Alfredton School

School Context

Alfredton School is a small rural school in northern Wairarapa. Students from Years 1 to 8 attend from the local farming community. Currently there are 58 students, with 17 who identify as Māori.

The school’s vision and aspirational aims are to inspire learning for a lifetime and to grow students to be confident, broad-minded, innovative learners who are community orientated and culturally aware. Strategic goals are focused on ensuring the provision of quality teacher practice and opportunities for students to learn to support this vision and aspirational aim. The valued outcomes are for students to be: ‘motivated, imaginative, respectful, happy, adaptable and confident’.

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

• progress and achievement in reading, writing and mathematics in relation to school/curriculum expectations
• progress for those identified in school targets
• progress and achievement of children with additional learning and/or wellbeing needs
• the school’s values.

Since the July 2016 ERO report, there have been changes to staffing, with a new principal appointed mid-2018 and all teachers new to the school over the past year.

The school is a member of the Tararua 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 working towards building capability to support the achievement of equitable and excellent outcomes for all students.

School reported data for 2018 indicates that overall, most students achieved at or above expectation in reading, writing and mathematics. Data for the beginning of 2019, using more consistent assessment practices, has indicated some inaccuracies in previous years’ data. There is significant disparity for Māori students, with just over half achieving at or above in literacy and the majority in mathematics.

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

Trustees, leaders and teachers need to further develop their capability to better respond to those students whose learning and achievement need acceleration. The principal and teachers have identified those students achieving below expectation and are beginning to implement strategies that focus on supporting their learning. Māori children remain over represented in the group of students needing acceleration.

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?

Strong relationships and positive interactions between students and staff contribute to good levels of engagement in learning. Teachers know the children and their families well and take a collaborative approach to supporting all learners.

The principal has been effective in the focus on providing an organised and supportive environment to promote student learning and wellbeing. She has deliberately established collaborative practices that enable teachers to have a shared responsibility for student learning and progress across the school.

Systems and processes are in place to gather information that more reliably shows the learning levels and needs of all students. In response to student achievement data, the principal and teachers have identified writing as the area of greatest need. They are participating in professional learning and development to improve their practice and promote enhanced outcomes for students.

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

Teachers, the principal and trustees should strengthen their focus on accelerating the progress of those Māori students and others achieving below expected levels. This includes the need for improved target setting by leaders to assist in relentlessly pursuing goals for accelerating the progress of target students.

Trustees need to make greater use of dependable achievement information to know what is working well, what is not and what needs to change. This should help those in stewardship positions to make evidence-based decisions and more strongly focus on their core role of raising student progress and achievement.

The development of a coherent and culturally responsive local curriculum that responds to students’ strengths, interests and needs is a key next step. This should encompass: students have challenging, purposeful and authentic learning opportunities well matched to identified strengths and needs; students receiving explicit instruction in strategies that enable them to take control of their learning and recognise their progress; and actively involving parents and whānau in learning-centred relationships.

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 Alfredton School’s performance in achieving valued outcomes for its students is: Developing.

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:

• environments that promote good levels of engagement in learning
• collaborative practice amongst staff that supports teaching, learning and wellbeing.

Next steps

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

• improving outcomes for students, to achieve equity for all students and raise levels of achievement overall
• leadership in developing a school curriculum, to better respond to students’ strengths, needs and the local context
• internal evaluation processes, using a wide range of data, to better identify what is working well for students’ learning and where improvements are needed.

Actions for compliance

ERO identified non-compliance in relation to:

• health curriculum community consultation
• child protection policy
• search, surrender and retention
• physical restraint
• career education.

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]
• document and provide career education and guidance for all students in Year 7 and above
  [NAG 1(f)]
• develop and document the following:
  • policies, practices and procedures on surrender and retention of property and searches of students by the principal, teachers and authorised staff members under sections 139AAA to 139AAF of the Act
  • policy, procedures and guidelines for physical restraint
    [Education (Physical Restraint) Rules 2017- Download the rules [PDF, 847 KB]; updated Guidelines for Registered Schools in New Zealand on the Use of Physical Restraint]
  • a child protection policy outlining how suspected neglect and abuse will be identified and reported. 
    [Reference sections 18 and 19Children’s Act 2014]

Since the onsite stage of review the principal has provided documented evidence that the following policies and procedures have been reviewed and developed to address the areas of: career education; child protection; physical restraint; and search, surrender and retention.

Areas for improved compliance practice

To improve current practice, the board of trustees should:

• review the complaints policy to ensure that it more comprehensively documents the school’s processes
• ensure that appraisal of all staff is fully and consistently implemented and completed each year.

Phillip Cowie

Director Review and Improvement Services

Central Region

13 June 2019

About the school