Whangaroa College

Whangaroa College

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within nine months of the Education Review Office and Whangaroa College 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

Whangaroa College is in Kaeo, Te Tai Tokerau and provides education for students in Years 7 to 13. The school’s mission statement is “building confident global citizens that strive for excellence”. Whangaroa College acknowledges and upholds the values of Whakamana i te tangata (respect), Kawea ake te mana (responsibility), Mā te ngākau ū (commitment) and Kia manawaroa (perseverance). By following these values, the school aims to ensure all students are equipped with the skills to achieve their full potential and positively contribute to society.

Whangaroa College’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

  • Community engagement
  • Teaching and learning
  • PB4L
  • Kaitiakitanga.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively culturally responsive and relational teaching practices are promoting positive outcomes for all students.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is to:

  • Support students to achieve success with a strong, secure sense of their identity
  • strengthen teaching capability to improve the impact of teaching on learning and achievement for all students.

The school expects to see greater numbers of students attending regularly, engaged in their learning, and making accelerated progress to achieve their full potential.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to evaluate how effectively culturally responsive and relational teaching practices are promoting positive outcomes for all students:

  • the school is continuing to strengthen conditions, actions and practices to promote wellbeing, which includes te ao Māori and mātauranga Māori
  • strong networks with a range of external agencies who provide specialist support to individuals and groups of students
  • leadership is collaboratively strengthening the culture of relational trust to ensure ongoing organisational capacity building for continuous improvement.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

  • professional development which builds teaching capability in culturally responsive and relational teaching practices
  • continuing to develop and refine a localised curriculum reflective of the collective aspirations of whānau
  • implementing consistent curriculum progressions that provide robust frameworks for 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.

Shelley Booysen
Director of Schools

23 February 2024 

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

Whangaroa College

Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report 2023 to 2026

As of March 2023, the Whangaroa College 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 the Whangaroa College 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

23 February 2024 

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

Whangaroa College

Findings

The college has made good progress and will transition to ERO’s Te Ara Huarau | Evaluation for Improvement process.

1 Background and Context

What is the background and context for this school’s review?

Te Kāreti o Whangaroa

Ko Kaeo te awa
Ko Pohue te Pa
Ko Maungaemiemi me Taratara ngā maunga
Ko Ngati Kahu, Ngāpuhi-nui-tonu ngā tāngata whenua.

Whangaroa College is a Years 7 to 13 secondary school located in Kaeo. The current roll of 130 is predominantly Māori.

The college’s vision is ‘to enable all learners to achieve wisdom with honour’. It seeks to promote the values of ‘respect, responsibility, commitment and perseverance’, and promotes tikanga Māori. Features of the school include a focus on supporting student hauora and a kaupapa relating to Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L). The school operates under a leadership structure with a principal and four directors. The college is undergoing significant property redevelopment.

ERO’s November 2018 review identified several improvement priorities. These included continuing concerns related to teaching, learning and governance. ERO has provided ongoing monitoring and evaluation support for college improvement throughout the review process.

ERO’s visits to the college have included meetings with the board of trustees, the principal, senior leadership team, staff, students and whānau. The Ministry of Education (MoE) has provided targeted resourcing to support teachers to further engage students in their learning.

Whangaroa College is a member of the Whaingaroa Kāhui Ako I Community of Learning that includes four schools and one early learning service.

2 Review and Development

How effectively is the school addressing its priorities for review and development?

Priorities identified for review and development

The terms of reference for this longitudinal review are based on key next steps and recommendations identified in the 2018 ERO report. These include:

  • accelerating student progress and promoting valued student outcomes
  • enacting effective teaching practices schoolwide including differentiation, assessment for learning, and building teaching capability in literacy and mathematics
  • developing and documenting a Marau-a-Kura o Whangaroa that offers students greater breadth and depth of curriculum opportunities, especially for National Certificate of Achievement (NCEA) mathematics and science
  • building teaching and leadership capability
  • developing learning-focused partnerships with whānau
  • strengthening governance decision making to raise student achievement and to meet the board’s legal obligations
  • developing internal evaluation processes.

Whangaroa College has made good progress towards addressing some key improvement areas. It would be useful to consolidate systems, structures and teaching practices to ensure improvements are embedded, evaluated and further developed.

Progress
Accelerate student progress and promote valued student outcomes

Whangaroa College is continuing to develop a positive learning culture, and students report being more supported in their learning. Student attendance has improved, and the level of stand-downs and suspensions has reduced. Ngā Ara Whetu, a new academic counselling programme, supports student success and career pathways. 

NCEA information indicates that over the last three years there has been an increase in achievement in NCEA Levels 1 and 3, and University Entrance. Leaders and staff are committed to sustaining this achievement.

Students benefit from increasingly flexible assessment processes, particularly in NCEA. In 2019, the college received a positive Managing National Assessment Report from the New Zealand Qualifications Assessment (NZQA).

Leaders and teachers are aware of the low levels of achievement and the high levels of transience in Years 7 to 10. Leaders now need to prioritise increasing the reliability of Years 7 to 10 achievement information. Further work is required to build teachers’ collective capability and capacity to gather, analyse and use this information. This should help teachers to more quickly identify students and effective teaching strategies, that will help to accelerate the progress and achievement of students who need this.

