Sir Keith Park School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within six months of the Education Review Office and Sir Keith Park 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

This report is part of a nationally coordinated evaluation of 27-day specialist schools during the second half of 2023. This included the development of day specialist school evaluation indicators by ERO with significant input from principals, staff, and the Special Education Principals’ Association of New Zealand (SEPAnz).

Context 

Sir Keith Park School is a multicultural learning community located in Favona, Auckland. It provides education for learners with intellectual and multiple complex learning disabilities between the ages of five to 21 years old. All learners have Ongoing Resourcing Scheme (ORS) funding. The school has a base school and four satellite sites located at local host schools. 

The school employs a specialist therapy team that includes speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and behaviour specialists, who support the learning of students. The school also operates a specialist teacher outreach service that supports ORS funded students enrolled in 17 schools across the South Auckland area.

The school’s whakatauki is ‘Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini’ - ‘The result of one’s work is the product of many hands’. The school is guided by its values of Teamwork- Whanaungatanga; Respect- Manaakitanga; Integrity- Ngākau Pono. 

The school continues to navigate and manage roll growth pressures along with the employment and property demands associated with this.

Recognising movement as the foundation for all learning, the school uses the MOVE Programme for students who cannot sit, stand, or walk independently. The programme is an activity-based approach that combines education, therapy, and family knowledge to teach the students new skills.

Sir Keith Park School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

• ākonga focused curriculum
• engaging and empowering relationships
• empowering school culture
• continuity and change.

You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on Sir Keith Park School’s website.

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively school systems and processes support specialist teaching and learning practices, to ensure equity and excellence for all learners to reach their potential.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is to evaluate how effectively school systems and processes are in supporting specialist teaching and learning practices. 

The school expects to see:

• learners continuing to make sustained progress towards achieving their potential
• schoolwide systems and processes that further support effective specialist teaching and learning practices
• effective schoolwide communication at all levels of the school.

Strengths 

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to evaluate how effectively school systems and processes support specialist teaching and learning practices, to ensure equity and excellence for all learners to reach their potential.

• Clear evidence of positive student outcomes reflected in progress and achievement of individual learning goals.
• Students experience a welcoming, calm, settled, and supportive learning environment.
• A school environment where language, culture and identity are celebrated, in particular Pacific and Māori.
• A school culture that promotes wellbeing and care for the students, whānau, and the school community. 
• An adaptive and responsive strength-based school curriculum that supports students to experience success in their learning. 
• A senior school leadership team that effectively builds collective capacity to review and inquire into sustained improvement in schoolwide systems to actively respond to the complex environment of a special day school. 

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• developing a schoolwide shared understanding to further embed systems and process that enhance specialist teaching and learning practices
• ensuring systems and processes are accessible for a range of purposes
• strengthening opportunities for distributed leadership across the school. 

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

27 March 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