Bluestone School

School Evaluation Report

Tēnā koutou e mau manawa rahi ki te kaupapa e aro ake nei, ko te tamaiti te pūtake o te kaupapa. Mā wai rā e kawe, mā tātau katoa.

We acknowledge the collective effort, responsibility and commitment by all to ensure that the child remains at the heart of the matter.

Context 

Bluestone School is a full primary school for students in Years 1 to 8 located in Timaru. The school’s vision is to inspire creative life-long learners through a focus on effective teaching, fostering a sense of identity, belonging and hauora (wellbeing) and enhancing student engagement. Since the last ERO review there is a new principal and senior leadership team in the school.

The school is the managing school for the Timaru Technology Education Centre that provides technology education for Year 7 and 8 students from other schools.

There are two parts to this report.

Part A: An evaluative summary of learner success and school conditions to inform the school board’s future strategic direction, including any education in Rumaki/bilingual settings.

Part B: The improvement actions prioritised for the school’s next evaluation cycle.

Part A: Current State

The following findings are to inform the school’s future priorities for improvement.

Learner Success and Wellbeing

• A majority of learners achieve at expected curriculum levels for reading and mathematics, about half achieve at curriculum expectations in writing.
• School information shows that Māori make similar rates of progress in their learning; further analysis is needed to know how equitably they are achieving overall.
• A majority of learners attend school regularly; the school is yet to meet Ministry of Education targets for regular attendance and is working proactively with families and learners to improve this.

Conditions to support learner success

• Leaders effectively support teachers to lead, plan and coordinate the school’s curriculum and are developing clear and shared expectations for effective teaching.
• Leaders prioritise professional growth and leadership development for teachers that is aligned with the school’s improvement goals and learner needs; evaluating how well professional development has led to anticipated changes in teaching and improved outcomes for learners is a next step.
• Leaders are taking steps to strengthen goals and targets for raising student achievement to better support more focused actions and knowing the impact of these for learners.

• Teachers actively engage in professional learning to develop shared understandings of effective teaching of literacy and mathematics; te reo, tikanga and mātauranga Māori are beginning to be included in all aspects of the school curriculum.
• Teachers create orderly, inclusive and increasingly collaborative classrooms and learners are engaged in purposeful, well-paced learning opportunities.
• Leaders and teachers are strengthening systems and practices for identifying and providing for learners needing targeted learning support to have success in learning; they are strengthening the analysis and use of data to support insights into learner progress at class, teaching team and whole-school levels.

• Leaders and teachers use internal and external expertise (including networks with other schools) well to improve teaching, systems and practices and to access wellbeing and learning support for learners. 
• Leaders and teachers value the diverse identities, languages and cultures of learners, their families and communities and are strengthening the ways they support their participation, sense of belonging and success in learning. 
• The board and leaders gather, analyse and act on useful data, including community and student feedback, to improve learners’ wellbeing. 
• Leaders and teachers encourage parent and whānau participation in the life of the school; they communicate clearly with parents about learners’ progress and share teaching and learning approaches.

Part B: Where to next?

The agreed next steps for the school are to:

• strengthen goal setting for raising student achievement at whole school and class levels, particularly for writing
• foster effective practice for teaching writing
• improve analysis of assessment information to know about the effectiveness of strategies to raise achievement and to inform decisions at class, teaching team and whole-school levels
• strengthen systems and practices for identifying, providing for and evaluating targeted learning support for those students who need this
• continue to work with the school community to encourage regular attendance as the foundation for success in learning.

The agreed actions for the next improvement cycle and timeframes are as follows:

Within three months:

• school board and leaders revise school learning targets to focus on accelerated progress and achievement for those learners who need this, particularly in writing
• teachers set specific termly learning goals for learners needing to make accelerated progress in writing and plan teaching strategies to achieve these
• leaders and teachers develop additional intervention strategies and programmes to support accelerated learning in literacy, mathematics and English language learning
• leaders provide professional learning for staff on effective teaching of writing and priority intervention strategies.

Every six months:

• teachers evaluate the effectiveness of goals and plans to accelerate learners’ progress and achievement in writing and reset
• leaders and teachers evaluate the effectiveness of targeted interventions for accelerating learning in reading, writing and mathematics and English language learning and adapt plans to support success
• leaders and teachers review key shifts in practice in response to professional learning on the effective teaching of writing and identify future focus areas
• leaders and teachers collaboratively review teaching team and whole school achievement information to identify trends, needs, strengths and teaching and learning priorities 
• board and leaders monitor attendance data and review the success of strategies to encourage regular attendance.

Annually:

• board and leaders use termly and six-monthly evaluations of learning interventions and plans to accelerate learning in writing, to know what has worked and to inform future planning for professional learning, targeted learning interventions and school achievement targets.

Actions taken against these next steps are expected to result in:

• more learners achieving at expected levels in writing
• learners participating in targeted learning interventions making accelerated progress
• teachers, leaders and board use learning information effectively to know how well teaching and targeted learning interventions are supporting the progress and achievement of learners
• improved levels of regular attendance.

ERO’s role will be to support the school in its evaluation for improvement cycle to improve outcomes for all learners. The next public report on ERO’s website will be a School Evaluation Report and is due within three years.

Me mahi tahi tonu tātau, kia whai oranga a tātau tamariki
Let’s continue to work together for the greater good of all children

Shelley Booysen
Director of Schools

25 September 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