Tauranga Intermediate

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 18 months of the Education Review Office and Tauranga Intermediate 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 

Tauranga Intermediate is a large, urban intermediate school that provides education for students in Years 7 and 8 from the wider Tauranga Moana region. The school provides Māori Medium education through the Te Whānau o te Maro unit. The school 'STARS' values of Manaakitia (Safety), Whanaungatanga (Team), Ka taea (Achieve), Whakamanatia (Respect), and Pārekareka (Sense of Humour) underpin a localised curriculum that provides opportunities for learners to 'explore personal potential'.

Tauranga Intermediate’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

• to raise student achievement by providing powerful learning opportunities through the TIS curriculum

• to continually improve teacher practice ensuring best practice to meet the needs of students

• to ensure a positive culture for learning that reflects a bicultural and inclusive community.

You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on Tauranga Intermediate’s website.

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively the continuing improvement of teacher practice and adaptations to the curriculum are leading to equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

• to gain insight into the impact of professional learning on teaching practice and learner outcomes

• to understand how continued growth of consistent formative assessment practices are further refining the school curriculum to best meet the needs of students and move toward equity and excellence for all.

The school expects to see:

• learner progress and achievement outcomes that are consistently equitable and excellent for all

• students increasingly able to understand how well they are progressing and being supported to make choices and decisions about their learning

• teachers adapting their practice to best meet the needs of learners, based on evaluation and monitoring of what works best for students.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal of improving and strengthening the collective capacity of staff to improve equity of learner outcomes:

• Effective and cohesive leadership that consistently focuses on strategic implementation of identified priorities.

• A broad, rich and responsive local curriculum that engages students and provides opportunities to ‘explore personal potential’.

• Caring relationships that foster identity and belonging within a values based, positive culture for learning.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• continuing to build shared understanding of curriculum and assessment knowledge, based on the school’s Poutama Ako framework

• promoting equity and excellence for all, through a community of learning that is adaptive and responsive to the identity and needs of each individual learner

• continuing to build powerful connections with the community, whānau, hapu and iwi to ensure greater reciprocity and collaboration for the benefit of students.

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.

Phil Cowie
Acting Director Review and Improvement Services (Central)
Central Region | Te Tai Pūtahi Nui

15 August 2022 

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