Makikihi School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within twelve months of the Education Review Office and Makikihi 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 

Makikihi School is a rural school in South Canterbury. It provides education for students in years 1 to 8. The school’s vision since 1881 is to ‘prepare children for success in life.’ The school is a member of the Waimate Kāhui Ako.

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

• strengthening the connection between school and the community

• designing and implementing the Makikihi local curriculum that encourages teachers and learners

• nurture and foster staff and student well-being in order to have happy and engaged learners.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively teaching practices nurture and promote students’ progress and achievement, particularly with a focus on writing.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is to:

• ensure that students are confident and connected learners, willing to take risks, and are supported to challenge themselves and have ownership of their learning

• improve the achievement of students’ writing

• continue to extend teaching practices and to grow teachers’ positive mindset.

The school expects to see confident learners, who can articulate their progress and next steps for learning. Teachers will use relational and best practice teaching and learning strategies to enhance positive outcomes for students’ learning.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to know how effectively teaching practices nurture and promote students’ progress and achievement, particularly with a focus on writing:

• learners are well known, their learning needs are individually planned for to support their progress in meeting identified goals, with specifically targeted priority learning groups and for extension writing

• well-embedded school values that are linked to learning in authentic contexts through an engaging and motivating curriculum

• highly reflective teaching practices that build teachers’ capabilities and focus on continually improving learning outcomes for all learners.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• broadening opportunities to moderate writing within and beyond the school, to ensure that judgements are consistent and reliable

• continuing to offer learning opportunities within the wider community to provide experiences for learners to draw on to support their writing.

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

13 September 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