Oteha Valley School

Te Ara Huarau | School Profile Report

Background

This Profile Report was written within 12 months of the Education Review Office and Oteha Valley 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 

Oteha Valley School is in Albany, Auckland. The school provides education for students in Years 1 to 6.

Oteha Valley School’s strategic priorities for improving outcomes for learners are:

• Cultural Connections and Capabilities: Promote and develop the concept of whanaungatanga throughout the school to encourage and enable parents and caregivers to feel a real sense of belonging to our school.

• Hauora/Wellbeing: Increase teachers’ confidence in planning and implementing regular physical activity lessons to improve skills and wellbeing of all children.

• Powerful Learning: Develop knowledge and understanding of teachers in the ‘Understand, Know, and Do’ framework of the revised NZ Curriculum in the three areas of Aotearoa NZ Histories, Mathematics and Statistics and increase teachers’ knowledge and confidence in collaborative practice across different curriculum areas.

You can find a copy of the school’s strategic and annual plan on Oteha Valley School’s website.

ERO and the school are working together to evaluate how well collaborative practices are enhancing equitable outcomes for all students and promoting excellence.

The rationale for selecting this evaluation is:

• to prepare students for the future, they need to be able to confidently collaborate, co-operate and relate well to others

• collaboration and collaborative teaching practices will support teachers to meet the diverse social, emotional and academic needs of all students

• to build effective and authentic relationships with all parents and whānau so they are engaged in, and understand the school’s local curriculum, and ensure this reflects the richness of the school community.

The school expects to see:

• highly collaborative learning environments in which students actively lead their own learning and have a voice about why, what and how they learn with others

• high quality co-teaching models where staff and leaders are reflective, innovative and inspiring

• a culturally responsive learning environment which embraces and includes the cultural identity of the school’s diverse community.

Strengths

The school can draw from the following strengths to support its goal to evaluate how well collaborative practices are promoting and enhancing excellent and equitable outcomes for all learners:

• strong and effective leadership across the school, where decisions are based on research to provide best outcomes for all students

• a focus on strengthening professional capability and collective capacity to continually improve and innovate

• a welcoming and inclusive school environment and culture that promotes student engagement and ongoing collaboration and communication with the parent community.

Where to next?

Moving forward, the school will prioritise:

• ensuring authentic student voice and choice in their learning

• ongoing review and evaluation of collaborative practice which is evidence-based

• enabling and encouraging the diverse parent community to improve the level of their participation and engagement in students’ 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 Schools

25 July 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