Windsor North 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 

Windsor North School is located in north Invercargill. It provides education for children in Years 1 to 6. The school’s vision statements are Learning for living - ako oranga and Be our best – kia pai rawa atu au.

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

Expected Improvements and Findings

Since the previous ERO report of March 2023, ERO and the school worked together to evaluate how effectively the school’s mathematics curriculum provided a coherent scope and sequence for curriculum progression.

The school expected to see:

A suite of tools for teachers to use to ignite learning and enhance student engagement in mathematics.

• Learners increasingly benefit from cognitively challenging, purposeful and well-paced learning opportunities in mathematics.
• Teachers increasingly design problem solving tasks that ensure appropriate levels of challenge for all learners and have the scope to extend more capable learners beyond and well beyond curriculum expectations.
• The school’s teaching and learning resources are being rationalised to support an increasingly coherent approach to classroom teaching and assessment in mathematics across the school.

A better understanding of learners’ abilities in relation to the Framework of Learning Principles to identify opportunities to further improve learning outcomes and inform curriculum design.

• Schoolwide planning has been revised to ensure better balance and coverage across all strands of the mathematics learning area.
• Assessment practices in Mathematics increasingly support learner, class and whole-school insights into learner progress during the course of the year and over time; this information is used well to improve outcomes for learners.
• Leaders and teachers have been evaluating effort patterns in mathematics, which show engagement levels are improving; a useful next step is to consider learner agency (students able to talk and assess their own learning) more broadly, so that learners’ skills, including their assessment and reporting capability can be strengthened.

Accelerated progress of capable learners to exceed achievement expectations in mathematics.

• ERO observed high quality mathematics teaching, which effectively challenged and extended capable learners.
• The school now tracks the progress of students achieving “well beyond” as well as “beyond” curriculum expectations; the numbers of students achieving beyond and well beyond curriculum expectations in mathematics is increasing.

Other Findings

The greatest shift that occurred in response to the school’s action is the improved balance and coverage across the mathematics learning area. This has ensured students have sufficient opportunities to learn in number, algebra, geometry, measurement and statistics. Assessment information from each of these strands is now used well to identify a wider range of next learning steps for individual learners and inform school-wide curriculum decisions that focus on improving outcomes for learners.

Part B: Current State

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

Learner Success and Wellbeing

Most students are engaged, make good progress and achieve well. There is increasing equity between groups of learners.

• Almost all students achieve or exceed curriculum expectations in reading and most students in writing and mathematics.
• Boys' achievement rates have improved significantly, although girls continue to outperform them in writing; there are no other significant inequities between groups of learners.
• Most students attend school regularly; the school has met the Government’s attendance target.

Conditions to support learner success

Strategic and effective leadership drives continuous improvement for learners.

• Leadership fosters a culture committed to excellent and equitable outcomes for learners; expectations are clear, shared and systematically monitored.
• Leaders use a range of evidence to plan and monitor the school’s strategic improvement cycle and evaluate the effectiveness of strategies to improve learner outcomes and wellbeing.
• Leaders use relevant internal and external expertise, including networking with other schools, to support capability building, improvement and innovation; professional learning opportunities are strategically aligned with improvement goals.

Learners benefit from high quality teaching and learning.

• Teachers create orderly and collaborative learning environments that support learners to meaningfully engage in learning.
• Evidence-based classroom interventions effectively target additional support to those learners who require it, including those learners who exceed expectations.
• The curriculum increasingly reflects local contexts in ways that build on learners’ experiences, knowledge and understanding; the school offers a range of relevant and meaningful learning opportunities.

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

• Leaders and teachers ensure effective planning, coordination and evaluation of the school’s curriculum and teaching.
• Leaders and teachers gather, analyse and act upon learner wellbeing information to ensure that learners are free from harm and their school experiences are mana enhancing.
• Te reo, te ao Māori and tikanga Māori are increasingly woven through the school curriculum.

Part C: Where to next?

The agreed next steps for the school are to:

• explicitly grow teachers' knowledge and understanding of the new curriculum framework so that students' experiences of learning are consistent across their schooling
• build students ability to discuss and assess their own learning, through using rich oral language strategies, so that they know and confidently understand the progress they are making in their learning.

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

Within six months:

• review and align the new Mathematics and English curriculum with current instructional practice ensuring the integration of structured literacy framework and structured mathematics resources
• collaboratively develop a shared understanding of student agency by including its definition, importance, and the key indicators that will be used to measure and support its development, with the focus on fostering positive impact to student learning outcomes.

Every six months:

• leaders continue to report to the board on student progress and achievement in reading, writing and mathematics to show the impact of planned actions to support excellent and equitable outcomes
• evaluate the effectiveness of strategies used to improve ‘learner agency’ and make changes where needed.

Annually:

• leaders continue to use and report to the board student wellbeing, engagement, progress and achievement data to inform responsive decision making for continuous improvement
• leaders report to the board on planned improvements to priority goals related to the implementation of the new curriculum, including the integration of structured literacy, structured mathematics, assessment practices and prioritise goals accordingly. 

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

• learners actively involved in and confidently discussing their own learning
• a cohesive schoolwide curriculum framework that guides effective delivery of structured literacy and mathematics
• excellent and equitable outcomes for learners.

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

Sharon Kelly
Acting Director of Schools

3 April 2025

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