Lake Tekapo School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within eight months of the Education Review Office and Lake Tekapo 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 

Lake Tekapo School is a small contributing primary school, located in Te Manahuna | the Mackenzie Basin. It provides education for learners in Years 1 to 6. The school emphasises tangata whenuatanga; drawing together local history, its unique high-country environment, and cultural ties to the land, into the narrative of a “sense of self and sense of place”. It aims for learners to connect with their community and area to create for themselves a sense of belonging, order, curiosity, and form.

Lake Tekapo School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are to:

• design a localised curriculum that draws from, and connects learning through, its people, place, and environment

• nurture hauora for staff, students, and whānau to help build active learning relationships.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate the impact of their localised curriculum on improving student engagement, wellbeing, and achievement across the school.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is to reflect the community’s desire:

• for learners to develop senses of identity, manaakitanga, whanaungatanga, place, and self

• to involve the history, customs and ecology of its unique locality through a curriculum which strengthens and aligns student achievement, wellbeing, and engagement.

The school expects to see:

• a localised, integrated curriculum which clearly defines learning progressions for each student

• each student having a ‘sense of self’ as a learner through engagement and participation in their unique learning process

• community and school whānau having a strong sense of connection, participation, and engagement in their children’s learning.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to evaluate the impact of their localised curriculum on improving student engagement, wellbeing, and achievement across the school:

• established links in the community that extend opportunities for students and their learning 

• commitment to professional learning in localised curriculum which is informing curriculum revision 

• systematic and comprehensive use of student achievement and engagement data to inform next steps

• a developing graduate profile, based on embedded key competencies, which identifies coherent pathways, guides learners’ transitions, and is aligned with reporting to parents

• active involvement within the Kāhui Ako which has a focus on developing local curriculum and coherent pathways for learners.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• targeted professional learning for monitoring, tracking, and reporting achievement and curriculum development

• implementing a revised, responsive localised curriculum, using this to guide teaching and learning and fostering collaboration with the community engagement

• reviewing and developing a child-centred student progression profile and real-time reporting.

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 School

 30 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