Puhinui 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

Puhinui School in Papatoetoe, Auckland provides education for learners in Years 1 to 6. The school reflects the ethnically diverse local community. The school values of opportunity, community, respect, resilience, and integrity underpin school life. Currently the school is in a period of rapid roll growth welcoming families new to Aotearoa New Zealand.

There are three parts to this report.

Part A: A summary of the findings from the most recent Education Review Office (ERO) report and/or subsequent evaluation.

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

Part A: Previous Improvement Goals

Since the previous ERO report of December 2022, school leaders have been evaluating how effectively classroom reading programmes improve student learning, progress, and equity for all learners.

Expected Improvements and Findings

The school expected to see:

Reading levels of all learners, particularly for learners in Years 0 to 3, and their learning progress to improve.

• All learners improved and maintained their learning progress in reading.
• Children’s confidence in reading improved as they developed foundational literacy skills and knowledge.

Teachers engaging in professional development.

• All teachers successfully engaged in reading professional development to strengthen teaching and learning.
• Targeted professional development for all year levels, within each teaching team, meant that teachers improved their understanding of teaching reading across the school.
• Individualised instructional coaching improved each teacher’s knowledge and skills of teaching reading.

Teachers’ collaborative sharing of effective literacy practices.

• Teaching teams met regularly to collaborate and share their practice to better support learner success.
• Instructional coaching enabled effective practices to be shared and used between teachers.
• Scheduled teacher observations and feedback sessions with members of the leadership team promoted a consistency amongst practitioners.

Other Findings

During the course of the evaluation, it was found that teachers developed a collective clarity about what is an effective reading programme and its successful delivery.

The greatest shift that occurred in response to the school’s action was the progress and achievement for learners in Years one and two.

Part B: Current State

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

Learner Success and Wellbeing

The school is increasingly achieving equitable and excellent outcomes for most learners.

• School achievement information shows that most students, including Māori and Pacific learners, are achieving at or above their expected curriculum levels in reading, writing and mathematics.
• Data shows some disparity for boys in reading and writing and for Māori boys in writing.
• School practices are inclusive of all students they engage, access the curriculum and achieve success.
• The majority of students attend school regularly; school attendance systems are supportive of families to progressively achieve Ministry of Education attendance targets.

Conditions to support learner success

School leadership works collaboratively and strategically to improve outcomes for all learners.

• Leaders are focused on specific actions based on regular cycles of continuous improvement that promote equity for all learners.
• Leaders are deliberate in ensuring teaching and learning is focused on delivering a curriculum that allows all learners to achieve their best outcomes.
• Leadership is strategic, systematic and intentionally leads improvement for all learners.

Curriculum and teaching practices are worthwhile and responsive to student interests and learning needs. 

• Teachers successfully sequence learning that motivates and engages all learners.
• Students learning needs are met by teachers planning and using responsive and deliberate strategies to meet these needs.
• The school curriculum is designed to ensure that learning themes are relatable for the students.

Well-aligned systems, structures and practices bring about success and improvement over time.

• Leaders and teachers recognise, affirm, value and increasingly cater for the many identities, languages and cultures of all learners.
• Inclusive practices reflect the values and aspirations of parents and the community.
• Leaders and teachers engage and participate in ongoing professional growth to ensure high quality teaching and learning.
• Leaders undertake regular review of student achievement data, learning programmes and initiatives to inform their decision-making.

Part C: Where to next?

The agreed next steps for the school are to:

• continue to enhance the curriculum through topic choice with deliberate language enriched experiences, that students can share and successfully write about their world
• continue to strengthen the school community’s knowledge and understanding of te ao Māori
• leaders strategically plan for the rapidly growing school roll to ensure that systems, processes, and practices are secure.

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

Within six months:

• gather information about current integrated literacy programmes to identify next steps for professional development that will improve outcomes in writing for all learners
• review leadership systems and processes to ensure that they are sufficiently robust to lead the school during this period of rapid roll growth 
• review and strengthen the school’s Māori strategic plan goals and actions using the Poutama Reo resource to improve learning opportunities for all learners.

Annually:

Leaders evaluate and report to the board on the impact in relation to:

• attendance, progress and achievement of priority groups of learners including boys’ literacy and Māori boys in writing
• progress and achievement of writing across the whole school for all learners
• progress against the Poutama Reo dimensions and the effect that this is having on outcomes for all learners.

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

• increasingly equitable outcomes for all learners, particularly boys
• teachers effectively integrate writing programmes that promote language enriched student writing across the curriculum
• all students and their families valuing their own language, culture and identity and confidently able to place themselves within the school’s kaupapa (culture) and Aotearoa New Zealand.

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

26 July 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