2 Leman Street , Tokoiti, Milton
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.
Tokoiti School, situated just outside of Milton, provides education for students in Years 1 to 6. The school’s roll is 28, with a small number of Māori students. The school’s vison is Our future is as good as the path we lead our students on. The school values are Trust, Respect, Excellence, Kinship, Kindness, Environment, Responsibility and Self Control.
| How well are learners succeeding? | Success and progress for all learners is increasing. |
| What is the quality of teaching and learning? | Learners benefit from high quality teaching practice that improves progress and achievement in reading, writing and mathematics. |
| How well does the school curriculum respond to all learners needs? | Learners have sufficient opportunities to learn across the breadth and depth of the curriculum. There is a consistent focus on supporting learners to gain skills in literacy and mathematics. Learners with complex needs are well supported to achieve their education goals. |
| How well does school planning and conditions support ongoing improvement? | School planning and conditions to support ongoing improvement to the quality of education for learners are well established. |
| How well does the school include all learners and promote their engagement and wellbeing? | The school successfully promotes learners’ engagement, wellbeing and inclusion. |
| How well does the school partner with parents, whānau and its community for the benefit of learners? | The school reports usefully and accurately to parents / whānau about their child’s learning, achievement and progress. The school should improve its collection and use of information gathered through community consultation to inform strategic planning and curriculum decisions. |
| Student Health and Safety | The school board is taking reasonable steps to ensure student health and safety. |
This table outlines how well students across the school meet or exceed the expected curriculum level.
Foundation Skills | |
| Reading | Almost all learners meet or exceed the expected curriculum level. Results are equitable for all groups of learners. |
| Writing | A large majority of learners meet or exceed the expected curriculum level. Results are becoming more equitable for all groups of learners. |
| Mathematics | A large majority of learners meet or exceed the expected curriculum level. Results are equitable for all groups of learners. |
The school is exceeding the target of 80% regular attendance.
The school has a suitable plan in place to improve attendance.
Regular attendance is improving beyond the target.
The school uses an appropriate approach and reliable practices to find out about achievement against the curriculum.
Assessment information is used well to adjust teaching practices to ensure ongoing improvement in teaching and student progress.
The school has good quality planning to increase the rate of progress for all groups of students.
The school has significantly improved achievement and progress for those learners most at risk of not achieving since the previous review.
The school has to some extent extended achievement and progress for learners working at or above curriculum levels since the previous review.
The school is making progress towards meeting Government reading, writing and mathematics targets for 2030.
An explanation of the terms used in the Parent Summary can be found here: Guide to ERO school reports
This section of the report provides more detail for the school to include in strategic and annual planning for ongoing improvement across the school.
Leadership successfully fosters a positive and inclusive environment that well supports the work towards realising excellent and equitable outcomes for learners.
Students’ high levels of reading have been sustained over time; they are well supported to develop sound skills in writing and mathematics.
Professional learning and development in structured literacy and structured mathematics builds teacher capability to support successful outcomes for students.
Students’ knowledge is broadened through a curriculum that extends learning beyond their immediate environment and reflects strong local content.
Through effective teaching practices and well targeted initiatives, the individual needs of learners are met, and they steadily progress and experience success.
The agreed next steps for the school are to:
The agreed actions for the next improvement cycle and timeframes are as follows.
Every six months:
Annually:
Actions taken against these next steps are expected to result in:
All schools are required to promote student health and safety and to regularly review their compliance with legal requirements.
During this review the Board has attested to some regulatory and legislative requirements in the following areas:
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
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 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
Sharon Kelly
Acting Director of Schools
3 March 2025
This website provides further information about the school’s student population, student engagement and student achievement. educationcounts.govt.nz/home
Tokoiti School has effectively addressed its priorities for improvement. The trustees, principal and teachers are working together to ensure positive outcomes for students. The school is establishing useful school-wide and classroom planning practices. Key school practices are improvement focused, and likely to sustain and improve student progress and achievement.
The school has made sufficient progress to transition into ERO’s Evaluation for Improvement process.
Tokoiti School is a small rural school located near the town of Milton, South Otago. It caters for learners from Years 1 to 6. There are 31 students at the school, 22% of the students identify as Māori.
