Hare Krishna 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

Hare Krishna School is a state-integrated school located in Riverhead, Auckland. The school caters for students from Years 1 to 10.  The school’s vision is ‘to empower every child to discover their extraordinary potential through their connection with Krishna’.

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

Since the previous ERO report of September 2022, ERO and the school have worked together to evaluate how well the school’s set of beliefs are enacted in every-day teaching programmes to achieve equitable outcomes for all students.

Expected Improvements and Findings

The school expected to see:

All students highly engaged and fully participating in an authentic and inspiring localised curriculum.  

• The school’s values and culture are now integrated throughout the curriculum, enhancing all students’ positive sense of belonging and identity.
• All students actively engage in the arts, participating in celebrations and performances that are appreciated and shared with the whole community.

All students deeply understanding the ‘essence of joy’ in their lives through discovery and play-based learning.

• All students take charge of their own learning and increasingly experience the ‘essence of joy’ through termly guided inquiries.
• Staff and learner feedback and ideas inform the localised curriculum, providing students with an increased range of authentic learning experiences.

Teachers throughout the school, explicitly teaching the ‘essence of joy’ to enrich learning opportunities and ensuring achievement and success for all learners.

• A schoolwide approach to the explicit teaching of emotional regulation supports students to sit calmly, self-reflect and learn effectively.

Other Findings

During the course of the evaluation, it was found that the connection between the school’s values, its teaching and learning approach and curriculum fosters a strong sense of student belonging and identity, playing an important role in learner wellbeing and success.

The greatest shift that occurred in response to the school’s action was the embedding of a cohesive and collaborative approach to curriculum development. Creating an inclusive environment has supported high expectations for student engagement and achievement through meaningful learning experiences for all students.

Part B: Current State

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

Learner Success and Wellbeing

• Most students achieve at or above expected curriculum levels in reading, writing and mathematics; achievement information shows that this has been sustained since 2021.
• Students’ sense of wellbeing is highly evident, supported by positive and mutually respectful relationships with their peers and staff.
• The majority of learners attend school regularly; school attendance rates do not yet meet the Ministry of Education’s target for regular attendance.

Conditions to support learner success

• Leaders use a range of evidence, including achievement information and surveys, to coherently plan and monitor the school’s strategic improvement cycle and systematically evaluate the effectiveness of strategies that improve students’ learning and wellbeing.
• Leadership builds and sustains strong relationships with the community that supports increased opportunities for learning and student success.
• Leaders foster and create a culture committed to quality teaching among staff and students that increasingly ensures equity and excellence in learner outcomes.

• Teachers create collaborative and orderly learning environments that support inclusive participation; students meaningfully engage, experiment and apply new learning. 
• Teachers intentionally build upon students’ learning using effective teaching practices that encourage students to have ownership over their own learning.
• Staff increasingly integrate te reo Māori, tikanga Māori and te ao Māori in teaching and learning.

• Teachers have high and equitable aspirations for the achievement, progress and wellbeing of all learners and work with determination to achieve this goal.
• Leaders and teachers prioritise and engage in well-considered professional growth and development opportunities that ensure the implementation of quality teaching and learning programmes.
• An inclusive, reciprocal learning partnership with the local community, Hare Krishna and the Kāhui Ako enhances curriculum delivery and supports students’ ability to access education. 

Part C: Where to next?

The agreed next steps for the school are to:

• implement strategies to increase students’ regular attendance
• embed te reo Māori, tikanga Māori and te ao Māori in the Hare Krishna School curriculum so that staff and students develop confidence in their understanding of Aotearoa New Zealand
• continue to strengthen effective literacy practices across all areas of the curriculum, especially within student self-directed learning
• develop teacher planning and practice to implement National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) Level 1.

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

Within six months:

• continue to communicate with parents about the correlation between attendance and achievement to increase student attendance and meet the Ministry of Education’s target
• take steps to review the curriculum to effectively integrate te reo Māori, tikanga Māori and te ao Māori
• develop NCEA Level 1 learning programmes and provide professional development for teachers 

Every six months:

• monitor and report to the board on rates of student attendance and adjust planned responses as necessary
• continue to review structured literacy assessment practices and learner outcomes across the school to inform teaching and learning next steps
• review NCEA Level 1 learning programmes and assessment practices

Annually:

• report to the board on student attendance, progress and achievement to review the impact of initiatives and inform future planning
• evaluate how well te reo Māori, tikanga Māori and te ao Māori are embedded in the curriculum, developing teacher professional capacity as required
• review and refine the delivery of NCEA Level 1 in 2025 and NCEA Level 2 in 2026.

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

• more students attending regularly and sustained progress and achievement for all learners
• learners and teachers continue to develop confidence in their knowledge and use of te reo Māori, tikanga Māori and te ao Māori
• NCEA Level 1 and Level 2 teaching and assessment practices successfully implemented.

Shelley Booysen
Director of Schools

13 November 2024

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