Glenorchy School

Education institution number:
3955
School type:
Full Primary
School gender:
Co-Educational
Definition:
Not Applicable
Total roll:
33
Telephone:
Address:

Oban Street, Glenorchy

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Glenorchy School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within six months of the Education Review Office and Glenorchy 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 

Glenorchy School is situated at the head of Lake Wakatipu, 45 km north of Queenstown. The school provides education for students in Years 1 – 8. Their vision is to foster lifelong learning through quality teaching, while engaging the community and acknowledging the environment.

The school’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are to:

  • further develop their vision and values with a focus on wellbeing

  • foster lifelong learning and an inquiring mind.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively the school’s curriculum supports students to meet literacy progression milestones by the end of Year 3.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

  • the school has recently implemented the Better Start Literacy Approach (BSLA) and wishes to evaluate its impact on reading and writing outcomes for all students, particularly those in Years 1 – 3

  • increasing numbers of junior students have not been meeting achievement expectations in recent years.

The school expects to see:

  • teachers developing a shared understanding of literacy progressions throughout the school

  • teachers continuing to reflect and refine their teaching practices in response to learners’ needs and their growing knowledge of BSLA

  • improved reading and writing outcomes for all students, especially those who are not currently making sufficient progress to meet achievement expectations in Years 1 – 3.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to evaluate how effectively it supports students to meet literacy progression milestones by the end of Year 3:

  • leaders and teachers have high expectations for equitable and excellent learning outcomes for all groups of learners

  • the school makes use of the unique alpine environment to provide rich, authentic contexts for learning

  • students’ needs are known and responded to with strategic interventions to support them in their learning and accelerate their progress.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

  • professional learning for teaching staff to grow their knowledge of BSLA and embed high quality and consistent professional practice across the school

  • review curriculum documentation to reflect the BSLA approach to provide clarity and guidance for teachers and other stakeholders

  • using high quality progress and achievement data analysis to inform teaching and learning and improve outcomes for learners

  • sharing information with the community to ensure the school’s new approach to literacy is well understood by whānau, to inform and strengthen their engagement with children’s 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.

Shelley Booysen
Director of Schools

17 May 2023 

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

Glenorchy School

Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report 2022 to 2025

As of July 2022, the Glenorchy 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 Glenorchy 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

17 May 2023 

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

Glenorchy School - 23/07/2019

School Context

Glenorchy School is a Year 1 to 8 school in Glenorchy, Central Otago. The current roll is 32 students. Teaching and learning take place in two multi-level classrooms: one for Year 1-4 students and the other for Year 5-8 students. A new principal and two new classroom teachers have been appointed since the 2016 ERO report.

The school’s location at the head of Lake Wakatipu and at the start of the Routeburn Track underpins the school’s vision, ‘The Gateway to learning Waharoa ki te akoranga’, and commitment to learning in and through nature/science.

The school’s mission is to ‘foster lifelong learning through stimulating fun experiences, delivered through quality teaching, while engaging the community and acknowledging our environment.’ The school’s values are honesty, respect, responsibility, resilience and kindness.

The school is staffed by a first-time principal and two beginning teachers.

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

  • achievement in reading, writing, mathematics and science in relation to curriculum expectations
  • achievement in learning areas across the New Zealand Curriculum
  • outcomes related to engagement and wellbeing for success
  • student attendance.

The school is an active member of the Kāhui Ako o Wakatipu|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 well towards achieving equitable outcomes for most of its students. The principal and teachers are effectively supporting students to achieve the school’s valued outcomes, including student wellbeing and engagement. Over the last three years most students have achieved at or above the school’s expectations for reading, mathematics and science.

The previous two years show a slight decline in achievement in literacy and mathematics. The majority of students have achieved at or above the school’s expectations for writing. There is disparity for boys in literacy and for girls in mathematics. There is parity of outcomes in science for boys and girls.

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

The school is effective in accelerating learning for most students who need this. All students who need to make accelerated progress are identified and benefit from differentiated programmes designed to meet their specific needs. Learning information shows that most of these students make 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?

The positive school culture supports a caring, collaborative and inclusive learning environment for students.

The new principal and board are building learning-centred relationships with parents/whānau. Consultation with the community is valued and informs priorities, strategic direction and the enactment of the curriculum. The principal and board proactively identify and draw on community resources and expertise to increase learning opportunities to enhance student achievement and wellbeing.

