Hampden School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report 

Background 

This Profile Report was written within 2 years of the Education Review Office and ​Hampden 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  

Hampden School is a small, rural primary school for children in years 1-8 located in the North Otago township of Hampden. Children learn together in two multi-level classrooms. The school’s vision is to foster confident, reflective and connected future leaders. The school values manaakitanga (aroha, mana, respect) whanaungatanga (connection, belonging and relationships), angitūtanga (success, progress, positive thinking) and rangatiratanga (leadership, self management, determination). 

​​Hampden School​’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are: 

• Student achievement - supporting all children to make progress to the best of their ability across the curriculum, with a particular focus on raising achievement in writing 
• Whānau|family engagement – welcoming and encouraging whānau participation in the life of the school and children’s learning 
• Honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi - teaching and learning that supports Māori children to experience educational success as Māori, and all children to know, value and participate in Aotearoa New Zealand’s bicultural context. 

You can find a copy of the school’s strategic plan on ​Hampden School​’s website. 

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how well responsive curriculum and effective teaching is supporting improved achievement in writing, particularly for boys and Māori students.  

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:  

• school achievement information shows a smaller proportion of children are achieving at expected curriculum levels in writing, than in reading and mathematics 
• the school wants to achieve equitable learning outcomes for all groups of learners. 

The school expects to see: 

• improving equity in the achievement of boys and Māori students in writing 
• students having regular, authentic opportunities to write in the breadth of the curriculum 
• teachers gathering and using good quality assessment information to know about the effectiveness of their teaching and children’s next learning steps 
• teachers using a range of evidence based approaches to teach writing 
• students knowing how to be good writers and what they need to do to improve. 

Strengths  

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to improve teaching and learning in writing: 

• shared understandings of local curriculum developed collaboratively with students, parents and whānau and iwi, that makes connections to the local community and environment 
• established professional networks and connections to support effective teaching practice including through the Whitestone Kāhui Ako, Te Rūnaka o Moeraki and Te Kāhui Kura o te Tai Araiteuru Māori Achievement Collaborative. 
• teaching practices that promote and foster children’s ability to reflect on and direct their learning. 

Where to next? 

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:  

• developing the school’s guidelines and practices for teaching and assessing writing  
• supporting teachers to gather and use assessment information on writing skilfully to plan explicit teaching and learning  
• curriculum planning that provides regular, authentic opportunities to write across learning areas  
• trialling and evaluating evidence-based approaches to improving learning in 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​ 

​​31 August 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