This report outlines Tokoiti School’s progress in addressing the areas for review and development identified in ERO’s 2019 Education Review report. The board of trustees, leaders and teachers focused initially on ensuring assessment information about students’ progress and achievement was reliable and used effectively. The school has been supported by a Ministry of Education Student Achievement Facilitator. The board has a mix of new and experienced trustees.
Since the 2019 ERO report changes have been made to the teaching team and classrooms have been considerably refurbished. During 2020 and 2021 teaching staff participated in literacy professional development.
The 2019 ERO report identified that the school needed to strengthen the following areas:
The principal, teachers and trustees have made very good progress in addressing the areas for review and development identified in ERO’s 2019 report. The school has an increased focus on ensuring all students progress and achieve well.
Since 2019, more students are now achieving at or above expected levels in reading, writing and mathematics. The school has focused on accelerating the achievement of students at risk of not achieving in writing. In 2020, all students targeted to make accelerated progress in their writing achievement did so. The school’s data for 2021 shows that most students are achieving at or beyond expectations.
Planning for schoolwide improvement is now cohesive and aligned. The principal is demonstrating stronger professional leadership within the school. The school’s charter and strategic plan reflects the current priorities. The annual plan gives useful detail to support the achievement of strategic goals. The annual plan includes achievement targets that are inclusive of all students identified as needing to accelerate their learning progress.
The principal and teachers are now implementing more robust practices to know about students’ learning and progress and how they can better respond to identified needs. They have developed more effective processes for collecting, sorting and analysing student achievement information. The increased use of learning information has resulted in:
Over time, ERO has observed students well engaged in their learning. Their learning tasks are relevant to their needs. Students are aware of what they are learning. Teaching is deliberate and focused.
The principal and teachers have continued to strengthen and embed tikanga Māori in day-to-day class programmes and school practices. There is daily karakia and waiata, and visitors are welcomed. Teachers have an increased awareness of concepts valued by Māori. They are incorporating these into their teaching practices. They continue to build caring relationships with parents and whānau.
The school has appropriately improved aspects of compliance. The principal and board have:
The school implements effective processes and practices to sustain and continue to improve and review its performance.
The principal, teachers and trustees are improvement focused. They are increasingly using useful processes to reflect on and improve their teaching practices, class and school programmes. ERO has seen examples of good reflective practice leading to improved learning programmes.
There is useful evaluation provided to the board informing trustees about the progress being made toward achieving the school’s strategic goals, in particular the board’s target to lift achievement levels. Reports to the board include what the analysis of data is indicating, investigating alternative approaches and monitoring the impact of programmes and interventions.
The principal and board of trustees have identified, and ERO agrees, that the school continues to strengthen internal evaluation for improvement processes to know about the impact of teaching programmes and identify what needs adjusting.
Before the review, the board of trustees 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:
During the review, ERO checked the following items because they have a potentially high impact on student achievement:
Tokoiti School has effectively addressed its priorities for improvement. The trustees, principal and teachers are working together to ensure positive outcomes for students. The school is establishing useful school-wide and classroom planning practices. Key school practices are improvement focused, and likely to sustain and improve student progress and achievement.
The school has made sufficient progress to transition into ERO’s Evaluation for Improvement process.
Dr Lesley Patterson
Director Review and Improvement Services (Southern)
Southern Region - Te Tai Tini
14 December 2021
Tokoiti School is a small rural school located near the township of Milton, South Otago for students from Years 1 to 6. There are 32 students on the roll, eight of whom identify as Māori. Students learn in two multilevel classes.
The school’s vision and strategic priorities are underpinned by a set of Tokoiti ‘Trekker’ values: whakawhitinaki |trust, whakaute |respect, hiranga |excellence, manaakitanga |kindness, whanaungatanga |kinship, taiao |environment, haepapa |responsibility, and kia tau |self control.
The vision for Tokoiti School is that students will be ‘equipped with the qualities of confidence and motivation, and skills in relationship building, problem solving and risk taking’. It also states ‘Trekkers will also have academic success to allow them to be responsible, thoughtful and respectful citizens who are proactive lifelong learners’.
The strategic aims are for all students to:
receive a full and balanced education respecting individual needs and abilities
be able to achieve and progress in their learning through effective relationships
awhi |welcome and encourage whānau and community in the life of the school
recognise the unique position of Māori culture within Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Leaders and teachers regularly report to the board, schoolwide information about outcomes for students in achievement in reading, writing and mathematics.
