Motu School

Education institution number:
2616
School type:
Full Primary
School gender:
Co-Educational
Total roll:
9
Telephone:
Address:

6 Motu Falls Road , Motu

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Motu 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

Motu School, a small rural school inland from Gisborne, provides education to students in Years 1 to 8. The teaching principal was appointed in 2023. The school’s vision is to develop conscientious, global citizens who are: connected to their community; proud of their tūrangawaewae; and active learners who have the skills to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. 

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 

Students’ progress and achieve well. 
  • Achievement information for the end-of-year 2023, shows that most learners, including Māori students, achieved at or above the expected curriculum levels in reading, writing and mathematics. 
  • Students have a strong sense of belonging and engage in an inclusive, caring environment. 
  • Most students attend regularly, and overall attendance is above the Ministry of Education target.

Conditions to support learner success

Leadership is improvement focused and uses a wide range of evidence to inform school decisions for improved learner outcomes. 
  • Leadership coordinates, plans and actions the school’s curriculum and evaluates this to increasingly improve learner outcomes; a planned next step is broadened delivery of the refreshed curriculum.
  • To increase opportunities for students’ learning and success, leadership builds educationally-focused relationships with other education providers and community groups. 
  • To support the wellbeing of learners and to meet what parents and whānau want for their children, leadership gives priority to developing in learners, a strong sense of their culture and identity. 
Teachers effectively adapt learning strategies for the different ages and levels in the classroom.
  • Students learn in a collaborative, well-resourced learning environment that provides wide-ranging opportunities to engage, experiment and apply new skills; an identified next step is to work towards developing student leadership and learning independence.
  • Learners have multiple opportunities to practise literacy and numeracy skills through a range of learning opportunities integrated within the wider curriculum.
  • Assessment practices increasingly support teachers’ insights into learner progress, during the year and over time; collaboration with other schools to verify assessment decisions is an identified next step.
Key conditions to build and sustain improved outcomes for learners are strengthening.
  • Collaboration with whānau, and community partnerships and professional networks, increasingly strengthen the school’s capacity to meet community aspirations for learners.

  • Capitalising on local community knowledge and expertise contributes to delivery of an increasingly broad and rich curriculum in which students participate in community activities, fostering strong, enduring reciprocal relationships. 

  • The school is beginning to deepen partnerships between local iwi, hāpu and whānau, and is developing collaborative consultation so that the curriculum reflects local tikanga Māori, mātauranga Māori and te ao Māori.
  • The board represents and serves the community, and the strategic plan aligns with community aspirations; continuing to develop the skills and expertise of the school board is an agreed next step.

Part B: Where to next? 

The agreed next steps for the school are to: 

  • support students in developing independence in their learning and provide more opportunities to develop leadership skills 
  • grow teacher capability in assessment by undertaking moderation activities with other schools, ensuring judgements about student learning are consistent with curriculum expectations
  • implement the refreshed curriculum in ways that sustain and build on student progress and achievement, including strengthening partnerships with iwi, hapu and the community to support Māori learners enjoying success as Māori
  • build long term sustainability and capacity of the board and staff by sourcing appropriate professional learning and networking opportunities.

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

Within six months:

  • identify strategies that will support students to become more independent in their learning and ways to measure this
  • identify opportunities to further develop student leadership 
  • continue to consult with iwi and hapū to inform curriculum content and delivery
  • source appropriate professional development to grow capacity of staff and board, including moderation activities with other schools.

Every six months:

  • moderate, monitor and report on the progress of student outcomes across the curriculum
  • review implementation of the refreshed curriculum and identify next steps 
  • regularly meet with whānau, hapū and iwi to sustain active participation in the planning and decision making of the school.

Annually:

  • analyse and report on schoolwide attendance, progress and achievement data to the school board, including steps made in developing student leadership 
  • review progress in developing student independence in learning by undertaking surveys with each learner and their whānau, parents and staff
  • with the school board, review the impact of new initiatives and professional development on learner outcomes, and the confidence and capacity of staff and the board in their roles, and use this to inform future school planning.

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

  • increasingly independent learners who can articulate their learning pathways as they progress successfully through the curriculum
  • collaborative relationships between the school and its community, including iwi, that contribute to the depth and breadth of teaching programmes
  • increased capability of staff and the school board so that they are knowledgeable in their roles, and confident in the effectiveness of school systems to result in desired outcomes for learners.

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

25 July 2024

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

Motu School

Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report 2024 to 2027 

As of February 2024, the Motu 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

Actions for Compliance 

ERO and the board have identified the following area of non-compliance during the board assurance process:

  • undertake and record background and referee checks on the appointment of staff.
    [Children’s Act 2014]

The board has since taken steps to address the areas of non-compliance identified.

Further Information

For further information please contact Motu 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

25 July 2024

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

Motu School - 25/08/2017

Summary

Motu School caters for students in Years 1 to 8. At the time of this external evaluation, ten students were enrolled, with two identifying as Māori. There is a clear focus on providing an inclusive environment for students. Strong support from families and the community continues to be a feature of the school.