Strong pedagogical leadership is providing well-planned, focused professional development. This ongoing learning is building the quality of teaching and learning across the school. Evidence of student progress and achievement is used to inform planned actions that are improvement focused. Collaborative planning ensures that children benefit from learning environments that meet individual and group needs.

The school’s curriculum effectively enables learning and is responsive to students’ strengths, needs, and interests. Students benefit from a broad, rich, localised curriculum. They have many authentic opportunities to learn out and beyond the school. These meaningful contexts support their engagement in learning.

The primary focus of the board and school leadership is the learning, wellbeing and engagement of students. They use external expertise to help strengthen their organisational capacity and effectiveness. Trustees actively serve and effectively represent the school community building relational trust and collaboration at many levels of the community.

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

Some school processes and practices need strengthening for the achievement of equity and excellence;

  • school leaders need to strengthen the systems and processes that guide expectations for effective teaching and learning

  • trustees, leaders and teachers then need to evaluate how well these approaches are working through robust analysis of student rates of progress and achievement information in order to know if enough progress is being made

  • trustees and leaders need to further develop the evaluation process so that the impact of strategic initiatives on valued student outcomes is more evident.

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:

  • 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.

4 ERO’s Overall Judgement

On the basis of the findings of this review, ERO’s overall evaluation judgement of Glenorchy School’s performance in achieving valued outcomes for its students is: Developing.

ERO’s Framework: Overall School Performance is available on ERO’s website.

5 Going forward

Key strengths of the school

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

  • the strong pedagogical leadership that is building the professional capability of teachers
  • its positive and collaborative school culture that provides for the wellbeing, engagement and learning of students and their whānau.

Next steps

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

  • strengthening systems and processes that guide effective teaching and learning
  • increasing the understanding and knowledge of sufficiency of progress of targeted groups of students to achieve equity within the school
  • further developing internal-evaluation practices and processes to know what is working well or not and why.

Dr Lesley Patterson

Director Review and Improvement Services Te Tai Tini

Southern Region

23 July 2019

About the school

Location

Glenorchy

Ministry of Education profile number

3955

School type

Full Primary (Year 1 to 8)

School roll

32

Gender composition

Girls 16, Boys 16

Ethnic composition

NZ European/Pākehā 32

Students with Ongoing Resourcing Funding (ORS)

No

Provision of Māori medium education

No

Review team on site

May 2019

Date of this report

23 July 2019

Most recent ERO reports

Education Review January 2016

Education Review December 2012

Glenorchy School - 27/01/2016

Findings

Students benefit from rich learning experiences enhanced by access to unique local features and facilities. Students learn in a family-like atmosphere, where positive and caring relationships are strongly evident. The principal and teachers are highly responsive to the identified learning and social needs of students. The sustained and deep emphasis placed on environmental education is a basis for much of the students’ learning.

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

1 Context

What are the important features of this school that have an impact on student learning?

Students at Glenorchy School benefit from rich learning experiences enhanced by access to the unique features and facilities the Wakatipu Basin has to offer. They are motivated learners with much of their learning based around relevant environmental education programmes.

Glenorchy School is a very small school providing education for students in Years 1 to 8. There is a family-like atmosphere, where positive and caring relationships are highly evident. A playgroup meets weekly on the school site. Children from the playgroup have regular visits to the school which results in smooth transitions when they turn five.

The school is very well supported by its parents and the wider community in all aspects of school programmes and operations.

Since the previous ERO review in 2012, there have been several changes of teachers and principal. The new principal maintains a strong focus on student achievement and progress. She has established meaningful relationships between the school and school leaders within the surrounding area.

The school has a vision of encouraging inquiry in the students through enjoyable, stimulating learning that involves parents and the community, and makes substantial use of the local environment.

Overall, the school has made significant progress in the areas identified for improvement in the last ERO report.

2 Learning

How well does this school use achievement information to make positive changes to learners’ engagement, progress and achievement?

The school makes effective use of achievement information to make positive changes to students’ learning.

Most students are at or above the National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics. Appropriate progress against the 2015 target areas of writing and mathematics has been made.

A positive feature of the teachers’ and principal’s use of learning information is their responsiveness to the identified learning and social needs of individual students and groups of students. The principal and teachers use data to:

  • closely monitor all students’ achievement and rates of progress
  • set appropriate targets that focus on students who need to accelerate their progress
  • inform curriculum priorities and strategic direction.

