Kai Iwi 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 

Kai Iwi School is a full primary located approximately 10 kilometres from Whanganui. Their shared vision is to nurture learners who achieve, are confident, connected to community and creative leaders.

There are three parts to this report.

Part A: A summary of the findings from the most recent Education Review Office (ERO) report and/or subsequent evaluation.

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

Part A: Previous Improvement Goals

Since the previous ERO report of February 2023, the school has focused on evaluating how well delivery of the school’s literacy curriculum achieves equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners.

Expected Improvements and Findings

The school expected to see:

Effective teaching and learning, reflecting shared strategies and new approaches, in the delivery of literacy.

• Teachers, and support staff, demonstrate effective use of literacy strategies that build key foundational knowledge and skills which have impact positively on the progress and achievement of learners.

Teacher inquiry that identifies the impact of strategies on learner outcomes and how barriers to learning are addressed to accelerate the progress of students.

• Use of a robust teaching inquiry process ensures approaches to literacy are explored, to identify strategies that work for learners and address barriers to positive engagement, progress and achievement.

The schools’ localised curriculum is documented over time to reflect shared expectations for teaching, learning and culturally responsive practice in literacy.

• Development of the documented literacy curriculum has established well considered teaching and learning expectations, that ensure learners experience consistent, sequenced, and progressional learning, matched to their individual needs.

Other Findings

The greatest shift that occurred in response to the school’s action, is in schoolwide structured literacy approaches, resulting in consistent teaching practice and impacting positively on achievement outcomes for learners in reading.

Part B: Current State

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

Learner Success and Wellbeing

Learner outcomes are increasingly equitable and excellent.

• Most learners, including Māori learners, achieve curriculum expectations in reading with a large majority achieving in writing and mathematics.
• Leaders report, and ERO’s evaluation affirms, disparity for boys in writing, when compared to girls; relevant actions have been established to address this disparity and raise overall achievement in writing.
• Timely communication with parents and whānau supports positive attendance; most learners attend regularly, aligned to the Ministry of Education’s targets.
• Inclusive practices, and multiple opportunities for student leadership, fosters a positive environment that supports learner wellbeing and encourages their purposeful engagement at school.

Conditions to support learner success

Leaders establish relevant priorities and facilitate improvements that achieve positive outcomes for learners.

• Strategic and annual implementation goals identify well considered priorities that guide relevant improvement actions that improve learner outcomes.
• Learner outcomes, teaching, and curriculum delivery are strengthened by leaders’ effective facilitation of new approaches to practice.
• Leaders regular monitoring of learner outcomes ensures individuals identified with additional and complex needs receive timely learning support that meets their specific needs.

Learners engage purposefully in collaborative and orderly environments that foster meaningful participation in learning.  

• Staff use a variety of evidence based and intentional teaching strategies to sequence purposeful, well-paced learning for students.
• Assessments are used well to plan for teaching, learning and meet reporting requirements to trustees, parents and whānau.
• Design and delivery of the curriculum is inclusive of the community ensuring planned contexts and experiences are matched to learner interests.

Key conditions that support learner success are well established.

• Leaders, staff and trustees develop mutually beneficial partnerships that ensure the aspirations of their community are met and aligned to their vision for learner success.
• Parents, whānau and iwi are valued partners in student learning and their views are actively sought to bring about school improvement.
• The board effectively represents and serves the school community; information reported to trustees ensures their resourcing and decision-making benefits learner outcomes.
• Staff are highly collaborative, sharing practice informs agreed teaching and learning expectations, that benefits improving outcomes for learners.

Part C: Where to next?

The agreed next steps for the school are to:

• continue to provide opportunities for staff to share practice, and participate in further structured literacy professional learning, that embeds current strategies, and incorporates new learning that improves literacy outcomes
• collaboratively review current practice in delivery of writing and develop shared expectations for teaching and learning that achieves equitable outcomes and raises achievement.

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

Within six months:

• leaders of literacy learning will continue to facilitate collaborative professional learning opportunities for staff to embed their shared expectations for teaching and learning in structured literacy
• staff will collaboratively review current practice in delivery of writing and begin to establish shared expectations that promote effective practice and strengthen learner outcomes.

Annually:

• leader’s statement of variance will use information reported from the literacy leader to inform trustees on how well approaches to structured literacy are embedded and have impacted on learner outcomes
• teaching inquiry will continue to be shared between staff, and with trustees, to collectively determine strategies and actions that have achieved successful outcomes for targeted learners
• leaders will gather information and evaluate teaching and learning in writing to understanding how well changes in practice are impacting on learner outcomes.

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

• effective teaching and learning in structured literacy approaches ensures learners develop comprehensive knowledge and skills that achieves positive achievement outcomes that are sustained over time.
• shared approaches in delivery of the revised writing curriculum ensures effective teaching and learning practices achieve equitable outcomes, raise and sustain overall achievement.

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