Our research

ERO was approached by principals from Kahukura to document and evaluate their community of practice in Christchurch. This report identifies what is working well for this community of practice, areas where they might consider further enhancements, and lessons and insights into practices which could be shared with others.

This short report accompanies our report Exploring Collaboration in Action: Kahukura Community of Practice.  It looks at the lessons that can be learnt from the Kahukura community of practice, drawing out key lessons on collaboration and providing seven key implications for schools who are interested in collaborating to consider.

This case study explores the impact of the 2020 Covid-19 events on Māori learners in English-medium schools, and the response of leaders, schools and communities in the Bay of Plenty and East Coast regions.

This report explains strategies for supporting secondary students’ engagement during the Covid‑19 pandemic. These strategies include re-engaging students who present with wellbeing concerns or show signs of disengagement. The report also includes some innovative actions schools used to promote student engagement after the first lockdown in 2020.

This short guide is for school leaders and teachers in schools with secondary-aged students. It covers what we found from talking to schools in 2020 about the impact of Covid-19, and shares strategies used by schools to respond to the challenges they faced. It also sets out some actions that could be considered for continuing to support students, parents, whānau and staff in 2021.

Principals and school leaders have taken on a lot of responsibility during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Education Review Office interviewed principals and board chairs and surveyed 1777 principals across the country from May through to September 2020 to understand how they have responded. This summary highlights how those school leaders rose to the challenge.

How well were school leaders determining Professional Learning and Development priorities and evaluating its impact?

ERO spoke with school leaders responsible for planning Professional Learning and Development (PLD) and looked at a variety of documents in 242 state or state-integrated schools (excluding kura) reviewed in Terms 3 and 4, 2018. ERO made an overall judgment about how well school leaders were determining PLD priorities and evaluating the impact of PLD.

This ERO qualitative case study report undertaken on behalf of Oranga Tamariki captures the voices of children and their whanau who were recipients of the Social Workers in Schools (SWiS) service. SWiS is a government funded, community social work service provided in most English and Māori medium, decile 1-3 primary and intermediate schools.

This evaluation studies effective practice in schools’ senior curriculum. It contributes to the review being undertaken by the Ministry of Education (the Ministry) of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). The Ministry-led review focuses on the implementation of NCEA as the national assessment system for the senior years of secondary schooling. 

At Manurewa Central School, the relationship between the principal and trustees is described in terms of how trust and confidence is built through effective listening and transparent reporting, interrogation and discussion of information.

Senior leaders at Invercargill Middle School have put processes in place to ensure that all teachers participate in and contribute to the co-construction of decisions about how best to move forward. The principal describes the approach as ‘change coming from the classroom, not the principals office’.

Professional learning reflects the approach that has been established for students. Learning is differentiated with multiple opportunities for engagement and structure in manageable steps.

This video was filmed at McAuley High School.

Inquiry is at the heart of what drives improvement and innovation at McAuley High School. 

At McAuley High School, leaders and teachers actively model learning behaviour for the students including eliciting student feedback on a regular basis

Working together to determine what the collaboration and teamwork looks like on a day-to-day basis has been a critical and continued focus of professional learning and team dialogue at Stonefields School.

At McAuley High School, classroom teacher observations are a frequent occurrence and students report how they regard this as teachers actively modelling learning behaviour.

This evaluation report illustrates the leadership domain of ERO’s School Evaluation Indicators in practice by:

In 2015, ERO investigated target setting in both primary and secondary schools. We focused on the extent to which targeted actions of schools supported accelerated progress for students at risk of not achieving.

The report examines how well 15 of New Zealand's Secondary-Tertiary Programmes (STPs or Trades Academies) are meeting the needs of students at risk of not staying or succeeding in education.

This report documents the findings of ERO’s 2013 evaluation of how well 40 secondary schools analysed and responded to their NCEA data.