Blenheim School

Blenheim School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 16 months of the Education Review Office and Blenheim School 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

Blenheim school is situated near the city centre and caters for students in Years 1 to 6. The school’s aspirations for their community are to embrace diversity and to encourage a sense of belonging through strong learning centred relationships. The school encourages learners to be brave, courageous, resilient and respectful.

Blenheim School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

  • A learning culture that acknowledges progress and success.
  • To support the wellbeing of staff and students. 
  • Educationally powerful connections and relationships.

You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on Blenheim School’s website.

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively staff build assessment practices that improve achievement and promote equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is: 

  • school leaders and teachers recognise the need for more consistent school wide assessment practices which will better inform teaching and learning 
  • the school is utilising the support of the Piritahi Kahui Ako Across School Leaders (ASL) to develop assessment practices which drive and acknowledge individual progress
  • the school has been involved with professional learning alongside Waikato University. 

The school expects to see:

  • a schoolwide, positive trajectory in achievement across the curriculum 
  • purposeful and relevant assessment practices that are clearly documented and used to monitor and support student progress and achievement 
  • whānau participating in their children’s learning
  • teachers knowing and responding to the aspirations that parents and whānau have for their children.

Strengths 

The school can draw from the following strengths to evaluate how effectively staff build assessment practices that improve achievement and promote equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners:

  • teachers at Blenheim School recognise the need for inclusivity and relationships of care for improving outcomes for learners
  • staff and whānau who give willingly of their own time and resources to improve opportunities and equity for learners
  • the school is strengthening their leadership 
  • a supportive and caring wider community.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise: 

  • gathering robust assessment information for more responsive planning and teaching 
  • developing shared understandings for processes and systems to develop rigorous tracking and monitoring of student’s progress
  • ensuring that the Board of Trustees is informed about student progress through regular reporting 
  • strengthening partnerships with parents and whānau so they are regularly informed of student progress 
  • continuing professional learning with ASL’s to drive powerful assessment practices across the curriculum.

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

Shelley Booysen
Director of Schools

28 May 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

Blenheim School

Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report 2024 to 2027

As of April 2024 the Blenheim 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

Further Information

For further information please contact Blenheim 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

28 May 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

Blenheim School - 06/09/2017

Summary

At the time of this review, Blenheim School’s roll was 70. This includes 22 Māori and 14 Pacific children. A number of these children have English as a second language. The school hosts nine Resource Teachers of Learning and Behaviour (RTLBs), one RTLB Cluster Manager, a Resource Teacher of Māori (RTM) and the Southern Regional Health School.

A new principal was appointed in Term 1, 2015. The chairperson is an experienced board member. All other trustees are new to the board. The school has made good progress in meeting the recommendation from the previous ERO report by strengthening partnerships with whānau and increasing the focus on bicultural perspectives and practices.

Senior leaders are aware that achievement, overall, is low. Achievement in writing and mathematics against the National Standards is lower than reading. The school’s achievement information shows examples of individual children’s accelerated progress in their learning. School leaders and teachers have strategies to support and monitor all children who need to make quicker progress in their learning over time.

The Ministry of Education provided Student Achievement Function (SAF) support to the school in 2016. This supported leaders and teachers to develop a broad range of strategies and practices to improve children’s progress and achievement in writing. Many of these approaches are used to more generally support children’s progress and achievement in other learning areas.

School leaders are actively involved in the Piritahi Kāhui Ako|Community of Learning (CoL) and a local cluster of collaborative schools.

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

The school is strongly focused on providing equitable outcomes for all children.

Leaders and teachers are purposefully focused on children’s wellbeing and strongly foster their sense of belonging within the school.

The school has a comprehensive range of systems and processes to guide practice and the provision of a safe environment for children to achieve equity and excellence. A number of well-considered initiatives have been introduced and are being embedded into school practices.

The school has capacity and capability to accelerate learning for all children. The school’s achievement information shows that disparity in achievement for Māori, Pacific and other children remains. Leaders and teachers:

  • know the children whose learning and achievement need to be accelerated
  • need to evaluate approaches that effectively meet the needs of each child
  • need to continue to build teacher capability to accelerate children’s learning and achievement.