Teachers are committed to monitoring and promoting student hauora/wellbeing. A whānau focus group provides daily support to ensure student wellbeing is prioritised. Student success is celebrated regularly in assemblies and newsletters. Students participate in a range of co-curricular activities organised by the PB4L team of staff and students.

Enact effective teaching practices schoolwide

The college is beginning to use a framework to build teaching capability. Teachers’ reflections and goal setting are documented, and regular discussions on effective teaching strategies are the focus of staff meetings.

Teachers have participated in regular schoolwide and subject-specific professional learning (PL) to develop effective teaching practices. The initial PL focus to increase clarity in the impact of teaching on students’ learning is continuing. Teachers receive useful feedback to develop effective teaching practices. They now need to embed these practices more consistently to accelerate progress and achievement, and improve student learning outcomes.

Document the Marau-a-Kura o Whangaroa | Whangaroa Curriculum

Leaders are continuing to develop and document the school’s curriculum. Teachers have been involved in schoolwide professional learning to respond to constraints impacting on student success. This has directly influenced curriculum decision making to better meet student needs. School leaders acknowledge that further work is needed to develop a more engaging and relevant curriculum for students in the junior school.

Students benefit from increasing curriculum coherence, relevance and choice. The timetabling, reviewed and improved in 2019, now better meets students’ learning needs. Curriculum delivery has been restructured to improve students’ wellbeing and engagement in learning. ERO observed examples of student engagement in learning that was student-led and collaborative. Teachers are integrating digital learning where relevant in some classes.

There is an increasing amount of local content in the curriculum. Students have opportunities to learn te reo Māori me ōna tikanga at all year levels. Students and the community benefit from increased student participation. They show pride in the mana of kapa haka, Māori tourism, hauora, art and history. 

Build teaching and leadership capability

Leaders have taken a more strategic approach to strengthening teaching and learning practices. Targeted professional development has started to lift the quality of teacher practice. Higher expectations for teachers are beginning to be more formalised through the use of the professional growth cycle. Documenting these expectations would help leaders and teachers to build and sustain quality practice.

Leaders are beginning to build their capability to improve outcomes for students. They regularly participate in professional learning to grow leadership skills. The distributed leadership structure, developed in 2018, has promoted opportunities for leaders to help improve teachers’ professional practice. This is contributing to a more positive school culture.

Directors regularly report to the board on how well the school is progressing against strategic goals. School leaders now need to improve the quality of these reports so trustees can scrutinise reliable student data and evaluative information to make informed decisions to improve student outcomes.

Develop learning-focused partnerships with whānau

The focus on whānau engagement is an expectation in each teachers’ professional growth cycle. Teachers are beginning to provide more relevant information to whānau about how well students are progressing and achieving. Student-led conferences with whānau are building better learning relationships. Teachers now need to further promote strategies to help whānau support learning at home. Leaders recognise the need to provide whānau with more reliable achievement information for students in Years 7 to 10.

Participate in board training to strengthen decision making

The college has an alternative constitutional board of trustees that includes four Ministry appointed trustees. This supports the board to carry out its stewardship roles and responsibilities. Trustees apply sound financial management practices and use appropriate personnel and complaints processes. They continue to access targeted governance training.

The board prioritises student wellbeing and provides additional resourcing for teacher aides and learning resources. The board needs to scrutinise the Years 7 to 10 student achievement data to identify priorities and targets for this cohort of students. Processes have been strengthened in response to the review of the Stand-down, Suspension and Exclusion policy by the Board.

Development of evaluation processes

Evaluation capability is developing, and evaluation processes are increasingly systematic and coherent. Leaders are beginning to provide more evaluative reports to the board related to NCEA achievement information.

Key next steps

School leaders and teachers should continue to:

  • build a positive learning culture to support student wellbeing and achievement
  • further develop consistency of effective teaching practices to engage students and accelerate progress
  • strengthen teachers’ and leaders’ data literacy capability
  • improve assessment systems and processes in Years 7 to 10
  • design and document a relevant Marau-a-kura o Whangaroa that provides students with meaningful career pathways
  • build the Ngā Ara Whetu initiative to increase student success.

3 Sustainable performance and self review

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

Whangaroa College continues to improve its performance. The college is developing systems, structures and processes to promote a sustainable cycle of school improvement and evaluation.

Leaders, staff and trustees have made some improvements in the college’s culture, curriculum delivery, teaching, learning, stewardship practices and community engagement. The college now needs to consolidate these improvements by embedding initiatives to promote sustained growth and improvement of student learning outcomes.

Key next steps

School leaders should continue to:

  • ensure leadership is supported by professional learning, mentoring and guidance
  • provide more evaluative reporting on the progress of the school’s strategic goals
  • develop systematic internal evaluation to support continuous improvement.

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
  • school policies in relation to meeting the requirements of the Children’s Act 2014.

Actions for compliance

The board and ERO identified an area of non-compliance in the Board Assurance Statement.

4 Recommendations

Recommendations, including any to other agencies for ongoing or additional support

The quality of teaching requires further development and embedding to improve student learning and wellbeing outcomes. ERO recommends that the school continues to work with the Ministry of Education to support ongoing curriculum development and initiatives.

Conclusion

The college has made good progress and will transition to ERO’s Te Ara Huarau | Evaluation for Improvement process.

Filivaifale Jason Swann
Director Review and Improvement Services (Northern)
Northern Region - Te Tai Raki

22 July 2022

About the school

The Education Counts website provides further information about the school’s student population, student engagement and student achievement.