Tamatea School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background 

This Profile Report was written within nine months of the Education Review Office and ​Tamatea 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  

Tamatea School is in Napier city.  The school provides education for students from Years 1 to 6. The school’s vision for connectedness, curiosity and confidence sets the strategic direction to engage and challenge tamariki.  The school aims to ensure ‘learners have opportunities to enhance their understanding, knowledge and skills in a nurturing environment’. 

​​Tamatea School​’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are: 

• to ensure all tamariki achieve success in their learning journey  
• to provide high quality, challenging and engaging teaching programmes 
• to ensure the local curriculum is responsive to learner needs 
• to embed the effective use of data leading to improved outcomes for students. 

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate the impact of initiatives and interventions on learner academic progress, attendance and wellbeing.  This includes a focus on assessment and evaluation procedures and the ways that evidence is used to inform classroom practice, schoolwide decision making and to develop learner agency.  

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is: 

• the school has responded to the diverse needs of learners by introducing a range of teaching and wellbeing programmes and recognises it is timely to evaluate the impact of these on learner outcomes 
• accurate and consistent use of evaluation ensures reliability across the school, leading to well informed teaching and resourcing decisions 
• further involving students and whānau in learning, goal setting and progress develops stronger links between home and school, and supports learner agency.  

The school expects to see: 

• improved attendance, learning outcomes and positive wellbeing for all learners 
• tamariki who are actively involved in the learning process 
• staff who are confident and capable using appropriate data to identify student progress and next learning steps  
• processes in place to gather a range of data to measure the effectiveness of interventions and initiatives. 

Strengths  

The school can draw from the following strengths to improve evaluation practices: 

• a collaborative staff who are committed to improving outcomes for students 
• access to professional learning opportunities to develop staff knowledge and skills 
• an inclusive environment that strives to meet the needs of all learners and their families 
• positive relationships with whānau and the wider community. 

Where to next? 

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:  

• targeted professional development to further increase teacher knowledge and skills in analysing, moderating and using data to improve teaching and learning outcomes 
• reviewing the assessment schedule and evaluation processes to ensure these are appropriate and provide information that generates decisions for learners 
• sharing of assessment information with learners and whānau to enhance student learning and progress. 

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 

​​30 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