Tasman Bay Christian School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report 

Background

This Profile Report was written within four months of the Education Review Office and Tasman Bay Christian 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 

Tasman Bay Christian School is a small rural, Years 1 to 8 school situated in Tasman Bay. The vision of the school is to develop the Christian character of each student so they will become well educated and caring Christians in the community. Students are guided to discover and understand their god given meaning in the world and their place and purposes within it.

Tasman Bay Christian School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are for students to:

• receive high quality teaching from well trained and engaged staff
• articulate their learning to staff and whānau through understanding and knowing what effective learning is
• experience a rich and engaging local curriculum that fosters curiosity, culture, creativity and collaboration.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effective culturally responsive teaching and learning practices within the localised curriculum, promote equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners. 

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is to: 

• strengthen schoolwide collaboration for consistency of effective teaching and learning practices within the school to achieve equitable and excellent outcomes for all ākonga, especially in writing
• continue to build cultural competency and develop a responsive local curriculum for all ākonga
• build collective capacity to do and use evaluation, inquiry and knowledge building to continue to improve ākonga outcomes.

The school expects to see strengthened outcomes for ākonga in literacy and mathematics through a responsive broad-based knowledge rich curriculum, implemented within a Christian worldview. This will engage all ākonga through an effective teaching and learning framework.

Strengths 

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to evaluate the effectiveness of culturally responsive teaching and learning practices within the localised curriculum that promotes equitable and excellent outcomes.

• A strong leadership team focussed on strategically improving equity and excellence for all ākonga.
• A whole school collaborative approach to the delivery of the curriculum which supports all students to succeed.
• Teachers and leaders have positive and open to learning mindsets toward new initiatives in teaching and learning and curriculum.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise: 

• developing shared expectations around the cultural competencies to strengthen teacher capabilities
• further strengthening of student agency in their learning to improve their achievement outcomes in literacy and mathematics.

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

7 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