8 School Road , Lower Moutere
View on mapTēnā 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.
Lower Moutere School is located in the Tasman District, providing education for learners in Years 1 to 8. The school vision to be the best we can be – kia kaha - kia maia, is underpinned by the value of Respect – for ourselves, others and our school.
There are three parts to this report.
Part A: A summary of the findings from the most recent Education Review Office (ERO) report and/or subsequent evaluation.
Part B: 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 C: The improvement actions prioritised for the school’s next evaluation cycle.
Since the previous ERO report of January 2023, ERO and the school have worked together to evaluate how effectively the school’s approach to teaching mathematics accelerated progress and increased engagement in learning for all students.
The school expected to see:
Learners continuing to show high levels of engagement and increased rates of acceleration.
Continued consistency in the teaching of mathematics across the school, with shared language and understanding of best practice.
The greatest shift that occurred in response to the school’s action is the accelerated rates of progress for some groups of learners within the target groups.
The following findings are to inform the school’s future priorities for improvement.
| Learners make sustained progress and are highly engaged in their learning. |
| Strong leadership provides a clear vision and strategic direction for the school that drives continuous improvement. |
| Learners benefit from a well-considered curriculum and responsive teaching practices. |
| Well-aligned systems and effective conditions ensure ongoing school improvement. |
The agreed next steps for the school are to:
The agreed actions for the next improvement cycle and timeframes are as follows.
Within six months:
Every six months:
Annually:
Actions taken against these next steps are expected to result in:
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
6 December 2024
The Education Counts website provides further information about the school’s student population, student engagement and student achievement. educationcounts.govt.nz/home
As of October 2024, the Lower Moutere School Board has attested to the following regulatory and legislative requirements:
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
For further information please contact Lower Moutere 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
6 December 2024
The Education Counts website provides further information about the school’s student population, student engagement and student achievement. educationcounts.govt.nz/home
This Profile Report was written within sixteen months of the Education Review Office and Lower Moutere 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
Lower Moutere School is located in Lower Moutere in the Tasman district. It provides education for students in Years 1 to 8. The school’s vision from 1862 ‘Kia Kaha – Kia Maia’, translating to ‘Be the Best that We can be’, continues to underpin all aspects of the school.
Lower Moutere School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:
Staff, students, and the community will have strong connections, that strengthen and nurture learning opportunities
Engagement with the environment and local features so that learning is real, relevant, and authentic
Practice is connected, creative and innovative in meeting the needs of all students.
You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on Lower Moutere School’s website.
ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively the school’s approach to teaching of mathematics is accelerating progress and increasing engagement in learning for all students.
The rationale for selecting this evaluation is to:
increase the achievement and engagement of learners, particularly for Māori
raise teacher knowledge and understanding of mathematics teaching and learning, through research-based interventions
maintain direction and ensure consistency of teaching and assessment across all levels of the school.
The school expects to continue to see consistency in the teaching of maths across the school, with shared language and understanding of best practice. Students will continue to show high levels of engagement and increased rates of acceleration.
The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to know how effectively the school’s approach to teaching of mathematics is accelerating progress and increasing engagement in learning for all students:
a strongly collaborative and unified leadership and teaching team that ensures teaching capability is constantly improving
effective internal practices that inform ongoing improvement
strong relationships between ākonga, Kaiako, and the community to support positive wellbeing and learning outcomes.
Moving forward, the school will prioritise:
continuing the inquiry into maths practice across the school, utilising the work and leadership from external providers to ensure consistent and shared understanding across the teaching team
embedding and sustaining the positive shifts that have already been made to teaching and learning.
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.
Dr Lesley Patterson
Director Review and Improvement Services (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini
27 January 2023
The Education Counts website provides further information about the school’s student population, student engagement and student achievement. educationcounts.govt.nz/home
Lower Moutere School is a semi-rural Years 1-8 school located close to Motueka. The roll at the time of this review was 169 students.
The school states that its overarching vision is ‘To be the best that we can be!’ The school’s valued outcomes include respect for self, others, the school environment and property. The valued learner attributes are for students to be Self-motivated, Achieving, Focused and Engaged (SAFE). The valued outcomes also include a concept of learning partnership in terms of ‘We are learners together.’
The 2018 -2020 strategic goals for improving student outcomes are:
‘To provide the best possible learning environment for all our students’
‘To ensure our students are achieving success in all areas of the curriculum’
‘We will maintain positive and effective relationships with students, parents, preschools and the wider community’.
School targets related to these strategic goals are:
to accelerate the rate of progress for identified students in mathematics
to accelerate the rate of progress for identified students in writing
to accelerate the progress for identified students in reading in Years 1-3.
Leaders and teachers regularly report to the board, school-wide information about outcomes for students in the following areas:
mid and end of year progress and achievement information in reading, writing and mathematics
aspects of physical education.
The school is a member of the Motueka Kāhui Ako|Community of Learning (CoL).
Since the 2014 ERO evaluation the school has undergone significant change, including:
extensive redevelopment of buildings and facilities
the appointment of a new principal and school leadership team
several changes in board chair
multiple changes to trustees, including a co-opted trustee to provide Māori representation on the board.
