Dovedale School

What ERO wrote in its latest report

This is ERO’s report of 6 May 2025 — “School Evaluation Report” — section by section, under ERO’s own headings, in ERO’s own order. Nothing is summarised, shortened or reordered.

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

Dovedale School is located in the Tasman District and provides education for learners in Years 1 to 8. The school vision is to Growing Great People, underpinned by the values of Respect - Whakaute , Resilience – Manawaroa , Responsibility – Tūtika .

There are three parts to this report.

Part A: A summary of the findings from the most recent Education Review Office (ERO) report and/or subsequent evaluation.

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

Part A: Previous Improvement Goals

Since the previous ERO report of July 2022, ERO and the school have worked together to evaluate the extent to which learners participated and engaged in learning that fostered successful learning outcomes, while enhancing their wellbeing.

Expected Improvements and Findings

The school expected to see:

Learners developing their abilities to be positive citizens and contributing to their community by reaching their social, emotional and academic potential, with a specific achievement in writing.

All targeted learners made and sustained sufficient progress in writing.

Teachers’ professional learning opportunities have strengthened their understanding of effective teaching of literacy, particularly for those learners in the senior class.

Teachers supported learners to have greater understanding to know what is required to achieve academic success; this strengthened learners' confidence and engagement.

The implementation of positive behaviour strategies has supported learners to regulate their own social and emotional behaviours.

Other Findings

The greatest shift that occurred in response to the school’s action has been the implementation of positive behaviour for learning strategies that have supported learners to understand what helps with their learning and how to address their wellbeing needs.

Part B: Current State

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

Learner Success and Wellbeing

Learners are highly engaged and experience positive learning outcomes.

Most learners achieve at or above curriculum expectations in reading and mathematics; writing achievement has improved over time and remains an area for continued focus.

Learners experience a strong sense of belonging in the positive learning culture; they are well known by all staff and their individualised academic and wellbeing needs are carefully considered.

A majority of learners attend school regularly; the school is not yet meeting the Ministry of Education 2024 target for regular attendance.

Conditions to support learner success

Effective school leadership has a strategic vision for learner success and provides clear direction for ongoing development.

Purposeful and carefully planned schoolwide collaboration ensures consistency of teaching practice and prioritises ongoing improvement.

Collaborative decision-making is based on high-quality evidence and links closely to the school’s identified strategic goals.

Strong professional relationships and shared responsibility for learner success, positively reinforces the school’s values and priorities, enhances learner wellbeing and sense of belonging.

Learners benefit from high quality teaching practices and meaningful learning programmes.

Learners have rich learning experiences that reflect and use the local environment and context.

Experienced teachers use a wide variety of responsive teaching practices that cater to the individual needs of learners.

Learners have ongoing access to appropriate expertise and are provided with a wide range of well-considered resources to support learning.

The school has well-aligned systems and effective conditions for successful outcomes for learners

Teachers are well supported, highly reflective and have a collective focus on improving outcomes for all learners; they continually build capacity through targeted professional learning opportunities.

The board is highly supportive and maintains strong connections with the local community to ensure it is meeting its identified goals.

Teachers maintain strong professional networks and connections with the wider educational community that enables greater opportunities for students and staff and draws on a wider pool of expertise to enhance school priorities.

Staff have a strong commitment to developing their cultural competency; effective use of external expertise and targeted professional learning has helped lift understanding of mātauranga Māori and embed practices across the school.

Part C: Where to next?

The agreed next steps for the school are to:

extend learners’ ability to reflect on and contribute to their next learning steps

continue to build high quality teaching practices that reflect the refreshed New Zealand Curriculum ( NZC )

continue to foster connections between the school, families and wider community, including local iwi, with a focus on increasing regular attendance.

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

Within six months:

use the refreshed NZC to plan, teach and assess learning programmes in literacy and mathematics using a structured approach

implement the digital data management system to increase the ways learning is shared, reported and communicated with learners, families and the wider community

continue to work with the attendance service to develop strategies and systems to improve regular attendance

Every six months:

review how well learners know and can describe their learning and next steps

review teaching and learning programmes against NZC progress outcomes to ensure teaching programmes meet new curriculum expectations

report to the board on progress and achievement against the progress outcomes for each phase of learning

Annually:

gather learner feedback and ideas to evaluate how well learning programmes are meeting their needs and interests and make changes to programmes accordingly

teachers reflect on their professional capabilities and seek relevant professional learning development to further enhance and consolidate high quality teaching practice

analyse and report wellbeing, achievement and attendance rates to the board to show the effectiveness of implemented strategies and modify planning for ongoing improvement.

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

sustained and improved levels of learner progress and achievement, particularly in writing

greater engagement of the school community in their children’s learning, with increased levels of attendance

learners confidently being able to talk about their learning, share next steps and take responsibility for their own learning

shared understanding of high-quality structured literacy and mathematics approaches across the school.

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 Director of Schools (Acting)

6 May 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

Read this report on ero.govt.nz →