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 responds positively toMāori and other children whose learning, progress and achievement need acceleration.

School achievement information shows that children achieve best in reading. At least half of Māori children achieve at or above the National Standards in reading and mathematics.

The school’s achievement monitoring systems show several examples of children’s accelerated progress in reading, writing and mathematics. Leaders and teachers are aware of in-school disparity for some groups of children. They have implemented a number of interventions to address disparity for those whose learning needs acceleration.

Teachers use a good range of assessment processes and regularly moderate their judgements within the school. They benefit from targeted professional development which has supported their increased knowledge and use of assessment information, particularly in writing. This is helping teachers make more consistent judgements about children’s levels of progress and achievement. Mathematics moderation is yet to occur across the school. This is part of the targeted focus in 2017. Cross-school moderation of teachers’ assessment decisions is a goal for the CoL.

School conditions supporting equity and excellence

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

The school has many increasingly effective processes and practices for enabling achievement of equity and excellence.

The school’s shared vision and GRIT (Growing, Respect, Initiative, Tenacity) values are intentionally integrated into key documentation and many practices across the school. The values are well known by children and are effectively used to build their determination and confidence as learners.

Diversity and difference are highly valued. Teachers provide children with meaningful learning opportunities to add depth to their cultural understandings of Māori perspectives and other cultures represented at the school. The school’s culture is inclusive and helps children build a strong sense of belonging.

Teachers purposefully foster positive behaviour and have high expectations for children’s learning. Their pastoral care needs are well considered and provided for in sensitive ways.

Leaders, teachers and teacher aides work well together to ensure children benefit from the expertise likely to accelerate progress and decrease disparity. Teachers identify, regularly track and monitor all children, and in particular, those children at risk of not achieving. A number of children receive additional, targeted support. Specific, individualised programmes and approaches are identified to support these learners.

School leaders have high expectations for learning and teaching. Teachers work collaboratively to provide a broad curriculum. This is further enriched by the cultural knowledge shared by parents and the many opportunities children have to visit places of interest in their local community.

School leaders and trustees follow a clear strategic plan which is regularly monitored to show how goals are being achieved. Trustees are well informed and make careful decisions about resourcing the school to provide equitable learning opportunities for all children.

School staff maintain positive, respectful relationships with children, families and those involved at the school. The CoL is providing many opportunities for the sharing of good practice and expertise to ensure positive outcomes for children and their whānau.

Sustainable development for equity and excellence

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

A number of well-considered initiatives have been introduced and are being successfully embedded into school practices.

The agreed next steps are to:

  • further accelerate children’s progress and achievement in mathematics, reading and writing to address in-school disparity
  • continue to strengthen the board’s stewardship capacity to effectively scrutinise achievement and other information
  • develop a strategic, systematic approach to internal evaluation.

In previous years, the board has undertaken a range of stewardship training. ERO recommends the board continues to build on this practice in order to ensure ongoing strengthening of board effectiveness.

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 is well placed to accelerate the progress and achievement of children.

The school is focused on children’s wellbeing and strongly fosters their sense of belonging. The school is working towards achieving equity in educational outcomes, supported by many effective systems and practices.

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

Leaders and teachers:

  • know the children whose learning and achievement need to be accelerated
  • need to evaluate approaches that effectively meet the needs of each child
  • need to continue 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, and provide achievement progress reports to ERO over time.

The school has requested that ERO provide them with an internal evaluation workshop. 

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

Dr Lesley Patterson

Deputy Chief Review Officer - Southern (Te Waipounamu)

6 September 2017

About the school 

LocationBlenheim
Ministry of Education profile number2811
School typeContributing
School roll70
Gender composition

Girls: 42

Boys: 28

Ethnic composition

Māori: 22

Pākehā: 27

Pacific: 14

Other ethnicities: 7

Provision of Māori medium educationNo
Review team on siteJune 2017
Date of this report6 September 2017
Most recent ERO report(s)

Education Review May 2013

Education Review November 2009