School Context
Hampstead School is a Years 1 to 6 school in Ashburton with a roll of 343 children.
The school states that its vision is ‘living to learn, learning to live’. It has refined this statement to mean ‘working to acquire the skills and knowledge for life’. The school’s valued outcomes are for all students to be respectful, honest, to aim high and persevere in the face of difficulties. The school’s aims and goals focus on improving children’s achievement against the National Standards and children demonstrating confidence, enthusiasm and positive self esteem.
Leaders and teachers regularly report to the board, school-wide information about outcomes for students in the following areas:
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progress and achievement in relation to the National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics
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outcomes related to well-being and maintaining close connections with the wider community
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the diversity of school programmes and the opportunities that these provide for learning.
The school has an experienced and long-serving principal and assistant principal. A new assistant principal was appointed at the beginning of 2017. Many of the staff have been at the school for a number of years. The board is a mix of new and experienced trustees.
The school has a high level of cultural diversity. A number of children with additional needs are enrolled at the school. A sizeable group of students are English language learners.
Hampstead School is a member of the Hakatere Kāhui Ako I Community of Learning (CoL).
Evaluation Findings
1 Equity and excellence – valued outcomes for students
1.1 How well is the school achieving equitable and excellent outcomes for all its students?
The school is effective in achieving positive outcomes for most children.
Most children achieve the National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics. Most Māori children achieve the National Standards in reading and mathematics. The majority of Māori children are achieving the National Standards in writing. Year by year there is improvement in Māori children’s achievement.
Fewer boys have been achieving at or above the National Standards expectations in reading and writing over the previous three years. The school has identified this and is beginning to address it.
The majority of children from Pacific heritage achieve the National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics. Almost all Pacific children receive additional support for English language learning.
The school has appropriate processes and practices for assessment and moderation. This includes moderating with two other local schools.
1.2 How effectively does this school respond to those Māori and other students whose learning and achievement need acceleration?
The school has good information about individual children. However, leaders are not yet reporting clearly to the board about how well children are making accelerated progress.
Children with additional learning needs are very well supported through regular and careful planning and monitoring of their progress and their inclusion in all aspects of school life.
2 School conditions for equity and excellence
2.1 What school processes and practices are effective in enabling achievement of equity and excellence?
The school has a number of processes and practices that are effective in enabling achievement of equity and excellence. These particularly relate to children’s wellbeing, inclusion and involvement in their learning.
School leaders constantly maintain strong communication and respectful relationships in every area of the school community. They regularly seek and successfully use a range of approaches to involve children, families and staff in decision making for the school. They keep children, families and the wider community well informed through the use of a range of media. Additional efforts have been made to connect more closely with Māori and Pacific families and include their cultures in the life of the school. Children and families are proud to be associated with the school and expect children to achieve and be successful.
Children and families enjoy an orderly and supportive school environment that is conducive to children’s learning and wellbeing. Classrooms are settled and well organised. Children are actively involved in learning and take pride in their work. Teachers use an appropriate range of strategies to engage children and make learning meaningful for them. The curriculum provides children with many opportunities to extend their knowledge and understanding of the community and wider world.
Leaders and teachers place a strong emphasis on knowing about each child, their interests and family. Some teachers use this information well to make learning more interesting and personalised for each child. Many children are able to talk about their learning and what is helping them learn.
The school is beginning to use professional development to build teacher capability and collective understandings. This is particularly evident in mathematics. Professional development has been effectively used to accelerate the progress of many children in programmes and interventions.
2.2 What further developments are needed in school processes and practices for achievement of equity and excellence?
A number of the school’s processes and practices need to be reviewed to increase their effectiveness in achieving equity and excellence. The board and leaders need to:
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build internal evaluation capability to ensure there is a shared understanding and effective use of evaluation processes and practices
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review and refine the strategic plan to more closely align it to the school’s expectations for a successful learner.
The annual action plans should be strengthened to more clearly identify the goals, and how they will be achieved, monitored and evaluated.
Leaders and teachers need to improve aspects of teaching and learning. This includes:
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continuing to build children’s ownership of their own learning so that they become confident, self managing learners
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strengthening teachers’ evaluation of their practice so that they know what makes the most difference to accelerating children’s progress
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developing clear processes for measuring, monitoring and reporting outcomes to raise achievement and accelerate progress for all learners
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further integrating Māori and Pacific cultures into learning programmes to specifically support achievement in these areas.
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:
During the review, ERO checked the following items because they have a potentially high impact on student safety and wellbeing:
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emotional safety of students (including prevention of bullying and sexual harassment)
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physical safety of students
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teacher registration and certification
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processes for appointing staff
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stand down, suspension, expulsion and exclusion of students
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attendance
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school policies in relation to meeting the requirements of the Vulnerable Children Act 2014.
4 Going forward
Key strengths of the school
For sustained improvement and future learner success, the school can draw on existing strengths in:
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providing an inclusive and supportive school culture for all children and families
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building relationships with each child and family to personalise learning
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making use of diverse agencies and expertise to improve outcomes for children at risk of not experiencing success.
Next steps
For sustained improvement and future learner success, development priorities are in:
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raising internal evaluation capabilities to show what the school is doing well, and what is having the best impact for all learners
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identifying clear strategic goals and plans to achieve equity and excellence, and monitoring and evaluating the impact of these plans for all learners
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strengthening teaching practices so that children become confident, self-motivated life-long learners.
ERO’s next external evaluation process and timing
ERO is likely to carry out the next external evaluation in three years.
Dr Lesley Patterson
Deputy Chief Review Officer
Te Waipounamu - Southern Region
14 December 2017
About the school
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Location
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Ashburton
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Ministry of Education profile number
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3367
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School type
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Contributing (Years 1-6)
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School roll
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343
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Gender composition
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Girls 54%; Boys 46%
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Ethnic composition
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Māori 25%
Pākehā49%
Pacific 22%
Other 4%
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Provision of Māori medium education
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No
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Review team on site
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October 2017
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Date of this report
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14 December 2017
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Most recent ERO report(s)
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Education Review August 2013
Education Review May 2010
Education Review April 2007
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