Glentunnel School

School Context

Glentunnel School is situated in Mid Canterbury. This contributing primary school caters for students in Years 1 to 6. The school has a roll of 109 children, 14 of whom identify as Māori.

The school’s vision is ‘Accepting challenge, bringing effort and persevering. He rakau morimori, e kore e taea te piki’. The school’s values encourage students to be respectful citizens (manaakitanga), confident communicators (wananga), relationship builders (whanaungatanga) and to have a growth mindset (mahi tahi).

The school’s current strategic priorities include the provision of a responsive curriculum, effective teaching and the opportunity to learn, underpinned by inquiry and knowledge building for improvement and innovation.

Since the ERO review in 2014, there has been a change in key personnel including a new principal, board chair and board members. A purpose-built classroom has been added to the school site.

The school is an active member of the Malvern Kāhui Ako|Community of Learning (CoL) with chairmanship of both stewardship and principal’s leadership groups.

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

• achievement in reading, writing and mathematics
• wellbeing and behaviour information.

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 students.

Over the last three years, the school’s data shows that most students have been performing at or above curriculum expectations in reading, writing and mathematics. There have been slight increases for students identifying as Māori in reading. There continues, however, to be significant disparity for these students in writing and mathematics achievement.

Boys and girls are performing at similar rates in reading and mathematics. In 2018 rates of achievement for boys in writing showed improvement.

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

As the school was in the early stages of developing systems to track students over time ERO was not able to evaluate how well the school was accelerating progress.

However, the evidence provided did show that children who identify as Māori, and those with identified learning needs, are supported well in a number of different ways to make progress. The 2018 report shows that improvements were made in mathematics, reading and writing for Maori and other targeted students.

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?

An improvement-focused board, leadership and staff are working together to build relational trust and collaboration throughout the school. The team has established positive expectations to support consistent practices in teaching and learning. These refer directly to the school’s values, the newly-created learner profile and the key competencies. There is a strong culture of care and a deliberate focus on promoting the wellbeing of students.

The learning environment supports participation and engagement for students. Themes within the curriculum enable students to engage in relevant teaching and learning topics. The board makes appropriate resourcing available for staff and learners to ensure the needs of students are met.

Teachers are engaged in individual inquiry topics and a range of professional learning opportunities, supported by external providers. As a result, they are developing useful frameworks to reflect on their practice and increase their capability and capacity. Leaders and teachers engage with the Kāhui Ako as a positive partnership for improvement and innovation.

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

The board, leaders and teachers have developed a well thought through values and well being curriculum. They have identified the next step in this process is to develop a future focused curriculum linked to the well being and values. The board have allocated resources and have a framework for a strategic approach for consultation to develop this localised, responsive curriculum. This includes opportunities to better reflect the historical and cultural context of the school community and the aspirations of students.

Aspects of internal evaluation would benefit from further development. The board, leaders and teachers collect a range of useful information. They have identified from analysis of this information that more targeted learning and social skills goals are needed to further accelerate the students learning. Clearly identifying evaluation outcomes and the impact on students will further assist decision making at all levels of the school.

Some areas of culturally responsive practice need further development at the school. Teachers are building their knowledge and use of te reo Māori and now need to extend this to ensure that te ao Māori concepts are integrated into the curriculum and classroom programmes. The board has recognised the need to extend the way it engaged and consults so that collectively-developed strategic plans reflect the aspirations of Māori.

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 Glentunnel School’s performance in achieving valued outcomes for its students is: Well placed.

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:

• a culture of collaboration and relational trust that supports consistent practices in teaching and learning
• a values based learning environment which encourages participation, manaakitanga, and high levels of engagement for students
• professional learning opportunities to develop capability and capacity in teachers and leaders
• close connection to the local and wider community that results in improved learning opportunities for students.

Next steps

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

• the completion of the localised and responsive curriculum
• strengthening internal evaluation so it is more strategic, and informed by analysed data regarding student achievement and acceleration of progress
• taking a more strategic approach to developing culturally responsive practices that reflect te ao Māori and include increased consultation opportunities.

Lesley Patterson

Director Review and Improvement Services Southern

10 July 2019

About the school