Forest View High School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 9 months of the Education Review Office and Forest View High 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

Forest View High School is located in Tokoroa in the heart of the South Waikato region. The school provides education to students in Years 9 - 13. In 2019 a new Principal was appointed and since then there have been significant changes to the makeup of the senior leadership team.

Forest View High School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are to:

• have student centred decision making at the core of leadership and teacher planning
• provide quality education to students to prepare them for life after secondary schooling while obtaining the highest and most significant qualifications possible
• embed culture and languages into learning, that are representative of all the student and staff cultures the school serves.

You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on Forest View High School’s website.

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively internal evaluation is being used to improve student outcomes.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

• to evaluate the effectiveness and significance of recent changes on students' achievement and engagement
• to evaluate special programmes Arataki and Akoranga introduced at Forest View High School, in terms of long-term benefits for students
• to implement an effective programme and plan for internal review that can be applied to all aspects of our school for continued long term improvement.

The school expects to see a structured process in place that can be translated to all areas of the school to conduct effective review. The review process will include a range of voices strategically chosen to provide a wide lens on the mahi being reviewed and to ensure we are meeting our cultural responsibilities for our priority learners and clearly identifying next steps to improve student outcomes.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to build internal evaluation capability:

• Well-established connections with whānau and wider community groups that support collaborative planning.
• Students and staff voice are included in on all aspects of our school review and planning.
• The leadership team is deliberately diverse and responsive to staff, students and parent voice.
• The priority given to building staff capability about culturally responsive and relational practice.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• designing and implementing an approach to internal evaluation that establishes what is working well, for whom, and using this information to inform ongoing planning across the school
• including the board of trustees in the internal evaluation cycle to ensure evidence-based decisions are made about school improvement.

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

29 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