Avonside Girls’ High School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 7 months of the Education Review Office and Avonside Girls’ High 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 

Avonside Girls’ High School | Te kura kōhine o Ōtakaro is located in Christchurch and provides education for wahine from Years 9 to 13. The school’s vision is ko Hine-Titama koe nānā i puta ki te whai ao ki tea o mārama | educating and empowering young women to achieve now and in the future. Learning is guided by the values of kia tū, kia manaaki, kia māia, kia manawanui, kia rangatira.

Avonside Girls’ High School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are to:

• develop curriculum and assessment programmes to ensure increased ākonga engagement and achievement and improve learning outcomes for all ākonga
• increase ākonga engagement and wellbeing through a relational focused restorative culture and mentoring
• build staff capability to collect, track and use data to raise achievement, engagement, and inform differentiated pedagogy.

You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on Avonside Girls’ High School’s website.

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate the impact on ākonga achievement, engagement, and wellbeing as it develops the year 9 and 10 curriculum with focus on relational culture and high academic aspirations.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is that the school is

• developing a knowledge-rich, sequential, and connected curriculum that strengthens student engagement and empowers ākonga to aim for personal excellence
• ocusing on the improved use of data to inform next steps for learning
• working to better differentiate teaching practices in flexible learning environments.

The school expects to see:

• an established and recorded knowledge-rich Years 9 and 10 curriculum
• junior ākonga that can articulate their progress and set their own learning goals
• improvement in Years 9 and 10 ākonga achievement and engagement in learning.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to evaluate the impact on ākonga achievement, engagement, and wellbeing as it develops the Years 9 and 10 curriculum with focus on relational culture and high academic aspirations:

• the leadership team has been engaging in professional learning to inform this work
• the Board has strategically resourced staff to lead and evaluate curriculum and pedagogical development
• an established process for self-review identifies barriers and issues and works to remove them
• Years 9 and 10 ākonga select their own interest-based classes. Each class is overseen by a community of teachers who monitor ākonga progress and support their wellbeing and pathways.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• targeted professional learning for teachers to strengthen curriculum design and teaching practices
• developing a student-facing vision for learning which informs curriculum development
• strengthening effective teaching for differentiated classrooms to respond to each learner’s needs.

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

3 November 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

Avonside Girls’ High School is co-located with Shirley Boys’ High School and a Ferndale satellite school on the Ōrua Paeroa site.