Rototuna Senior High School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within eleven months of the Education Review Office and Rototuna 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 

Rototuna Senior High School, located in Hamilton North, provides education for students in Years 11 to 13 on a campus shared with Rototuna Junior High School. The school’s ILE (innovative learning environment) provides a setting for students to ‘connect, inspire and soar’.

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

• provide effective teaching and learning to empower our people to be connected, community-minded learners inspired to soar
• build strong reciprocal partnerships within and beyond our community to enhance personal and academic success
• provide a safe, engaging, and effective environment that builds capability and well-being.

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

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate the extent to which a focus on deep learning is resulting in increasing levels of engagement, agency, equity, and excellence for all students.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is a commitment to:

• genuinely pursue the school’s vision of inspiring students to soar
• equitable and excellent outcomes for all students.

The school expects to see increasingly excellent and equitable outcomes resulting from:

• teachers and leaders developing a shared understanding of deep learning and the conditions and practices which promote this
• practices and conditions that support students to develop the skills needed for deep learning implemented with increasing consistency
• student achievement information and voice used to inform ongoing refinements to practices that promote deep learning.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to make deep learning happen:

• an innovative curriculum that is highly responsive to the needs, interests, and identities of students
• leadership that is committed to pursuing a clearly articulated agenda for improvement
• relationships that support inclusion and connection within and beyond the school.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• developing a shared understanding of deep learning and the conditions and practices that promote this
• developing the capacity of teachers and leaders to implement practices and systems that successfully foster deep learning
• using student voice and achievement information at all levels to inform ongoing refinements to deep learning practices that support equity and excellence.

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

26 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