s processes and actions are well aligned, and are very effectively helping to achieve equity and excellence for all children.

Children are achieving excellent educational outcomes. School performance has been sustained over time through well-focused, embedded processes and practices. This school is successfully addressing in-school disparity in educational outcomes. Further deepening internal evaluation through the use of evaluation research, and continuing to strengthen connections with whānau Māori are likely to enhance the school’s already successful processes and practices.

ERO is likely to carry out the next review in four-to-five years.

Equity and excellence

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

Western Heights School responds very effectively to Māori and other children whose learning and achievement need acceleration.

The school’s mission, vision and values firmly underpin all school systems and processes. The vision is for children to be ‘caring, creative critical, confident, connected and to contribute’. Respect and ‘Bucket filling’ and ‘pay it forward’ values are further key features of the school’s ethos. The vision and values are very effectively enacted through leadership and teaching programmes.

The school’s curriculum is responsive, child-centred and builds on children’s interests. Achievement information over the last three years shows that children achieve well. More than 80 percent of children are at or above National Standards in reading and writing and over 90 percent in mathematics. Approximately 90 percent of children who leave the school at Year 6 are either at or above the National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics.

Children whose progress in reading, writing or mathematics needs acceleration, are very effectively identified, tracked, and monitored. Senior leaders have identified some disparity in achievement for Māori children in reading and writing. The school is successfully continuing to reduce this.

School leaders maintain a strong line of sight across the progress and achievement of all children. Systems for identifying, tracking and monitoring children’s progress are well established and used. Teachers analyse assessment information well to plan and implement additional support programmes to meet children’s needs.

The school’s varied intervention programmes and initiatives are helping to accelerate the progress of children who are at risk of not achieving. Achievement information shows that all children are benefiting from these initiatives and that most target children have made accelerated progress in both reading and writing. Disparity for Māori in writing is reducing. The overall achievement of boys in reading and writing continues to lift. Leaders and teachers plan to continue a focus on writing and to evaluate the impact that each acceleration programme and initiative has on children’s progress and achievement.

The school has effective internal processes for moderating assessment information and ensuring teachers’ overall judgements against the National Standards are dependable. Teachers use a variety of assessment information and share this information with each other when determining their judgements.

Children requiring additional learning support are well supported by the Special Education Needs Coordinator. The coordinator works collaboratively with teachers, and learning assistants to deliver a wide variety of programmes to improve children’s learning outcomes and accelerate their progress. 

School conditions supporting equity and excellence

What school processes are effective in enabling achievement of equity and excellence?

The school’s processes and actions very effectively help achieve equity and excellence for all children. They include:

  • a well-established culture of high expectations

  • highly effective school leadership that has established an environment that is conducive to children’s learning and wellbeing

  • a meaningful curriculum design that is responsive to context, and children’s heritage, language, culture and identity

  • strong partnerships between home, school and community

  • a professional teaching community, committed to using educational research and ongoing learning and improvement

  • a strategic approach to accelerating students’ achievement.

School leadership is focused on children’s learning in a caring, respectful and inclusive community. Leaders promote and participate in teacher professional development programmes. They have successfully established and embedded a strong professional learning culture. Leaders use current educational research to enhance teachers’ collaborative practice and their capacity to deliver the curriculum.

Very strong learning-centred relationships are evident between the school and parents. The board, leaders and teachers have built relational trust. There is active collaboration with the school’s diverse communities to enhance children’s learning outcomes. Numerous communication strategies are used to inform, engage and involve parents and whānau in their children’s learning. An on-line reporting portal for parents is a special feature of the school. This ‘real time’ sharing and reporting initiative is highly valued by the parent community.

Children engage well in learning programmes. Teachers provide positive learning environments. A broad, responsive, and integrated curriculum is collaboratively planned and effectively builds on children’s interests. An ‘inquiry model’ is used well to scaffold children’s thinking and skills particularly in relation to science and social science learning.

Children benefit from numerous opportunities to ‘share and shine’ their experiences and successes. They enjoy experiences which include an extensive arts curriculum and provision of a range of sporting, cultural and leadership learning opportunities. The curriculum promotes children taking ownership of their own learning and incorporates e-learning and information communication technologies effectively as tools for learning. Leaders plan to review and refine aspects of curriculum mapping and this is likely to extend the school’s capacity to meet children’s specific needs.

There is a focus in the curriculum on the bicultural heritage of Aotearoa New Zealand. Leaders have established an opportunity for a teacher to lead culturally responsive practice within the school and with other schools in the CoL. Children and teachers benefit from a part-time teacher’s te reo Māori classes. Children have many opportunities to participate proudly in kapa haka and participate respectfully at pōwhiri. The inclusive nature of the school promotes a strong sense of turangawaewae. The school plans to further enhance these connections for children and their whānau.

The board is focused on children’s learning and trustees are well informed about achievement trends. They make good use of achievement information to make decisions about resourcing learning programmes. The board regularly reviews its own progress and uses information gained from ongoing staff and parent consultation feedback to inform change.

Sustainable development for equity and excellence

What further developments are needed in school processes to achieve equity and excellence?

Western Heights School is very well placed to sustain its current good practices.

Agreed next steps include:

  • making greater use of evaluation research to further deepen internal evaluation
  • continuing to strengthen whānau connections to help build and further improve strategies for accelerating the achievement of target Māori learners in literacy.

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

  • 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

Provision for international students

The school is a signatory to the Education (Pastoral Care of International Students) Code of Practice 2016 (the Code) established under section 238F of the Education Act 1989. The school has attested that it complies with all aspects of the Code.

One international student was enrolled at the time of the ERO review.

The school provides high quality pastoral care, responds very well to parental aspirations and communicates progress and achievement regularly and effectively.

Going forward

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

Children are achieving excellent educational outcomes. School performance has been sustained over time through well-focused, embedded processes and practices. This school is successfully addressing in-school disparity in educational outcomes.

Agreed next steps are to:

  • make use of evaluation research in order to further deepen internal evaluation processes

  • continue strengthening connections with whanau Māori to enhance the school’s already successful processes and practices.

ERO is likely to carry out the next review in four-to-five years.

Violet Tu’uga

Stevenson Deputy Chief Review Officer Northern (Acting)

14 July 2017

About the school 

Location

Henderson, Auckland

Ministry of Education profile number

1567

School type

Contributing (Years 1 to 6)

School roll

635

Gender composition

Boys 54% Girls 46%

Ethnic composition

Māori
Pākehā
Chinese
Indian
Samoan
South East Asian
African
Filipino
Middle Eastern
other European
other

12%
31%
15%
15%
7%
3%
2%
2%
2%
3%
8%

Provision of Māori medium education

No

Review team on site

May 2017

Date of this report

14 July 2017

Most recent ERO report(s)

Education Review
Education Review
Education Review

October 2014
October 2011
June 2008