Palmerston School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

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

Palmerston School is situated in the semi-rural town of Palmerston, East Otago. It provides education for students in Years 1 – 6. Its vision statement is for students to discover connections, forge new paths and step ahead with pride, purpose and confidence. A new principal has been appointed to start in Term 3, 2023.

Palmerston School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are to:

• develop the school environment as the third teacher
• improve literacy and numeracy outcomes for all students
• increase student engagement in the learning process through developing student well-being and a contemporary localised curriculum that meets national and local needs
• promote positive involvement of whānau with their children’s learning in partnership with the school.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively schoolwide data assessment practices are informing teaching, learning and planning for continuous improvement.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

• the school is growing the collective capacity of all staff to make effective use of assessment information across the curriculum
• school leaders and teachers are establishing ways to better understand what makes the most difference to improving outcomes for learners in literacy and mathematics.

The school expects to see:

• purposeful, consistent and sustainable schoolwide systems and processes for gathering, analysing, using and sharing high-quality assessment information
• leaders and teachers making effective use of high-quality assessment information to identify teaching opportunities
• acceleration of learners’ progress rates and increasing parity for groups of learners in literacy and numeracy
• students making effective use of self and peer assessment information to strengthen learner agency and identify next learning steps
• the Board making effective use of high-quality assessment information to inform strategic decision making for continuous improvement.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to evaluate how effectively schoolwide data assessment practices are informing teaching, learning and planning for continuous improvement:

• leadership has developed clear systems and processes that support a building school culture of inquiry to inform next steps for improvement
• the school’s local curriculum framework ensures cohesive, integrated school-wide curriculum design that provides clarity and direction for effective teaching and learning
• a collaborative teaching team, who make use of internal expertise to grow their collective capabilities and develop local solutions.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• embedding effective schoolwide assessment practices to enable teachers to make useful judgements about students’ progress rates and inform responsive programmes for learning
• professional learning to grow leaders’ and teachers’ capability in collection, analysis and use of data to accelerate progress rates in literacy and mathematics.

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 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