Howick Primary School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 10 months of the Education Review Office and Howick Primary 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 

Howick Primary School is in east Auckland and provides education for students in Years 1 to 6. The Board appointed a new principal in Term 4 2022. The school’s vision is ‘Inspiring confident lifelong learners’.

Howick Primary School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

• Wellbeing focused: ensuring a safe, diverse, and inclusive environment.
• Teacher, learning, and assessment focused: accelerate learner progress through quality teaching, learning and assessment.
• Partnership focused: highly effective partnerships are nurtured with our community.

You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on Howick Primary School’s website.

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how well the school conditions support the development of student agency to raise outcomes for all learners.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is to:

• empower students to be actively engaged in the learning process
• develop understanding of culturally sustaining practices across the school and incorporate this knowledge into teaching, learning and assessment
• continue to strengthen data literacy among teaching staff to inform planning that meets students’ individual learning needs.

The school expects to see:

• students able to articulate their strengths, progress and next steps to enable them to achieve and be successful in their learning
• teachers using culturally sustaining practices that promote student agency and accelerate students’ learning to facilitate equitable and excellent outcomes for all
• whānau and families of all students actively and meaningfully engaged with the school to support their child’s learning journey.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to develop student agency and raise outcomes for all learners:

• the school learning climate is consistently positive for students with respectful relationships and restorative practices well embedded through their Positive Behaviour for Learning framework
• students with diverse learning needs are well supported to progress and achieve in their learning
• leadership effectively and collaboratively develops and promotes the school vision and values and is continually adapting the implementation of the school’s strategic priorities.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• developing shared understanding and expectations of student agency among students, staff and whānau/families to support active engagement in the learning process
• providing professional learning opportunities that promote culturally sustaining practices and build consistency in teaching, learning and assessment
• using evaluation, collaborative inquiry and knowledge-building approaches to continue to strengthen data literacy and raise outcomes for all learners.

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  

9 May 2023

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

This school has a Montessori class.