Victoria Avenue School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 18 months of the Education Review Office and Victoria Avenue 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 

Victoria Avenue School is a contributing school catering for students in years 1 to 6 in Remuera, Auckland.

The school’s mission is to create a caring and inspiring learning environment where students thrive, learning about the past, to understand the present and prepare for the future.

Victoria Avenue School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

• Whanaungatanga |Belonging; we connect and share

We are inclusive in celebrating our diverse learning community and collaboratively create a sense of belonging for all

• Māramatanga | Understanding; we learn and play

We are responsible, reflective and resilient learners who are self-aware and know how to learn and play together

• Mātauranga | Knowledge; We inquire and take action

We are curious and creative when striving for progress and exploring our potential across the curriculum

•  Kaitiakitanga | Guardianship, we protect and care

We positively engage in and value our place of learning and care for and enhance our environment.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively teachers support students to take on increasing responsibility and agency in their own learning. The school values a collaborative approach to create an inquiry based local curriculum to develop creative, curious, reflective and resilient learners.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

• our capable, high achieving students could take more ownership of their learning

• developing our local curriculum provides opportunity for higher order thinking and authentic action

• to further develop student’s sense of responsibility for their own learning

• Te Mātaiaho provides the opportunity and the framework for review.

The school expects to see:

• students actively using a range of context appropriate inquiry models

• higher order thinking through visible thinking routines

• learning goals that empower students to make decisions about what, how and why they learn.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to ensure students take increasing responsibility for their own learning.

• stable and competent staff who have high expectations for student achievement and success

• coherent teaching and learning approaches that support student learning

• effective teaching strategies with high student achievement in literacy and numeracy

• Supportive school community with students who are engaged and eager to learn.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• community and iwi partnership in developing our local curriculum

• enacting our local curriculum using student voice.

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

19 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