Students have a growing understanding of their achievement levels for literacy and mathematics, and what they have to do next to improve. They are being supported by teachers to take a more active role in their learning. This includes setting regular goals, assessing their progress against their goals and leading part of the interviews held between them, their parents and the teacher. The principal acknowledges this is an ongoing area for development and is part of the planning for 2016.

The trustees have high expectations for all students to make appropriate progress and achieve well. They are well informed about student achievement and progress. They use this information to make wise resourcing and strategic decisions.

3 Curriculum

How effectively does this school’s curriculum promote and support student learning?

The school’s curriculum very effectively promotes and supports students’ learning. The principles of the New Zealand Curriculum are clearly evident in the implementation of the school’s curriculum. These judgements are based on the following strengths:

  • the school puts the students at the centre of teaching and learning
  • the curriculum offers students a broad education that makes relevant links within and across the different learning areas
  • the school’s approach to learning and its curriculum is based on what the school community sees as important learning
  • teachers meaningfully use digital technologies within learning programmes, especially in the senior class
  • the purposeful learning beyond the classroom supports the curriculum overall.

The sustained and deep emphasis placed on environmental education provides a solid foundation for much of the students’ learning. This includes the arts, te ao Māori, science, technology, integration of literacy and the key competencies.

In consultation with students and parents, the board has revised the school’s vision. The school is now in the early stages of aligning its curriculum guidelines to the vision. The intention to develop the curriculum is in the 2016-2018 strategic plan.

How effectively does the school promote educational success for Māori, as Māori?

Māori students experience aspects of their identity, language and culture. The values of manaakitanga/caring, whanaungatanga/inclusion, rangatiratanga/respect and tuakana-teina/older children supporting younger children are highly evident throughout the school.

All students learn their mihi. These are personalised to students’ iwi to allow their particular identity to be recognised and celebrated. Some qualities prized by Māori are identified within students and are given time and nurturing to flourish, including leadership and performance abilities.

Teachers deliberately include Māori perspectives and dimensions within class studies and school events to enhance Māori students’ learning and identity. Aspects of tikanga Māori have been included into school protocol as a result of the school’s preparation for the Enviro-schools’ Green-Gold award.

The school has met with whānau Māori as part of the revision of the school’s vision.

4 Sustainable Performance

How well placed is the school to sustain and improve its performance?

The school is well placed to sustain and improve its performance. There is an increasing alignment between governance, leadership, teachers, the curriculum and student learning.

The new principal is an able professional leader. She:

  • consults and seeks advice widely
  • has a sound curriculum knowledge
  • manages change well while maintaining a strong focus on student achievement and wellbeing.

School-wide planning is meaningfully aligned to the school’s vision. Trustees and the principal have identified the school’s priorities and these are apparent in the planning for the next three years.

There is a culture of reflection and ongoing improvement across the school. This is evident in the:

  • amount of training the board has undertaken
  • relevant professional learning and development the principal and teachers have participated in
  • useful appraisal processes
  • determination to gain the input of all in the school community
  • relentless focus on student achievement.

The next step for this school’s improvement is to add an evaluative layer to its self-review processes. An evaluative approach will help the trustees, principal and teachers to know the extent to which priorities, policies, procedures and programmes are having a positive impact on student outcomes. It will also assist in identifying what needs to be improved.

Board assurance on legal requirements

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:

  • board administration
  • curriculum
  • management of health, safety and welfare
  • personnel management
  • financial management
  • asset management.

During the review, ERO checked the following items because they have a potentially high impact on student achievement:

  • emotional safety of students (including prevention of bullying and sexual harassment)
  • physical safety of students
  • teacher registration
  • processes for appointing staff
  • stand-downs, suspensions, expulsions and exclusions
  • attendance.

Conclusion

Students benefit from rich learning experiences enhanced by access to unique local features and facilities. Students learn in a family-like atmosphere, where positive and caring relationships are strongly evident. The principal and teachers are highly responsive to the identified learning and social needs of students. The sustained and deep emphasis placed on environmental education is a basis for much of the students’ learning.

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

Chris Rowe

Deputy Chief Review Officer Southern (Acting)

27 January 2016

School Statistics

Location

Glenorchy

Ministry of Education profile number

3955

School type

Full Primary (Years 1 to 8)

School roll

36

Gender composition

Girls: 19

Boys: 17

Ethnic composition

Pākehā

Māori

Samoan

32

3

1

Review team on site

December 2015

Date of this report

27 January 2016

Most recent ERO report(s)

Education Review

Education Review

Education Review

December 2012

June 2009

July 2006