Egmont Village School

School Context

Egmont Village School caters for students in Years 1 to 8. At the time of this review, the roll was 156, with 17% of students identifying as Māori.

The school’s valued outcomes for students are: an ‘I can’ attitude, a creative and curious mind, a desire to achieve their personal best and ‘give everything a go’. Values of: honesty (matatika), caring (manaaki), pride (kia kaha), teamwork (mahi tahi tatou), respect (whakaute) and effort (ngakia) are evident throughout the school.

The school’s achievement focus is on children attaining high levels of competency in literacy and numeracy.

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

• reading, writing and mathematics.

There have been changes in board membership and staffing since the June 2015 ERO report. The leadership team has remained unchanged. Since the previous ERO report, leaders and teachers have participated in professional learning and development (PLD) in social skills and mathematics. Trustees have had some stewardship training. Property development includes the purchase and reroofing of the hall, the refurbishment of two classrooms and the development of an outdoor classroom.

The school is a member of Kāhui Ako o te Kōhanga Moa – Inglewood.

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 yet to achieve equity and excellence for all children. Most students achieve at or above school expectations in reading, writing and mathematics. While the majority of Māori students achieve at or above expectations in reading, writing and mathematics, reported data indicates some disparity in achievement for these learners, particularly in mathematics. Raising the overall achievement of Māori, and boys in writing is an identified focus for 2018.

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

Systems and processes to promote and support Māori and other learners whose progress and achievement require acceleration need to be further developed.

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 vision and values are reflected through the positive school tone. Children are knowledgeable about these. The values are highly visible in classrooms and learning and teaching programmes.

Classrooms are welcoming, settled environments and interactions are respectful. There is a clear focus on student wellbeing. Staff know their students well. Teachers care about, and promote students’ participation and success in learning.

Students are given many meaningful opportunities to learn. Senior students are encouraged to take on leadership roles within the school and extend their learning through hands-on research. This year they are involved in a local wetlands research project.

A wide range of strategies and resources is used to support students with additional educational needs. Their progress is regularly monitored, tracked and reported. External support is effectively accessed and used.

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

The school’s annual targets and assessment practices are not sufficiently developed to promote acceleration for those who require it. Targets need to be based on analysed schoolwide achievement data. This should enable trustees and leaders to more clearly identify student groups and cohorts requiring acceleration, inform resourcing decisions and track and measure the impact of teaching interventions on student progress.

The school has yet to sustain and improve systems and processes to achieve valued outcomes for all students. Internal evaluation, teaching as inquiry, appraisal and moderation processes need to be strengthened. This should lead to more systematic and deeper evaluation in relation to school targets and priorities.

The school has appropriately begun a review of their curriculum. A key next step is to develop an overarching document to provide expectations and guidance for teaching practice and learning. This should be supported by community consultation that draws together the school’s vision, values, unique place in the community, its whakapapa and history.

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.

Actions for compliance

ERO identified non-compliance in relation to health consultation, surrender and retention and language provision for Years 7 and 8 students.

In order to address this, the board of trustees must:

• comply with the requirement to adopt a statement on the delivery of the health curriculum at least once in every two years, after consultation with the school community 
  [Section 60B Education Act 1989]
• comply with the requirement to adopt a statement to develop policies, practices and procedures on surrender and retention of student property. 
  [Sections 136AAA, to 139AAH Education Act 1989] and the Education (Surrender, Retention and Search) Rules 2013

To improve performance the school should:

• work towards offering students opportunities for learning second or subsequent languages (Years 7 - 10). 
  [The New Zealand Curriculum]

4 Going forward

Key strengths of the school

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

• its vision and values shared by children, staff and trustees that underpin the school’s culture, teaching and learning

• respectful, caring relationships that support and contribute to learning success

• the provision of a range of learning opportunities that contribute to a broad curriculum.

Next steps

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

• a strategic focus and targeted planning to accelerate learning [ERO will monitor and discuss progress with the school]

• strengthening internal evaluation schoolwide to better target and resource student learning [The school has requested that ERO provide an internal evaluation workshop for trustees, senior leaders and teachers]

• the curriculum, to give priority to students’ culture and identity, provide clearly stated expectations of teacher practice and guide schoolwide teaching and learning.

ERO’s next external evaluation process and timing

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

Alan Wynyard

Director Review and Improvement Services Central

Te Tai Pokapū - Central Region

12 September 2018

About the school