Paraparaumu Beach School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 12 months of the Education Review Office and Paraparaumu Beach 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 

Paraparaumu Beach school is situated North of Wellington on the Kapiti Coast. The school caters for children from Years 1-8. The school’s vision is Preparing our tamariki with the skills to shape their world.

Paraparaumu Beach School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

• growing community engagement

• building resilience to embrace challenge and perseverance

• achieving personal excellence.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate the difference that implementing the Māori Education Plan across the school makes to Māori student engagement and achievement levels.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is that there is a slight disparity between New Zealand European and Māori students in writing, and achievement levels in writing for boys has dropped slightly since COVID.

The school expects to see:

• enhanced self-esteem as learners for Māori students

• more consistent culturally responsive teaching practices across the school

• evidence of teacher engagement in professional learning around culturally responsive teaching practices

• enabling of higher levels of participation of Māori whānau in everyday school events and in their children’s learning.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to further improve Māori student engagement and achievement:

• consistently high student achievement levels

• parents of Māori learners are positive about the school and proud of their children's participation in school events

• a strong collaborative teaching staff who want to do the best they can to be responsive to student needs

• the value placed on, and support by the board, to have te ao Māori in all aspects of school life.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• building whānau participation through the Whānau Group

• supporting teachers in the implementation of the Māori Education Plan across the school

• regularly evaluating Māori student engagement and achievement, especially in writing

• strengthening structured literacy practices across the school.

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

8 June 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