South Featherston School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report 

Background

This Profile Report was written within 2 years of the Education Review Office and South Featherston 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 

South Featherston School serves the community in the South Wairarapa. It delivers learning opportunities to children in Years 1-8 - "We are a SMALL school, doing BIG things!"  Its mission is to ensure 'every learner leaves our school with a passion for learning and a kete of strategies to use in every area of life.'

South Featherston School’s overarching strategic priority for learners is to enhance student learning and success. This includes:

• ‘Hauora’ – fostering creativity, balance wellbeing and a lifelong enthusiasm for learning.
• Whakamana’ – through focusing on empowering each with the skills to suit their specific needs and styles.
• ’Whanaungatanga’ – supporting children to connect to key people in their world.
• ‘Kaitiakitanga’ – growing environmental awareness and understanding of the roles and responsibilities in relation to this.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate the effectiveness of the school’s refreshed local curriculum in enriching student wellbeing and promoting the engagement and achievement of all students.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is: 

• To increase the engagement of students in learning opportunities.
• To provide curriculum experiences that raise students’ awareness and knowledge of their local stories, histories, places and people. 
• For students to know and understand where they are culturally located.
• To support the achievement and wellbeing of students across the school.

The school expects to see school leaders, trustees, teachers, students and whānau actively engaged in learning the local stories and histories of the area, allowing students to develop an understanding of how stories affect people and place. It also expects staff to utilise information and modern teaching strategies to plan and implement programmes to support student engagement, achievement and wellbeing.

Strengths 

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to develop and implement an engaging local curriculum:

• strong community support and engagement that supports student learning and a diverse curriculum
• caring staff that provide varied and responsive learning opportunities to children
• leadership that is supportive and seeks continual improvement and better outcomes for students - both social and educational.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise: 

• the development and implementation of a local curriculum including identifying opportunities for students to engage in in learning using South Wairarapa as a context
• developing a shared understanding of the importance of local stories and their place in the curriculum
• measuring the children's knowledge of their local stories, and their use of Te Reo. 

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 

5 December 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