School principal pleased with ERO report

Pembroke School pupils pictured with their principal Brent Godfery yesterday. Photo by Craig Baxter.
Pembroke School pupils pictured with their principal Brent Godfery. PHOTO: CRAIG BAXTER.
A positive Education Review Office report reflects the good work going on at Pembroke School, the Oamaru school's principal says.

Few issues were highlighted in the report following a visit to the school in March.

Pembroke School principal Brent Godfery was pleased with the report.

"It's a good report. It fairly accurately reflects what we are doing, how we are doing it and what we value."

The report said the school had made "positive progress towards providing equitable and excellent outcomes for all students", and praised its achievement levels, particularly in maths, where most were at or above "curriculum expectations".

It noted Maori pupils were achieving "particularly well" in reading, but Pasifika pupils had achieved lower results in literacy as many were considered to use English as a second language.

While the school's accelerated learning programmes for reading and writing had achieved improved results, the school did "not yet have a systematic approach to analysing and reporting acceleration for some targeted groups of students".

Mr Godfery said accelerated learning was a "big" focus for the office, but did not necessarily fit the school's approach.

"... We just provide appropriate learning that supports them [pupils] as best we can. Kids being happy and learning is our priority."

The report praised the pupil-teacher relationships, its values system and the school's support systems for pupils and staff.

Three areas were identified for further development - the school's curriculum guidelines to "better reflect local context, deepen cultural practices and better promote student voice and ownership of their learning"; achievement analysis and internal evaluation processes.

The school has 276 pupils.

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