Big Rock Primary School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 12 months of the Education Review Office and Big Rock Primary 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 

Big Rock is a full primary situated in the seaside township of Brighton just south of Dunedin. The school provides education for Year 1-8 students.

Big Rock Primary School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are to develop and implement:

• a high quality localised integrated curriculum that provides for investigation, explanation and presentation 

• programmes across the school to build and strengthen physical and emotional resilience.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate the effectiveness of the school’s physical and emotional resilience programmes and how they improve outcomes in the school’s integrated curriculum, particularly in literacy and mathematics.  

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is the:

• holistic achievement information identified the need to develop and build physical and emotional resilience throughout the curriculum

• integrated curriculum programmes needing to foster excellence and engagement across the school.

The school expects to see:

• board and staff investing in the programmes identified as making a positive difference for learners

• the collection and analysing of data to measure the effectiveness of programmes on engagement and excellence across the school

• children recognising and sharing with others their experiences and achievements

• children being aware of and being able to utilise different learning strategies.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support the school in its goal to develop physical and emotional resilience:

• a collaborative staff who share responsibility and take leadership opportunities

• a strong localised curriculum that is reflective of the school community 

• a positive learning environment with established respectful relationships, that encourages and promotes learner engagement 

• a board that utilises resourcing appropriately to support learning, particularly in areas identified as priorities. 

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• a culture of evaluation to identify areas of strength and for further development 

• the continued review and development of the school’s localised curriculum 

• the development of children’s resilience and independence in learning.

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 School

25 May 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