Te Anau School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

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

Te Anau School is situated in the township of Te Anau on the edge of Fiordland National Park. The school roll, in recent years, has grown significantly and now has just over 300 students. The school caters for ākonga in Years 0 – 6.

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

• inquire into the teaching and learning programmes, exploring new research to extend what works well for learners at Te Anau School and to innovate to enhance learning opportunities
• ensure wellbeing initiatives support confident students and teachers learning together with optimism and pride.  

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how well the phonics, spelling and reading programme initiatives are supporting improvements in student progress and achievement.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

• exploration and inquiry into effective teaching and learning has informed the initiatives for improvement in literacy
• analysed progress and achievement information identifies the need for writing to be the school’s priority
• to build continuity and consistency of literacy learning over time.

The school expects to see growth in:

• teacher professional knowledge and understanding of how students best learn to read and write
• wellbeing outcomes, including improvement in progress and achievement in literacy
• skills and knowledge for teachers and students to understand and respond to their own wellbeing needs.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support it in its goal to evaluate how well the phonics, spelling and reading programme initiatives are supporting improvements in student progress and achievement:

• a strong, stable teaching staff enables effective teaching, innovation and distributed leadership
• coherent and aligned practices and processes across the school support a clear strategic direction for ongoing improvement
• meaningful community-wide partnerships enhance learning opportunities and support all students to have equitable access to the curriculum
• strong links to the outdoors ensure all students know, understand, and connect with rich learning opportunities in the local environment.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• building leaders’ and teachers’ confidence through training in the shared understanding and consistent implementation of effective strategies for the spelling, phonics and reading literacy initiative
• exploring how this approach to literacy will build sustainability and continuity over time for learners
• ensuring that the focus of internal evaluation aligns with the strategic direction and supports improved outcomes for learners.

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

29 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