Pakuranga Heights School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 8 months of the Education Review Office and Pakuranga Heights 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 

Pakuranga Heights School is a culturally diverse contributing school, catering for students in Years 1 to 6. The school’s vision ‘Reaching New Heights Together’, along with the values of Pononga, Manaaki, Kawenga, and Kauanuanu and the Learner Dispositions underpin learning experiences.

Pakuranga Heights School’s strategic priorities to achieve for improving outcomes for students are:

• students learn, achieve and progress in the breadth and depth of the New Zealand Curriculum

• Assessment for Learning develops students’ assessment and learning to learn capabilities

• students participate and learn in caring, collaborative, inclusive learning communities

• community collaborations enrich opportunities for students to become confident, connected, actively involved lifelong learners

• collective capacity to do and use evaluation, inquiry and knowledge building sustains improvement and innovation.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how well Assessment for Learning practices are being implemented and impacting on equitable and excellent outcomes for all students.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is to: 

• ensure teachers use strong assessment practices and are skilled in noticing, recognising, and responding to the needs of all students

• enable students to have greater agency of their learning

• further strengthen learning outcomes for all students to promote equity and excellence.

The school expects to see: 

• sustained acceleration of progress and achievement of all students

• increased opportunities for students to identify and understand their learning pathways

• leaders and teachers utilising observation, feedback and coaching to further strengthen Assessment for Learning practices

• consistency of Assessment for Learning practices across the school.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to strengthen Assessment for Learning practices:

• an established plan that prioritises on-going staff professional learning and guides the improvement of teaching and learning

• evaluation, inquiry, and knowledge-building approaches are used to improve teaching practice and student outcomes

• assessment systems and practices identify, monitor and report the progress and achievement of all students

• teachers employ a variety of teaching strategies to deliver a local responsive curriculum.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• teachers continuing to strengthen their skills in literacy assessment to ensure that they are responding effectively to the learning needs of all students

• continuing to strengthen learning outcomes and effective interventions for all students to promote equity and excellence

• increase use of student voice to evaluate the impact of Assessment for Learning practices.

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

17 October 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