Wallacetown School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within eight months of the Education Review Office and Wallacetown 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 

Wallacetown School is a Years 1 to 6 rural school close to Invercargill. The school serves as a weekly hub for Ko Taku Reo - Deaf Education. The school’s vision is for learners to have skills for living and learning. A new principal was appointed and started in 2021.

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

• strengthen and extend whānau and community engagement and relationships with the school
• develop the school’s local curriculum to best meet the needs of all learners.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate extending learning and progress centred partnerships between the school, whānau and families, and children.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

• staff have reviewed and rationalised assessment practices and collaboratively monitor and plan for student progress
• teachers are identifying and planning for students who need to make accelerated progress
• the school is deliberately focusing on increasing meaningful communication with its whānau and family community
• the board is carefully scrutinising the outcomes of the support students with extra resourcing/focus are receiving.

The school expects to see:

• students being more confident to describe their progress in specific aspects of learning and what their next learning steps should be
• greater whānau and family awareness of their child’s rates of progress in reading, writing and mathematics
• students achieving and progressing well within the Wallacetown School curriculum
• strong, sustained school community partnerships which support all learners.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to extend learning and progress centred partnerships:

• teaching routines and practices that ensure continuity for learners
• close student achievement monitoring systems and processes that provide information for specific support
• leaders and teachers who collaborate well as a team to support learner outcomes
• the ways in which the principal is leading school improvement and building community confidence in the school.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• communicating with whānau and families at the beginning of the year if their child has been identified as a student who needs to make accelerated progress within reading, writing and or mathematics
• developing a system and reporting template to share progress for these students in Terms 1 and 3 with parents
• ensuring all students have specific next learning steps to help guide them in their learning
• students being able to participate in learning conversations about their progress and their next steps.

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.

Dr Lesley Patterson
Director Review and Improvement Services (Southern)
Southern Region | Te Tai Tini

6 December 2022 

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