Okains Bay School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 18 months of the Education Review Office and Okains Bay 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 

Okains Bay School in Banks Peninsula, Canterbury, is a small rural school for students from Years 1-6. The school’s vision is to be a dynamic community-focused kura preparing ākonga to pursue their aspirations and contribute to the world. To support relationships around learning the school has values of Whakamanawa – Confidence, Eke – Achievement, Manaakitanga – Respect and Ngaki – Effort.

Okains Bay School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

• the local environment is used to deliver the school curriculum for all students
• the school is the heart of the community
• student wellbeing is a priority for the school.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how successfully a coherent strategic approach to local curriculum implementation, engages students and improves learning outcomes.

The rationale for selecting this focus is that teachers had identified the need for students to be better supported to engage meaningfully in a relevant and localised curriculum.

The school expects to see:

• increased engagement and student agency across curriculum learning areas
• an annual plan that has clear links to key achievement goals and identifies actions and responsibilities to meet annual targets
• a robust cycle of evaluation, aligned to strategic goals, using information from a variety of sources to evaluate the impact of a local curriculum focus on student engagement and achievement.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to evaluate how successfully a coherent strategic approach to local curriculum implementation, engages students and improves learning outcomes:

• well established learning centred relationships with parents and whānau
• a strong focus and interest on localised curriculum
• sourced external expertise to support the school in creating a relevant and coherent strategic plan to provide clarity and direction for student learning.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• students self-managing in their engagement with localised curriculum contexts and having agency around how to shape their local environment
• coherent learning pathways that challenge students so that acceleration and extension are embedded in learning across the school
• the alignment of strategy to planning and practice to better engage students in relevant learning contexts so that students have rich and deep learning experiences.

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

21 July 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