Westminster Christian School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

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

Westminster Christian School is a State-Integrated School, located in Unsworth Heights, North Shore, Auckland. It provides education for students in years 1 to 8.

Westminster Christian School aims to provide education, through the Spirit of God, for the children of Christian parents for time and eternity by providing a Christ-centred academic curriculum founded on a Biblical Worldview. The school’s values of Whakaute/Respect, Haepapa/Responsibility, Whakaaroaro/Resilience underpin the practices and behaviours of learners and staff and sit alongside the Christian special character of the school.

In 2020, a new Principal was appointed.

Westminster Christian School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

• Assessment for Learning.

• Connections through school values.

• Development of the Physical Education Curriculum through student agency.

• Staff support English for Speakers of Other languages (ESOL) students by implementing the ESOL principles into their daily practice across all curriculum areas.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively the English Language Learning Framework (ELL), supports ESOL students to meet their learning needs.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

• 50% of all learners at the school are ESOL

• staff are looking at how to support ESOL and use ELL in innovative ways

• building staff pedagogies in ELL across the school, align with the school’s strategic plan priority goals.

The school expects to see the principles specific to the ELL teaching pedagogies consistently implemented to support ESOL students to progress and achieve equitable and excellent outcomes in all curriculum areas.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support it in its goal to evaluate how effectively the ELL supports ESOL students to meet their learning needs:

• students demonstrate agency in their learning to improve their achievement outcomes in literacy

• teachers focus on a collaborative approach to implement the principles specific to the ELL pedagogies

• leadership which is focused on evaluation for equity and excellence for all ESOL students

• communication with the community to enhance learning outcomes occurring through a localised curriculum.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• inclusive and collaborative teaching and learning approaches for students between the ESOL department and the classroom teachers

• continuing to adapt teaching and learning practices to meet all learner 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.

Filivaifale Jason Swann
Director Review and Improvement Services (Northern)
Northern Region | Te Tai Raki

16 January 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