Barrytown School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within six months of the Education Review Office and Barrytown 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 

Barrytown School is a small rural school, located in the heart of the Barrytown Community on the South Island’s West Coast. The school caters for students in Years 1-8 in a co-educational environment.

Barrytown School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

• ensuring every ākonga can access all areas of the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC), resulting in the increased engagement and achievement for all

• developing a localised curriculum that is engaging, agentic, authentic and integrates our cultural narrative

• that Barrytown will be the school of choice for the local community due to its location and unique features.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate:

• how effectively do the core values reflect the voice of iwi, the community, whānau, ākonga and kaiako intertwined with the guiding principles of Enviroschools

• the development and implementation of the localised curriculum.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is that it is timely to revisit and review the schools’ values in line with the development of a local curriculum.

The school expects to see increased student agency, engagement and belonging being able to self-assess and learn more about themselves as lifelong learners.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to develop a localised and student-centred curriculum.

• strong leadership that has high expectations for sustainable and improvement focussed systems, process and practice school

• well-considered and targeted research and professional development is modelled by the principal, this drives ongoing improvement in teaching and learning

• positive relationships with school and wider community through active consultation and engagement informs school direction.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise: how will this shift practice? Raise outcomes?

• in consultation with Ngāti Wae Wae, share with whānau and the wider community

• implementation of the localised context throughout teaching and learning to increase student engagement and their sense of belonging

• ensuring there is consistency across the school in the planning expectations and curriculum delivery ensuring there is equity for all

• evaluation of attendance rates to better understand the current engagement levels of students,

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.

Kathy Lye
Director Review and Improvement Services (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini

14 April 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