Our Lady of Victories

School Context

Our Lady of Victories is a Years 1 to 8 state-integrated school located in Sockburn, Christchurch. Of the 210 students enrolled, 34% identify as Filipino, 10% as Indian, 9% as Māori and 4% as Pacific. English Language Learners make up 20 % of the roll.

The vision is to nurture faith, grow community and achieve excellence. The desired outcomes are to enable students to serve their school and community, live out their Catholic faith, achieve academic success and to be socially competent. Strategic goals are to support each child to reach their full potential and for the Catholic/Mercy values to unite the school community.

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

• achievement in reading, writing and mathematics
• achievement in relation to school targets for reading, writing and mathematics
• outcomes related to wellbeing for success.

Since ERO’s 2016 review, the roll has continued to grow and the school now has community-elected parent representatives. Teachers are working together to redevelop the school’s curriculum. Whole school professional learning and development has focused on the science and literacy learning areas.

The school is a member of the Christchurch Catholic Kāhui Ako | Community of Learning.

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 achieving equitable and excellent outcomes for all its students.

School information from the past three years shows:

• most students achieve at or above the school’s reading expectations
• the majority of students achieve at or above the writing and mathematics expectations
• that in 2018 almost all students had positive experiences at their school.

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

The school has had variable success at accelerating the achievement of students whose learning needs to progress at a faster rate.

School information over the past three years shows:

• ongoing disparity for boys in writing
• improved achievement for boys in reading, and girls in mathematics in 2018
• improved achievement for Pacific students in mathematics
• a slight improvement in achievement levels in reading and writing for Asian students
• Māori student achievement levels have continued to decrease in writing and mathematics.

Over half of the students who were part of accelerated literacy and mathematics programmes in 2018 and 2019 made accelerated progress.

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?

Students learn in a caring, supportive and inclusive parish school. The school’s Mercy values are highly evident in the interactions and actions of the school community. The different cultures of the students are valued and are integrated into school protocols and activities. Students have a variety of opportunities to show and develop their leadership.

Teachers have strong learning partnerships with students, parents and whānau. Students demonstrate a strong sense of belonging and identity and show increasing levels of engagement in their learning.

Teachers and leaders are highly responsive to the learning and development needs of students. They work collaboratively to identify those groups of students who need to accelerate their learning and achievement. They collectively decide on charter targets to focus their planning and programmes and participate in relevant professional learning and development to build their teaching capability. Specific interventions to further support the social and learning needs of identified students are appropriately resourced and put in place.

Leaders have put in place effective schoolwide systems and processes that:

• provide clarity of expectations for student learning
• align use of data from the school charter and through to classroom programmes
• provide a useful appraisal process to build teacher practice.

There is increased coherency of practices and learning across the school.

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

Trustees and leaders need to refine charter targets to more clearly identify those students whose learning needs accelerating.

Leaders and teachers need to:

• analyse learning data more deeply to better know about, and report on, the sufficiency of progress of all students
• evaluate the impact of their teaching, class and school programmes, and interventions, to know what has worked well, what needs improving.

3 Other Matters

Provision for international students

The school is a signatory to the Education (Pastoral Care of International Students) Code of Practice 2016 established under section 238F of the Education Act 1989. The school has attested that it complies with all aspects of the Code.

No international students were enrolled at the time of the ERO review.

4 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.

5 ERO’s Overall Judgement

On the basis of the findings of this review, ERO’s overall evaluation judgement of Our Lady of Victories performance in achieving valued outcomes for its students is: Well placed.

ERO’s Framework: Overall Findings and Judgement Tool derived from School Evaluation Indicators: Effective Practice for Improvement and Learner Success is available on ERO’s website.

6 Going forward

Key strengths of the school

For sustained improvement and future learner success, the school can draw on existing strengths in:

• implementing effective schoolwide processes that provide school-wide consistency and coherency
• effective use of learning information to know about the learning and progress of individual students
• aligning the charter goals and targets to other school plans including classroom programmes.

Next steps

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

• further use of learning information to know about the sufficiency of progress for all students
• extending the schoolwide planning process to evaluate the impact teaching and learning programmes have on student outcomes.

Dr Lesley Patterson

Director Review and Improvement Services Te Tai Tini

Southern Region

27 November 2019

About the school