Macleans College

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within six months of the Education Review Office and Macleans College 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 

Macleans College is a co-educational school catering for student from Years 9 to 13. The school’s vision is to deliver quality education and development of opportunities to the young people of our community, ensuring they receive excellent preparation for further education, acceptance of social responsibilities and work in an international environment.

Macleans College’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

• provide an orderly environment that fosters the traditional Macleans values and enables student success in every aspect of school life
• use a teacher-led pedagogy based on the interpersonal and social nature of learning, with students creating a written record of their learning
• deliver a rigorous, knowledge rich curriculum.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how well the school’s development of horizontal and vertical curriculum coherence, supported by effective teaching and learning ensures equitable and excellent student attainment.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

• a school-wide focus on curriculum coherence and effective teaching has the potential to have the biggest impact on achievement for most students
• the school is currently revising its curriculum to ensure schemes of work scaffold a structured sequencing of content and skills between year levels (vertical coherence) and between classes of the same year (horizontal coherence)
• development of curriculum and pedagogy ensure students are well prepared to achieve in both NCEA and CAIE qualification pathways.

The school expects to see:

• all schemes of work refreshed with purposeful structured sequencing of content and skills (vertical coherence) and inclusive of matauranga Māori
• all unit plans clearly outline content, skills, homework and assessment criteria in a common format for each course (horizontal coherence)
• all staff are observed delivering a consistent school-wide pedagogy that uses common teaching and learning strategies
• effective interventions are in place for students at risk of not achieving.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to evaluate how well the development of horizontal and vertical curriculum coherence, supported by effective teaching and learning ensures equitable and excellent student attainment:

• the school has sustainable, high levels of professional capability and collective capacity to continually improve and innovate with access to relevant expertise
• curriculum design and leadership are enhancing how and when students learn in order to continuously improve
• teachers consistently use effective teaching strategies and practices to promote equitable and excellent learner outcomes
• coherent organisational conditions promote monitoring, evaluation, inquiry and knowledge building.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• interdisciplinary coherence by developing a consistent language of learning and teaching strategies
• embedding effective cross-curricular numeracy and literacy pedagogies
• improving visibility of actions taken to support cultural identity, particularly for Māori.

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

8 August 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