Waikaretu School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within four months of the Education Review Office and Waikaretu 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 

Waikaretu School is located in a rural, coastal setting in North Waikato, providing education for students in Years 1 to 8. The school has strong connections with the local community, including both local marae.

Waikaretu School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

• raising achievement for all students
• strengthening community connections to support learning
• deepening and broadening the local curriculum to enhance critical thinking and innovation.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate the effectiveness of targeted actions to raise achievement in literacy and mathematics for all students.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

• the priority to increase rates of attendance and achievement for all learners
• the commitment to further develop practices and programmes for continual improvement
• the opportunity it provides to strengthen quality partnerships for learning and meaningful engagement with the local Māori community.

The school expects to see planned actions implemented to enable improved achievement and increasingly equitable outcomes for all learners. In addition, enhanced partnerships for learning should further promote increased rates of attendance and progress in learning.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to meet the needs of all learners and raise achievement through effective teaching practices and partnerships in learning:

• a collaborative learning culture that supports consistent school practices and continuous improvement
• a range of systems and programmes that responds to students’ individualised needs
• positive, caring relationships and community connections that foster a sense of belonging.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• implementing deliberate actions to increase achievement and equitable outcomes for all learners
• extending opportunities for the school and community to be engaged in reciprocal, learning-centred partnerships to improve attendance and increase outcomes for learners
• further strengthening internal evaluation practices to enable sustainability for continuous 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

7 November 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