Pakotai School

School Evaluation Report

Tēnā 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.

Context

Pakotai School is a small rural school in Northland and provides education for learners in Years 1 to 8. The school’s mission is to provide students with a broad educational experience. The values that underpin school life include rangatiratanga, manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga. A new principal was appointed in April 2023.

There are two parts to this report.

Part A: An evaluative summary of learner success and school conditions to inform the school board’s future strategic direction, including any education in Rumaki/bilingual settings. 

Part B: The improvement actions prioritised for the school’s next evaluation cycle. 

Part A: Current State 

The following findings are to inform the school’s future priorities for improvement.

Learner Success and Wellbeing 

Improvement is urgently needed to ensure all students are engaged in learning, making sufficient progress, and are achieving well.

• School achievement information shows that most learners are not achieving at their expected curriculum levels in reading, writing and mathematics. 
• The school has no evidence to show students’ progress and achievement overtime.
• The school is taking steps to improve its provision of a physically, emotionally safe and inclusive environment for all learners.
• School data shows that rates of attendance are not yet meeting the Ministry of Education target; although small numbers of learners’ impact on the reliability of the data. 

Conditions to support learner success

Leadership is beginning to establish strategic planning and identify the key school priorities for improvement. 

• The principal is consulting with the community to develop a strategic plan and school goals; a revision of school goals has begun.
• The principal and staff should prioritise more deliberate planning and teaching of daily reading, writing and mathematics so that students begin to make academic progress.

Improvements are required to curriculum design and teaching practices.

• Leaders and teachers are beginning to develop a curriculum that reflects local contexts in a way that students can start to see themselves, their identity and culture in aspects of their learning.
• Te ao Māori and tikanga Māori, are starting to be woven through all aspects of the school’s curriculum to support learner engagement. 
• Teachers are beginning to use appropriate assessment information to identify individual learning needs, plan teaching programmes and report children’s progress and achievement to parents and whānau.

Board governance and leadership require external support to bring about the improvement needed for learner success

• The board has not yet set a clear achievement focused programme for improvement through strategic planning, teaching, and learning and accelerating outcomes for learners.
• The board is not sufficiently managing the school’s resourcing and the performance of the principal; this must be a focus to support ongoing improvement. 
• Systems, processes and guidance for effective leadership and teaching are not well embedded to support sustainable change and improvement.
• The board, parents and whānau do not receive sufficient and regular reporting and monitoring of student progress and achievement to inform board decisions and keep parents up-to-date about their child’s learning.

Part B: Where to next? 

The agreed next steps for the school are to: 

• ensure the board and all staff understand the school improvement priorities, rationale and expectations to accelerate progress and achievement for all students
• increase the rates of regular attendance for all students
• collect, track, monitor and analyse achievement data to inform teaching and learning next steps for each child
• strengthen schoolwide systems, processes and procedures to ensure that the school meets its statutory responsibilities.

The agreed actions for the next improvement cycle and timeframes are as follows:

Within three months:

• establish a system that identifies learners at risk of not achieving and then identify and set progress targets to improve regular attendance, progress and achievement
• begin collecting assessment information to inform programme planning and the teaching of reading, writing and mathematics
• work closely with facilitators to implement a structured approach to improving the daily teaching of reading, writing and mathematics knowledge and skills

Every six months:

• leaders to monitor and report progress and improvement to the board against the annual plan goals, especially in attendance, reading, writing and mathematics
• teachers use assessment information to evaluate their teaching practice, adapt and respond to individual needs and identify next steps in students’ learning
• the principal and staff establish processes for regular written reporting to parents and whānau 

Annually:

• leaders to evaluate the impact of teaching and learning programmes on accelerating student achievement and recommend next steps
• evaluate how well the curriculum is responding to students individual learning needs

Actions taken against these next steps are expected to result in:

• improved rates of attendance 
• all students meeting expected curriculum levels in in reading, writing and mathematics due to effective teaching and learning approaches that accelerate the achievement of all learners
• a curriculum that is responsive to the interests, needs and strengths of the learner
• a deliberate approach to planning for improvement that guides the school's direction based on well analysed student achievement information and good quality teaching and learning.

To support the school’s improvement planning ERO will:

• monitor progress towards these improvement priorities each term
• work with the school to regularly report progress against the improvement priorities.

ERO recommendation

• the school board engage with New Zealand School Boards Association to undertake training to support them in their stewardship role
• the Ministry of Education support the school to progress against the key improvement priorities identified in this report.

To support the school's improvement planning ERO will:

• monitor progress towards these improvement priorities termly
• work with the school to regularly report progress against the improvement priorities.

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 Evaluation 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

Shelley Booysen
Director of Schools

15 August 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