The school is effective in achieving equitable and excellent outcomes.
According to the school’s achievement data, reading is an area of excellence. Consistently high achievement is evident for most students during 2014 -2017.
The majority of children also achieve ‘at’ or ‘above’ expectations in writing and mathematics. This pattern has remained relatively consistent in mathematics during 2014-2017.
Most Māori children are achieving well against the school’s expectations.
The school monitors progress for individual students and responds well to children requiring additional support with learning.
There is insufficient analysed evidence for ERO to evaluate how well the school is accelerating learning for Māori and other students. At the time of this review, the school was collating data but not routinely analysing it in a range of learning contexts to identify whether or not learning has been accelerated.
ERO identified that the school’s data for writing (2017) shows that 17 of 21 targeted students made accelerated progress in writing. Additional information provided by the school after the onsite stage of the review shows that the majority of students receiving extra support made good progress in reading in 2017, and that some students made good progress in mathematics.
Curriculum documentation provides comprehensive guidelines for teaching and learning. Since the 2014 ERO review, school leaders, teachers, and the community have completed a significant amount of work on curriculum redevelopment. This work includes developing:
curriculum support documents which detail expectations for effective teaching practice and learning partnerships
clearly described instructional strategies and practices which link to the valued outcomes of self-motivated and engaged learners
curriculum innovations which are research-based and, in relation to writing in particular, are well supported by external professional learning and development
reports to parents which clearly show achievement in relation to learning expectations, and include student voice and next steps for learning
teaching as inquiry practices which clearly link to identified student need.
This curriculum is providing a sound basis for supporting the sustainability of equity and excellence in this school.
The board and leaders are focused on providing a supportive environment that is fostering student learning and wellbeing. They are building relational trust at all levels of the school. Student and staff wellbeing are considered a priority for the school. Leaders are building a collaborative learning environment. During the review, many staff told ERO that the positive school culture contributes to a collaborative, inclusive and supportive learning environment.
Professional development opportunities for leaders and teachers are well planned and linked to identified student need. Opportunities for teachers to discuss their practice are provided in the form of Professional Learning Groups. Further professional learning is planned for mathematics during 2018. There is a strong focus on building teacher capability, and attention is given to embedding and sustaining new practices.
Bicultural practices in the school are being strengthened. Children have increasing opportunities to learn about and build a deeper understanding of Māori culture, identity and local history.
In order to support and sustain equity and excellence for all students, board capability needs to continue to be strengthened. Trustees now need to:
review how well strategic and annual planning processes are contributing to progress against school goals and priorities
develop knowledge of internal evaluation in order to understand the impact of change and practices on student outcomes.
As part of the board’s commitment to continuous improvement, the board and leadership would benefit from evaluating how well they are engaging parents/whānau in their children’s learning, and how well they are responding to the aspirations and needs of the school community. Evaluations over time to identify community perceptions about school strengths and areas for development, would maximise opportunities to continue to build on the way the board actively represents and serves the community in its governance role.
Some aspects of data management require strengthening. These include:
collecting, collating and analysing data to routinely identify if target students are making sufficient or accelerated progress
reporting to the board on progress and teaching practices that are having the greatest impact on learning improvement for target students
continuing to strengthen school-wide guidelines and expectations for overall teacher judgements about progress and achievement.
Internal evaluation requires further development across all levels of the school. In particular:
the board, leaders’ and teacher knowledge of effective evaluation practice needs to be extended
a common framework should be used to guide evaluations across the school and to assist the rigour, consistency, and usefulness of evaluations.
Effective internal evaluation practices will help the board, leaders and teachers to identify those teaching and learning practices which are most significant in contributing to accelerated progress and achievement.
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.
To improve current practice, the board of trustees should ensure that all aspects of policy and procedure review are completed.
For sustained improvement and future learner success, the school can draw on existing strengths in:
curriculum innovations that are focused on developing independent, confident self- managing learners
strongly supportive relationships between the board, teachers and leaders that are focused on learning partnerships
a positive school environment and an improvement-focused board, leadership and staff who willingly engage in new learning.
For sustained improvement and future learner success, priorities for further development are in:
managing data to identify how well students are progressing and the impact of teaching and learning practices
extending reporting to the board so they can make informed decisions on resourcing and better understand the school’s achievement picture in relation to strategic goals
ERO is likely to carry out the next external evaluation in three years.
Dr Lesley Patterson
Deputy Chief Review Officer
Te Waipounamu - Southern Region
19 June 2018
|
Location |
Lower Moutere |
|
Ministry of Education profile number |
3200 |
|
School type |
Year 1-8 |
|
School roll |
169 |
|
Gender composition |
Boys 50% : Girls 50% |
|
Ethnic composition |
Māori: 19% Pākehā: 73% Pacific: 3% Other ethnicities: 5% |
|
Review team on site |
April 2018 |
|
Date of this report |
19 June 2018 |
|
Most recent ERO reports |
Education Review December 2014 Education Review May 2011 |