Miller Avenue School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within six months of the Education Review Office and Miller 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 

Miller Avenue School is located in Paeroa and provides education for students in Years 1 to 8.  A new principal started in June of 2022.  The school hosts a satellite class from Goldfields Special School.

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

• to grow ‘great learners’ who are engaged in learning and see them themselves as successful

• to promote and nurture physical, mental, social and spiritual wellbeing of their people

• to strengthen teacher efficacy using an inquiry mindset.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively school programmes and practices are contributing to improving outcomes for all students and raising overall achievement.  Supporting student wellbeing and increasing rates of attendance are ongoing priorities for the schools.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

• the opportunity it provides to respond increasingly effectively to school data to accelerate learning and raise achievement

• the school’s commitment to meeting the holistic needs of students and their whānau.

The school expects to see further actions implemented to enable increase student engagement and success in learning.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to improve outcomes for all learners in wellbeing, attendance, and achievement:

• leadership that is strategically focused on improving attendance rates for identified students

• the provision of ongoing professional learning and inquiry that supports teacher collaboration and builds consistency of school practices to improve learner outcomes

• a newly established framework and school-wide values that promote actions to improve positive behaviour for learning (PB4L).

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• developing school-wide assessment practices to ensure consistency and reliability of data and identify rates of progress

• continuing to build teacher capability to meet the diverse needs of all learners and support accelerated outcomes

• strengthening and embedding the PB4L programme to enable a positive culture for learning across the school.

ERO and the school board have concerns about student engagement and learning outcomes. New strategies have been implemented to address aspects of attendance and behaviour.

Recommendation

ERO recommends that the Ministry of Education considers providing support for the school to bring about improvement in raising student achievement.

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

16 June 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