Since the June 2013 ERO report, the board of trustees has experienced significant membership changes. A new board chair has been appointed. Staffing is stable. The school have been recently refurbished to modernise its learning environment.

The school’s mission is to develop every child as a ‘Motu Kid’ within a caring learning community with all able to achieve personal excellence, with lifelong learning attitudes. The school’s values of duty, compassion, obedience, kindness, responsibility, honesty and truthfulness, respect and consideration are evident.

Leaders and teachers have been involved in a wide range of professional learning and development programmes since the previous ERO report.

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

National Standards information over the past three years, shows that most children make expected progress over time. There is achievement disparity between Māori learners and their peers. Trustees and teachers have identified that accelerating achievement in writing for Māori boys is a priority in 2017. Some learners have experienced accelerated progress. Girls’ achievement overall for reading writing and mathematics is higher than boys.

Further developments in school processes to achieve equity and excellence should include: strengthening school wide targets and reporting progress against these; building trustees’ and teachers’ understanding and practices of internal evaluation; building board understanding of their roles as trustees; revising the appraisal system for teachers to include teacher inquiry and links to school wide targets that focus on accelerating children’s learning.

The school agrees to:

  • develop more targeted planning to accelerate learning for children
  • monitor targeted planning, improved teaching, and children’s progress
  • discuss the school’s progress with ERO. 

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

Equity and excellence

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

The school is continuing to develop its effectiveness is responding to all children, including Māori, whose learning and achievement requires acceleration.

Achievement information, over time, indicates achievement disparities for Māori learners. The data shows that they are achieving below their peers for reading and mathematics. The school identified that writing in particular for Māori boys is a priority for the school this year.

The teaching principal and their release teacher know students well. They use a range of assessment tools to identify, respond to and monitor individual learning and progress.

Assessment and moderation practices provide trustees and teaching staff with a dependable picture of achievement across the school. The teaching staff actively engage with other schools to support their decisions when making their judgements about student achievement. They share knowledge with colleagues to assist them in this process.

School conditions supporting equity and excellence

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

Trustees and teaching staff are developing their capability and processes to better support and promote the achievement of equity and excellence for all learners.

The board of trustees is highly committed to the school and the community it represents. The board is achievement focused and makes resourcing decisions to support and target student learning and achievement.

The teaching principal actively builds strong relationships with the community. They work collaboratively with other staff, board members and parents.

Parents, whānau and the community are welcomed as respected and valued partners in learning. They receive useful information and participate in many learning opportunities that enable them to support their children’s learning.

The curriculum provides many opportunities for children to learn, progress and achieve. Teachers use children’s interests to develop authentic and meaningful learning experiences. Children are supported to identify useful learning goals to build on and extend their progress and achievement.

Children experience positive and respectful relationships with their teachers and peers. Learning contexts promote student wellbeing, and a high sense of belonging in the school. 

Sustainable development for equity and excellence

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

Trustees and teaching staff are improvement focused. Key next steps are to: seek professional learning to build their understanding of their roles as trustees; and capability in internal evaluation to evaluate the systems and processes that impact on children’s learning.

Improved clarity and alignment of annual goals and targets from the strategic plan to classroom teaching is needed. This should enable more regular reporting of children’s progress against targets during the year and build understanding of what works for school wide improvement.

Enhancing the appraisal process is required, to build teachers’ understanding of systematic inquiry into their practice and strategies that improve outcomes for students whose achievement needs acceleration.

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.

Going forward

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

The school has capacity and capability to accelerate learning for all children. However, disparity in achievement for Māori children remains.

Leaders and teachers:

  • know the children whose learning and achievement need to be accelerated
  • need to improve the school conditions that support the acceleration of children’s learning and achievement.
  • need to build teacher capability to accelerate children’s learning and achievement.

The school agrees to:

  • develop more targeted planning to accelerate learning for children
  • monitor targeted planning, improved teaching, and children’s progress
  • discuss the school’s progress with ERO.

ERO will provide an internal evaluation workshop to support the school to develop effective planning and monitoring processes to support equity and excellence for all children. 

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

Alan Wynyard

Deputy Chief Review Officer Central (Acting)

25 August 2017

About the school 

LocationGisborne
Ministry of Education profile number2616
School typeFull Primary (Year 1 to 8)
School roll10
Gender compositionMale 7, Female 3
Ethnic compositionMāori 2 
Pākehā 8
Provision of Māori medium educationNo
Review team on siteJuly 2017
Date of this report25 August 2017
Most recent ERO report(s)Education Review, June 2013 
Education Review, July 2010
Education Review, April 2007

 

Motu School - 13/06/2013

1 Context

What are the important features of this school that have an impact on student learning?

Motu School is a small rural school inland from Gisborne. It caters for students from Years 1 to 8. There are 11 students on the roll, four are Māori and eight are boys.

The school is the heart of a highly supportive learning community. The long-serving principal has established good community knowledge and relationships. It is a family-oriented school.

