Balclutha School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 12 months of the Education Review Office and Balclutha 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 

Balclutha Primary School caters for Year 1-8 students. It is situated in the town of Balclutha in South Otago. It is an active member of the Big River Kāhui Ako. The school’s vision states that ‘Students will be empowered to face life with self-confidence, have the ability to be an effective member of society and be life-long learners’. A new principal was appointed at the end of 2020.

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

• to successfully embed a structured literacy approach across the school to enhance literacy outcomes for all students
• to continue to ensure deliberate teaching and learning around Key Competencies to enable all students to develop the skills that are necessary to be successful in learning and in life.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effective the school’s implementation and delivery of structured literacy is in raising at-risk students’ achievement and providing equitable opportunities to learn.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

• a growing trend of new entrant ākonga who are experiencing delays in achieving literacy milestones in the first two years of school
• there is a cohort of ākonga who are not yet meeting expectations and have not responded to prior interventions
• a need to achieve equitable outcomes in literacy for ākonga of concern
• teachers have high expectations and want all ākonga to achieve well.

The school expects to see, through effective assessment for learning practices, staff critically evaluating the literacy programmes and teaching approaches for improvement, and positive change in outcomes for at-risk ākonga.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to improve the literacy outcomes for all ākonga:

• positive learner focused relationships with whānau, ākonga and the wider South Otago education community
• ongoing and relevant professional development is supporting collaborative planning for effective literacy programmes and consistency in assessment for learning practices
• partnerships across the staff, board of trustees, and parents are helping to extend the successful implementation of structured literacy schoolwide
• a positive school culture that places emphasis on growing the whole child through a well-balanced curriculum, a focus on key competencies, and the implementation of PB4L school wide. 

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• implementing internal evaluation processes to monitor learner progress and achievement in literacy and inform improvements in teaching practice
• raising student achievement for all students, but with a focus on those who need additional support to succeed at their level.

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

20 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