West Harbour School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 8 months of the Education Review Office and West Harbour 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 

West Harbour School caters for year 1 to 8 ākonga and is in West Harbour, Waitakere, Auckland City.  The school’s values: show respect, take responsibility and value achievement, underpin the vision to ‘Inspire, Enrich and Equip’ all learners with the skills and capabilities to be successful.

West Harbour School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are to:

• Inspire students to achieve their best possible outcomes

• equip students for lifelong learning and global citizenship

• enrich learning through access to a wide range of opportunities and supportive environments.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how consistently and effectively teachers and leaders, in partnership with parents and whānau, build student agency through a broad and responsive curriculum that continues to improve outcomes for all ākonga.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

• a school-wide ongoing focus on evidence-based practice

• collaboration focused on sharing knowledge

• common use of rubrics to show shifts in attainment and to support teachers making more defensible overall teacher judgements on learner levels of achievement

• a strong focus on the explicit teaching of literacy through structured literacy programmes (BSLA), and literacy rotations

• leaders creating a school journey of continuous improvement.

The school expects to see:

• agentic and self-determining ākonga, learning through a highly responsive to needs, strength-based curriculum

• parent and whanau empowerment through engagement in educative talk; working with the school to develop strong agentic and restorative practices for their tamariki

• consistent and effective teacher practices of moderation, collaboration and cross school coaching, focused closely on building ākonga success but also supporting teacher agency and innovation

• clear scaffolding processes that enable learners to be independent, appropriate to age and stage of learning

• digital capabilities where learners can discern, what is valid and what is not, across electronic platforms.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support it in its goal to build student agency through a highly responsive, strength-based curriculum that continues to promote improved outcomes for all ākonga:

• ākonga attendance is closely monitored to ensure maximised opportunities for engagement and learning

• the school caters well for priority learners

• structured literacy knowledge and capability building is supported by leaders modelling and observing practice in classrooms

• staff have positive interpersonal relationships with family, sometimes inter-generational, and ākonga, that encourages engagement and high levels of school loyalty

• a coaching model that includes all staff engaging in personal growth goals and reflection on own practice.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• reviewing the consistency of teacher practices to build agency in ākonga, which includes considering levels of teacher agency and innovation

• partnering with parents and whānau to build a collective view of agency, to include understanding how together the school and family can build restorative practices

• evaluating PB4L delivery and teacher and ākonga levels of shared understanding

• teachers scaffolding ākonga for independence using a range of strategies to meet learner needs

• considering how ākonga are learning to be more discerning around valid and robust internet information.

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

22 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