St Catherines College (Kilbirnie)

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 19 months of the Education Review Office and St Catherine’s College Kilbirnie 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 

St Catherine’s College (Kilbirnie) is a state-integrated Catholic secondary school for girls in Years 9-13. It is located in south-east Wellington. The school’s vision for students is that they become active and creative learners equipped with skills and the strong Catholic values of mercy, wisdom and social justice.

St Catherine’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

• promoting the school’s Mercy values through the enactment of it’s special character curriculum

• promoting student success in all areas of their learning through effective, culturally responsive teaching

• providing a safe and inclusive school by ensuring the school culture reflects and responds to the needs, aspirations and cultures of all students and their families

• supporting positive outcomes for students by nourishing and sustaining partnerships with families and the local community.

You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on St Catherine’s College Kilbirnie’s website.

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how well culturally responsive teaching, processes and practices are supporting the wellbeing and learning of all students.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is that the school has:

• a culturally diverse roll and wants all learners to feel a sense of belonging, achieve success in their learning and be strong and confident in their cultural identity

• identified potential to further improve the success of Māori and Pacific learners at NCEA Levels 2 and 3

• noticed the changing social and emotional needs of students and wants to better support students to access the help and develop the skills they need to manage these.

The school expects to see students:

• feel a sense of belonging and connection to the school, valuing their cultural identity as an important part of who they are

• demonstrate high engagement with a relevant, culturally responsive curriculum

• build the attitudes, knowledge and skills to respond to their own and other’s social and emotional needs

• set and achieve aspirational goals for their learning and for Māori and Pacific students to have equitable outcomes (including endorsements) in NCEA Levels 2 and 3.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal of improving student success in learning and wellbeing:

• Shared understandings of cultural responsiveness are being developed in partnership with students and families that support students’ belonging and pride in their identity.

• A curriculum that provides increasing opportunities to learn in and through students’ cultures and languages.

• Constructive partnerships with cultural communities within the school (students and families) are enhancing engagement, learning and wellbeing.

• The school’s values of te manaakitanga (hospitality), te tapu o te tangata (respect), te aroha (love); te awhinatanga (service), tika (justice), te aroha ki te rawakore (concern for the poor and vulnerable) are well understood and are promoting student wellbeing.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• further development of culturally responsive curriculum including the incorporation of mātauranga Māori across all learning areas

• implementing and embedding the school’s wellbeing framework in all areas of the school

• continuing to foster culturally responsive, relational teaching practice using the school’s cultural responsiveness competency framework.

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

10 May 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