Maheno School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within nine months of the Education Review Office and Maheno 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 

Maheno School is a small, rural school situated in North Otago, just south of Oamaru. The school provides education for students in Years 1 – 8. Their vision is to achieve excellence together with their school values leading the way.

The school’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are to:

• enrich children’s hauora by explicitly teaching and living the school values of Respect, Integrity, Confidence and Endeavour
• refine the ‘local curriculum’ and develop a consistent language of learning across the school
• grow teachers' understanding of mātauranga and te reo Māori me ona tikanga and incorporate these into their professional practice
• deepen teachers’ understanding of structured literacy across the school.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively the structured literacy approach is improving reading and writing outcomes for all students, with a particular focus on the progress of students not yet meeting achievement expectations. 

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

• the school has recently implemented the Better Start Literacy Approach (BSLA) to strengthen the literacy curriculum so that it is responsive to the learning needs of all students 
• the school is part of the Whitestone Kāhui Ako, which has focussed on implementing structured literacy across the network of schools.

The school expects to see:

• teachers developing a shared understanding of literacy progressions throughout the school
• teachers continuing to reflect and refine their teaching practices in response to learners’ needs and their growing knowledge of BSLA
• improved reading and writing outcomes for all students, especially those who are not currently making sufficient progress to meet achievement expectations.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to evaluate how effectively the structured literacy approach is improving reading and writing outcomes for all students:

• A collaborative staff, who are open to new ways of working together to better meet the needs of students.
• A well-considered approach to enacting the values schoolwide ensures that students learn in a caring and inclusive learning environment.
• Interactions across the local school network are supporting teachers’ reflections on the strategies they use to teach literacy programmes.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• professional learning for teaching staff to grow their collective capabilities to deliver high quality responsive literacy practice across the school
• refreshing curriculum documentation to provide clarity and guidance for teachers and other stakeholders of effective literacy teaching
• using high quality progress and achievement data analysis to improve outcomes for learners and support decision making for continuous improvement
• sharing information with the community to ensure the school’s new approach to literacy is well understood by whānau, to inform and strengthen their engagement with children’s learning.

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

14 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