Tamaki College

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

Tamaki College, located in the eastern districts of Auckland City, is a coeducational school providing education for students in Years 9 to 13. The school values are ‘Respect, Innovation, Success and Excellence’.

There are two parts to this report.

Part A: 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 B: The improvement actions prioritised for the school’s next evaluation cycle.

Part A: Current 

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

Learner Success and Wellbeing

• A small majority of students gained their National Certificate in Educational Achievement (NCEA) in Level 2 with less than half gaining Levels 1 and 3, and very few gaining University Entrance; disparity for Māori is evident.
• Data for Years 9 and 10 shows a small majority achieve curriculum expectations in reading, a majority in numeracy and less than half in writing.
• School collected information from a student survey in Term 3, 2024 indicates that most feel well supported, and their cultures and languages valued.
• The school is well below the Ministry of Education target for attendance, with few students attending regularly.

Conditions to support learner success

• Leaders have, appropriately, established targets to bring about improvements in attendance and achievement and taken some steps, such as working with families and more targeted individual support; the targets have not been met and require action planning with measurables to do so.
• Student progress and achievement data is gathered; analysis and use are areas for further development to better inform school decision making, teaching capability needs and programmes of learning.
• Leaders recognise, and ERO’s evaluation affirms, the need to improve the quality of programmes of learning to engage students, including a variety of approaches to teaching.

• Positive relationships between students and with teachers are evident; purposeful teaching and engaged students were evident in those classes observed by ERO.
• Students have sufficient opportunities to learn across the breadth and depth of The New Zealand Curriculum; staff in the junior school are beginning to use different approaches in response to student need.
• Senior students have opportunity to participate in academies for health, trades and service; the extent of successful outcomes of these pathways for learners is not clear.

• Leaders are building positive relationships with contributing schools to enhance the transition of students from primary to secondary school.
• The response to student learning needs requires a more strategic and sustainable approach; not clear is the extent to which in-school responses, and the support from outside agencies, have contributed to improved student outcomes.
• A well-resourced pastoral support team uses community-based services for the wellbeing and pastoral needs of students; the impact on learners, needs to be further explored to know what is working and who for.

Part B: Where to next?

The agreed next steps for the school are to:

• increase expectations of the school and its community for engagement and attendance; monitor the effectiveness of school curriculum, systems and processes to support improved student attendance
• have leaders comprehensively analyse achievement and leavers’ data to inform decision making, teaching and learning programmes, pathway provision and targeted support for at risk learners
• evaluate programmes and initiatives across the school to identify the impact on student engagement and achievement and inform decision making about resourcing of these
• evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum in providing programmes of learning to meet student needs and engage them to achieve success, with a specific focus on literacy and mathematics.

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

Within three months:

• have in place an action plan for attendance expectations; closely monitor attendance, with a focus on the senior school
• develop a system to evaluate programmes and initiatives to know the impact on student success and outcomes
• establish schoolwide processes for collecting and analysing dependable student progress data and achievement and leavers’ information; these processes should enable data to be collected and used over time
• establish a plan to review the curriculum, with the focus on ensuring teaching and learning programmes engages students and meets their needs

Within six months:

• review progress of the attendance action plan and report to the board
• to inform decision making, analyse progress on the evaluation of the impact of programmes and initiatives on learner outcomes
• check systems to track and monitor student progress and achievement are in place, understood and consistently used
• start the curriculum review to identify strengths and areas that need further development to support student engagement and achievement

Every six months

• analyse and report to the board on attendance, progress and achievement for ongoing decision making and timely adjustments; include progress in teacher capability development and curriculum changes

Annually:

• report to the board analysed attendance, progress, achievement and leavers’ destination data to identify trends and next steps the school needs to take for improvement
• report to the board on the impact of initiatives and programmes on student learning and wellbeing outcomes and adjust accordingly
• use ongoing curriculum review findings to implement changes for the following year.

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

• improved attendance, progress and achievement for all year levels
• programmes and initiatives that contribute to student success and positive outcomes, including beyond school
• student attendance and achievement regularly tracked, monitored, analysed and responded to and used for well-founded decision making
• students learning through a curriculum that meets their needs and prepares them well for life after school.

Recommendation to the Ministry of Education

ERO recommends that the Secretary for Education consider intervention(s) in Section 174 of the Education and Training Act 2020 in order to bring about the following improvements:

• action planning to address attendance and achievement concerns and curriculum development
• evidence-based decision making; knowing about and using assessment information.

ERO’s role will be to support the school in its evaluation for improvement cycle to improve outcomes for all learners. The next public report on ERO’s website will be a School Evaluation Report and is due within three years.

Me mahi tahi tonu tātau, kia whai oranga a tātau tamariki
Let’s continue to work together for the greater good of all children

Sharon Kelly
Acting Director of Schools

11 March 2025

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