Waitati School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 15 months of the Education Review Office and Waitati 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

Waitati School is situated in the seaside township of Waitati on the East Otago coast. The school provides education for year 1-8 students. A new principal was appointed in July 2020. The school’s mission is to ‘Light the Mind, Fire the Heart, Engage the Whānau’.

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

• embed the Wellbeing Framework throughout the school at all levels

• ensure every ākonga gains sound foundation skills, including language, literacy and numeracy

• meaningfully incorporate te reo Māori and tikanga Māori into the everyday life of the place of learning.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how well the schoolwide wellbeing approach is engaging students and improving learning outcomes for all. There is a particular emphasis on how this is supporting the literacy program.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

• that the staff recognise the importance of supporting their diverse learners

• to improve engagement and achievement in learning by teaching skills in social and emotional resilience (wellbeing)

• the school want to support children with additional needs to experience success in literacy.

The school expects to see:

• a growing confidence in students’ ability to self-manage

• an increased emphasis on students setting and understanding their own learning goals

• an evaluation of the impact of leaders, teachers and learning assistants on enhancing students’ learning, progress, and achievement in literacy.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to measure the effectiveness of the wellbeing approach:

• an ongoing focus on the local environment and authentic learning experiences that strengthen a responsive, localised curriculum

• staff that have strong relationships with whānau/families and individual learners which promotes identification of specific needs

• an increasingly collaborative teaching team that work together to support equity and excellence for all students.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• gathering information on the impact of their wellbeing approach and in the long term assess if this has made a difference to student learning and achievement

• continue to create and embed a literacy programme tailored to the needs of Waitati school incorporating a structured literacy approach.

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

13 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