Murchison Area 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

Murchison Area School is located in Murchison and provides education for learners in Years 1 to 13. The school’s vision for its learners is: Living to Learn, Learning to Live | Ka ake, ka ora; Ka ora, ka ako, supported by the four school values: Respect (Whakaute), Honesty (Whakapono), Consideration (Whai Whakaaro) and Responsibility (Haepapa).

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.

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 

• Most learners in Years 1 to 8 are achieving at or above expected curriculum levels in reading and mathematics, with the majority of learners achieving at or above in writing. 
• Most learners in Years 9 to 10 are achieving at or above expected curriculum levels in literacy and a small majority in mathematics.
• A large majority of Year 11, 12 and 13 learners, including a majority of Māori learners, continue to achieve National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) at Levels 1, 2 and 3.
• A small majority of learners are presently attending regularly, although the school is yet to meet the Ministry of Education’s target for regular attendance; school initiatives are improving attendance.

Conditions to support learner success

• Leaders set goals and targets that are increasing equitable outcomes across all learning areas; specific attention is given to improve outcomes for target learners.
• Leaders allocate staff strategically to ensure that learners’ specific needs and learning progression are well supported.
• Leaders prioritise professional learning for staff that enhances effectiveness and consistency of teaching practice.

• Teachers know their learners’ needs very well, closely monitor progress and provide appropriate targeted support.
• Senior learners’ engagement and achievement is supported by the broad and varied senior curriculum which uses local community resources and supportive and personalised teaching.
• Learners have planned transitions into, within and beyond school contributing to a strong sense of belonging and support for their post-school pathways.

• Learners benefit from intentional community partnerships; the board and staff actively include community perspectives in planning.
• Leaders continue to grow links with iwi and the local community to further develop and embed localised curriculum across all learning areas.
• The school is taking steps to integrate te ao Māori into learning programmes in order to increase bicultural understandings and practices.

Part B: Where to next? 

The agreed next steps for the school are to: 

• continue to raise learners’ progress and achievement in literacy in Years 1 to 10, embedding the current approaches to teaching literacy 
• further grow the understanding of te reo and tikanga Māori and embed consistent practices across the school to ensure that the curriculum reflects an increasing commitment to bicultural partnership 
• continue the development of staff-wide distributed leadership to ensure practices that best promote learner progress and achievement are sustained.

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

Within six months:

• leaders continue to improve evaluation and reporting to the board on the impact of strategies on improving progress and literacy achievement of learners in Years 1 to 10
• teachers use Poutama Reo to determine specific targets and timeframes to continue the development of staff capacity in te reo and tikanga Māori and the development of mātauranga Māori across the school curriculum

Every six months:

• leaders continue to report progress towards meeting attendance and literacy targets, wider student learning and achievement to the board and act on any emerging trends

Annually:

• leaders evaluate the effectiveness of literacy practices to inform planning
• leaders review and evaluate schoolwide consistency of application of mātauranga Māori 
• leaders review how effectively staff professional learning is supporting leadership development to ensure sustainability of schoolwide systems and learner progress and outcomes. 

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

• raised learner achievement in literacy in Years 1 to 10 
• schoolwide consistency of the implementation of mātauranga Māori
• effective systems to sustain schoolwide practices for learner attendance, progress and 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

20 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