Tokoiti School is an active member of the Tokomairiro Kāhui Ako|Community of Learning.
The school is working towards achieving equitable and excellent outcomes for all of its students.
School information about overall achievement shows that over two thirds of students are achieving at or above the school’s expectations in reading and mathematics, and a small majority of students are achieving this in writing.
While the large majority of students are achieving, from 2016 to 2018, there has been an overall downward trend in achievement in reading and writing.
School information shows that there is disparity for Māori students and boys in reading, writing and mathematics. This disparity has been ongoing and is still to be effectively addressed.
The school has had limited success in accelerating the learning of those students whom they have identified, need this.
The school is yet to accelerate written language learning, for those Māori students whose progress needs to be accelerated.
The school’s welcoming family-like school environment supports children’s learning. They have opportunities to live and enact the ‘Trekker values’ in a caring and inclusive setting. Older children support younger children in play and in their learning. The principal’s and teachers’ holistic view of their learners is informed by knowing the children and their families very well. Each child’s progress is tracked.
Tokoiti School’s planned curriculum is flexible and adaptive to children’s interests, allowing teachers to respond to unexpected opportunities to learn. This includes an increased incorporation of tikanga Māori.
The principal and teachers have useful curriculum guidelines. They have clear statements about effective teaching practice and learning progressions. The school has a collaborative teaching team, which includes experienced teacher aides, who collectively support children’s wellbeing and learning.
Students, the principal and teachers have benefitted from the school’s active involvement in the Kāhui Ako. The positive impact on children’s learning has been through relevant professional development and learning, expert teachers in classes, between school moderation, and tools and improved transitions into and out of the school.
The school has targets to raise the achievement of learners. These targets need to be reworked so that they will drive equity and excellence for all students, and be supported by specific planning to achieve these. The principal and board need to develop targets which focus on all those children who need to accelerate their learning. This will enable the principal to analyse and report to the board on rates and sufficiency of children’s progress, especially those children targeted for acceleration of their learning.
The school’s strategic and annual planning needs to better reflect the present school priorities. This should be supported by useful action planning which contains measurable outcomes. Evaluating progress towards meeting these priorities will facilitate future decision making.
Internal evaluation should be strengthened. This will help the board, principal and teachers to better know what is working and what is not, and to measure the impact and effectiveness of initiatives and interventions across all areas of the school.
The school leaders and board have identified, and ERO’s evaluation confirms, that the school needs to continue to strengthen and embed te ao Māori in day-to-day classroom programmes.
This review found that Tokoiti School has yet to address the majority of the recommendations from the 2016 Education Review report.
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:
On the basis of the findings of this review, ERO’s overall evaluation judgement of Tokoiti School’s performance in achieving valued outcomes for its students is: Needs development.
ERO will maintain an ongoing relationship with the school to build capacity and evaluate progress.
ERO’s Framework: Overall School Performance is available on ERO’s website.
For sustained improvement and future learner success, the school can draw on existing strengths in:
For sustained improvement and future learner success, priorities for further development are:
the redevelopment of school targets so that they are inclusive of all students who need to make accelerated progress
analysing, reporting and evaluating the sufficiency of progress students are making, including those targeted for acceleration in their learning
reviewing annual and strategic planning to ensure coherence and reflection of the school’s current priorities and valued outcomes for students
strengthening internal evaluation to know the effectiveness of initiatives and interventions in all areas of the school
continuing to strengthen and embed te ao Māori in day-to-day classroom programmes.
To improve current practice, the board of trustees should:
Lesley Patterson
Director Review and Improvement Services Southern
Southern Region
19 July 2019
|
Location |
Milton |
|
Ministry of Education profile number |
3845 |
|
School type |
Contributing Primary (Years 1-6) |
|
School roll |
32 |
|
Gender composition |
Boys 17, Girls 15 |
|
Ethnic composition |
Māori 8 NZ European/Pākehā 19 Other ethnicities 5 |
|
Students with Ongoing Resourcing Funding (ORS) |
No |
|
Provision of Māori medium education |
No |
|
Review team on site |
May 2019 |
|
Date of this report |
19 July 2019 |
|
Most recent ERO reports |
Education Review February 2016 Education Review November 2012 Education Review June 2009 |