Teachers and students take full advantage of the rich opportunities to incorporate the unique local environment into the curriculum. A strong information and communication technologies (ICT) learning programme counters the school’s remote location.

2 Learning

How well does this school use achievement information to make positive changes to learners’ engagement, progress and achievement?

Almost all students are achieving at or above in relation to the National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics and they are progressing well. Students are active, enthusiastic and focused learners.

Teachers form their judgements of achievement in relation to National Standards based on standardised tests and the sound knowledge of individual strengths and needs. They consistently use this achievement information to continue to challenge each student through purposeful teaching and learning.

In 2012, some students did not make the expected progress in mathematics. Teachers, with board support, have introduced a range of strategies to improve progress in this area and can already demonstrate improvements.

The graduate programme “Motu Kid” is a tool for students to set personal targets related to attitudes and values as well as academic learning. There is clear evidence of the success of this tool, based on the respectful behaviour of all students.

This is a learning community. Parents are well informed of their child’s progress and are supported to work closely with them at home. In particular the reading challenge has led to accelerated progress.

E-portfolios promote students’ ownership of learning and are a rich resource for demonstrating progress. Within the portfolio is a printout which, in clear English, shows how well students achieve in relation to National Standards.

3 Curriculum

How effectively does this school’s curriculum promote and support student learning?

Students experience a coherent and rich curriculum that provides them with relevant choices and pathways through the school as a result of carefully planned sequenced learning. Parents contribute to the design of the curriculum and strongly support initiatives such as reading at home and the enterprising education outside the classroom programme. It is a community-led curriculum.

Teachers effectively establish and support a stimulating classroom environment. Staff have high expectations and facilitate independent learning by providing tasks that support problem solving and critical thinking. They affirm and provide appropriate feedback and guidelines to help students establish their next learning steps.

The programme is context driven and highly relevant for students. Good use is made of the unique local environment to extend learning. Planned, purposeful trips to local towns add to students’ views of the world.

The curriculum reflects bicultural New Zealand. It includes te ao Māori and opportunities to learn and use te reo Māori. Students have developed knowledge and awareness of significant local physical and spiritual features of the landscape.

Students study independently at their own ability levels. ICT supports their inquiry learning. There are high expectations for students to lead their own investigations and constantly challenge themselves.

Teachers and students appropriately use the available wide range of up-to-date resources to facilitate high levels of learning. Success is celebrated publicly in newsletters and also through affirming teacher feedback. It is an inclusive environment and students support one another.

How effectively does the school promote educational success for Māori, as Māori?

Motu School successfully supports Māori students to succeed as Māori. Benchmarks have been established and a robust action plan has been developed for ongoing review.

Self review has identified strengths related to:

  • Whanaugatanga. Teachers have in-depth knowledge of each of their students and form effective partnerships with students and whānau
  • Tangata whenuatanga. Learning is authentic and local history and culture are well integrated into the classroom
  • Manaakitanga. Teachers are strong advocates for the student. They demonstrate compassion and understanding.

One of the areas for further development is for teachers to have a better command and use of te reo Māori. This has been identified in the action plan and is part of the principal’s professional development for 2013. Students have the opportunity to learn te reo Māori through regular online lessons from the Virtual Learning Community.

All students, including Māori, identified for further support, have specific learning plans to meet their needs.

4 Sustainable Performance

How well placed is the school to sustain and improve its performance?

The school is well placed to sustain and improve its performance. Trustees have sound knowledge of governance and useful guidelines for procedures, roles, expectations and support for induction. Most families are represented on the board, and their children’s learning is the paramount focus.

The charter has been developed through consultation. Trustees are well informed of progress towards meeting set goals, in particular those related to student achievement. The school’s selfreview process, as exemplified by the Māori success review, is highly developed. It has led to ongoing development and further evaluation of practice and outcomes.

Policy structure has been reorganised, with appropriate supporting procedural guidelines making the system more streamlined and useful. This is an ongoing process.

The principal manages the school well. He has set a positive tone and leads the schoolwide professional learning culture.

The school is well supported by the wider community, particularly in the enterprising fund-raising activities. The mutual benefits are evident.

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:

  • board administration
  • curriculum
  • management of health, safety and welfare
  • personnel management
  • financial management
  • asset management.

During the review, ERO checked the following items because they have a potentially high impact on student achievement:

  • emotional safety of students (including prevention of bullying and sexual harassment)
  • physical safety of students
  • teacher registration
  • processes for appointing staff
  • stand-downs, suspensions, expulsions and exclusions
  • attendance.
When is ERO likely to review the school again?

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

Joyce Gebbie

National Manager Review Services Central Region (Acting)

13 June 2013

About the School

LocationMotu 
Ministry of Education profile number2616 
School typeFull Primary (Year 1 to 8) 
School roll11 
Gender compositionMale 8, Female 3 
Ethnic composition

NZ European/Pākeha

Māori

7

4

Review team on siteApril 2013 
Date of this report13 June 2013 
Most recent ERO report(s)

Education Review

Education Review

Education Review

July 2010

April 2007

June 2004