Whangarei Girls’ High School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 24 months of the Education Review Office and Whangārei Girls’ 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 

Whangārei Girls’ High School provides education for ākonga from Years 9 to 13. The school is in Te Tai Tokerau and is the only secondary girls’ school north of Auckland. The school provides ākonga with boarding facilities at Lupton House on the school site. The board and leaders are currently redeveloping their school kaupapa and their strategic priorities.

Whangārei Girls’ High School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

• Developing He Kaupapa Rautaki and embedding our kawa and tikanga.

• Ākonga engagement, learning, progress and achievement.

• Wellbeing, feeling good and functioning well.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how well cultural relationships for responsive practice are embedded in teaching and learning to improve outcomes for all learners, in particular Māori.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is to:

• achieve equity of outcomes for all ākonga, especially Māori

• prioritise an equity focus through teaching and learning

• determine how responsive the school’s curriculum is for diverse groups of ākonga.

The school expects to see:

• Te Ao Māori and Mātauranga Māori embedded within the kura

• consistently embedded culturally responsive, inclusive practices and targeted teaching that engages ākonga

• ākonga experiencing a responsive, rich, broad and localised curriculum

• kaiako consistently using effective teaching strategies and practices in adaptive ways to promote equitable and excellent ākonga outcomes

• improved attendance, retention, engagement and achievement for ākonga Māori

• leadership that is responsive to changing environments and the community context.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support their goal to evaluate cultural relationships for responsive teaching practice:

• governance and leadership prioritise and plan for school improvement and equitable and excellent outcomes, with a focus on equity for Māori learners

• school leaders engage with external evaluation as a resource for improvement and innovation

• kaiako are committed to improved outcomes for ākonga

• established methods for collecting a range of student voice and experience to inform decision making.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise continuing:

• to gather and make sense of evidence from all groups of ākonga, including Māori and Pacific, and their whānau to improve teaching and learning

• professional learning for kaiako to ensure that teaching and learning is inclusive and responsive

• to work with ERO to support senior and middle leaders to grow their internal evaluation capability and capacity.

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 Schools

21 April 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

Whangārei Girls’ High School are the lead school for the RTLB service Te Tai Tokerau Cluster 2 and host school for He Matariki Teen Parent Unit.