George Street Normal School

School Evaluation Report

Tēnā koutou e mau manawa rahi ki te kaupapa e aro ake nei, ko te tamaiti te pūtake o te kaupapa. Mā wai rā e kawe, mā tātau katoa

We acknowledge the collective effort, responsibility and commitment by all to ensure that the child remains at the heart of the matter. 

Context

George Street Normal School is a large, urban, Years 0 to 6 contributing primary school in Dunedin with students and their families reflecting over 30 different nationalities. The school continues to host a large number of student teachers, supporting their initial teacher education. Some students learn in multi-level classrooms as part of the school being a ‘Model’ school linked to its teacher education programme.

The school wants all learners, by the time they reach Year 6 to:

• be able to think independently and creatively
• thrive academically, socially and emotionally
• be inspired and experience the richness of the creative disciplines
• experience and enact the school’s values of whanaungatanga, manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga.

There are three parts to this report.

Part A: A summary of the findings from the most recent Education Review Office (ERO) report and/or subsequent evaluation. 

Part B: An evaluative summary of learner success and school conditions to inform the school board’s future strategic direction, including any education in Rumaki/bilingual settings. 

Part C: The improvement actions prioritised for the school’s next evaluation cycle. 

Part A: Previous Improvement Goals

In the past three years the school and ERO have worked together to evaluate and extend inclusive practices for equity and excellence.

Expected Improvements and Findings

The school expected to see that:

Māori and Pacific learners can see that their language, culture, and identity are valued by the school, especially by their teachers.

• The school can show that it has been very effective at engaging Māori and Pacific students and their whānau, with many culturally rich opportunities for learners to see the school valuing and honouring their language, identity and culture
• There has been a large positive shift in the proportions of Māori and Pacific students who report their teachers asking about and showing interest in their culture.
• Teachers are embedding and extending culturally responsive teaching practices and empowering students to contribute to this.

Learners targeted for accelerated progress will succeed and their families and whānau will experience strong, inclusive partnerships that support their child's learning. 

• The school has strategically focused on building and engaging in reciprocal partnerships within and beyond the community.
• Families of targeted learners report a range of experiences in relation to partnerships that support their child’s learning.
• Most learners targeted to make accelerated progress are doing so and are increasingly seeing themselves as successful learners.
• The school has comprehensive internal systems to track and monitor all learners, including those targeted to make accelerated progress.

The greatest shift that occurred in response to the school’s action has been to more deliberately make all decisions with the child and their whānau at the centre.

Other Findings

During the course of the evaluation the school identified the need to extend and establish more consistent schoolwide systems to communicate learning progress with families and whānau. It has already made changes in relation to this.

Part B: Current State

The following findings are to inform the school’s future priorities for improvement.

Learner Success and Wellbeing

Students are engaged, make good progress and most achieve very well.

• Most students, including Māori and Pacific learners, are achieving at or above their expected curriculum levels in reading, writing and mathematics. There is some disparity overall for boys in writing and for girls in mathematics.
• Relationships to support learners’ language, culture and identity are prioritised and strengthening to support their sense of belonging.
• School practices and actions are consistently inclusive and cater well for all learners, including a specific focus on Māori and Pacific learners.
• Systematic wellbeing approaches serve learners and whānau, parents and families well.

Conditions to support learner success

Strategic and effective leadership drives the enactment of the school’s vision and values.

• Learner outcomes are enhanced through systematic and sustained school processes
• Leadership ensures culturally-responsive teaching expectations are clear, well-implemented and adapted to support all learners.
• Leaders model and ensure a continuously improving, culturally responsive approach to progressing school priorities.
• Leaders are continually engaged in professional knowledge building with teachers, to enhance teaching effectiveness.

Teaching and learning opportunities are well considered and intentionally relevant, challenging and meaningful for learners. 

• Learners benefit from an appropriately selected range of effective teaching practices. 
• The classroom learning culture is well-established and consistently characterised by respect, inclusion, empathy and collaboration.
• Foundational learning areas, including language learning, reading, writing, mathematics and science, are relevant to learners. A focus on these areas is increasingly extending learners’ access to the wider local curriculum through meaningful contexts for learning.
• Professional development enhances teaching capability. There is an equity focus for Māori, Pacific and learners with diverse learning needs.

Key conditions that underpin successful schooling are strongly embedded and well-aligned.

• Systematic, collaborative inquiry, internal monitoring and evaluation processes and practices are used and drive improvement strategies.
• The school has well-established, educationally powerful connections and is strengthening partnerships with whānau, hapu and iwi.
• The board is actively representing and serving the school in its stewardship role with diversity, sustainability and succession being key priorities.

Part C: Where to next?

The agreed next steps for the school are to:

• embed and monitor consistent implementation of the literacy and mathematics programmes
• further strengthen and refine its localised curriculum in relation to Te Tiriti o Waitangi
• develop a school-wide framework for the process of growing evaluation capabilities across the school.

The agreed actions for the next improvement cycle and timeframes are as follows: 

Every six months

• review and evaluate progress against culturally responsive teaching and learning
• review and evaluate existing writing and mathematics teaching and programmes.

Annually

• implement and review agreed effective teaching and learning approaches for literacy and mathematics
• explore models of evaluation and strengthen existing evaluation frameworks
• continue progressing culturally responsive teaching and learning.

Actions taken against these next steps are expected to result in:

• A school-wide framework for literacy and mathematics delivery outlining:
  • the approaches to be used for teaching and learning
  • expectations of delivery
  • consistent assessment practices
  • an agreed framework for evaluation purposes.
• Integration of the school’s cultural narrative into its localised curriculum contributing to:
  • kaiako and ākonga identifying with local pūrākau
  • Māori ākonga cultural identity being further strengthened
  • strengthening the consistency and cohesion of the enactment of Te Tiriti o Waitangi across the school.

ERO’s role will be to support the school in its evaluation for improvement cycle to improve outcomes for all learners. The next public report on ERO’s website will be a School Evaluation Report and is due within three years.

Me mahi tahi tonu tātau, kia whai oranga a tātau tamariki 

Let’s continue to work together for the greater good of all children.

Shelley Booysen
Director of Schools

16 April 2024

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