Palmerston North Girls’ High School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 11 months of the Education Review Office and Palmerston North 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 

Palmerston North Girls’ High School is located in central Palmerston North and provides education for young women in Years 9 to 13. The school’s values of whakaute, whakamana, whakatangata underpin the vision of inspiring young women as successful learners who act with integrity.

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

• to uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi
• to promote consistent quality teaching and learning
• to nurture a positive, sustainable school environment.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively whole school learning and teaching strategies in literacy support equitable and excellent progress towards success for all learners.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

• to improve in equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners, particularly for Māori and Pacific learners
• to improve literacy foundations that will empower all learners as they transition through their schooling, ensuring equity of access to the full curriculum and meaningful pathways
• to continue to develop the capacity and capability of teachers in effective literacy practices within a culturally responsive, relational pedagogy.

The school expects to see:

• equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners
• improved capacity, capability and confidence of teachers to implement effective teaching strategies across all curriculum areas
• assessment practices support learner agency and promote progress and achievement.

Strengths 

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal of effective literacy teaching across the curriculum:

• respectful relationships and a positive learning environment promote learners’ sense of belonging and connection to the school
• to promote equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners, leadership prioritises and plans for continuous improvement 
• the capacity to effect improvement through the shared commitment by teachers to improve outcomes through building collective capability in effective literacy practice
• capacity and capability in internal evaluation, inquiry and knowledge building informs change to support improvement and innovation for learning.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise: 

• implementation of a school wide approach for effective literacy strategies supported through professional learning opportunities
• assessment for adaptive teaching strengthened to further inform teaching and learning to meet the literacy needs for all learners
• effective tracking and monitoring of progress to respond to all learners needs
• further embedding of culturally responsive pedagogy and Mātauranga Māori across the curriculum.

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

15 April 2024

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