Albany Senior High School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within six months of the Education Review Office and Albany Senior High 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 

Albany Senior High School is a co-educational secondary school located on Auckland’s North Shore and provides education for learners from Years 11 to 13. The school’s vision statement is: ‘At Albany Senior High School, we nurture each other, we inspire each other, we empower each other to achieve highly and be good citizens’.

Albany Senior High School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

• to further develop and embed our scaffolded/structured approach across all year levels of Impact Projects to improve student success and engagement
• to embed our approaches to inclusive learning design (Mana Ōrite mo te Mātauranga Māori, universal design for learning and responsive assessment practices) in Specialist Subjects
• to embed effective tutor practice and deliver the Tutorial Curriculum so that all ākonga experience consistent levels of support and connection
• to grow the senior leadership team and our middle leaders to become agents of change with a focus on access to useful data and helping teachers improve their professional practice.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how effectively school conditions support all learners to make accelerated progress and achieve excellent and equitable outcomes.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is to: 

• enhance academic outcomes for all learners
•  develop stronger educational connections with the community to enhance collaboration and engagement.

The school expects to see:

• learners demonstrating social and emotional competence and a strong secure sense of their cultural identity
• enhanced engagement and equitable and excellent achievement outcomes for all learners
• improved connections and collaboration with the school community. 

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to evaluate how effectively conditions support all learners to make accelerated progress and achieve excellent and equitable outcomes:

• effective teaching and learning through a strong focus on learning design, universal design for learning, self-directed learning and responsive assessment design
• positive learning relationships based on high expectations and the belief that all learners can achieve
• conditions and strategies are in place to continue embedding restorative practices and a well-being strategy
• coherent organisational conditions promote monitoring, evaluation, inquiry and knowledge building. There is a consistent focus on using data to inform decisions and next steps.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• identifying and responding to priority areas that are impacting rates of progress, achievement and attendance of all learners, including Māori and Pacific
• developing and embedding culturally sustaining practices with a focus on bi-cultural partnership to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi
• reviewing and strengthening community connections and collaboration to raise the profile of the school within the wider community.

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

31 October 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