Monitoring of and reporting on student achievement

It’s your board’s paramount objectiveopen_in_new to ensure that every student is able to meet their highest possible standard in educational achievement.

Tracking student progress helps your board monitor achievement and make informed decisions.

Your board reports to the community and the Ministry on how students are progressing, including progress towards your strategic goals (which reflect community aspirations).

What achievement information should your board get?

All boards need data showing where students are currently sitting against the National Curriculum phases and NCEA (or your school’s national qualification).

To ensure your board has a clear understanding of how students are achieving, you need reliable and detailed information on student attendance, engagement, progress, achievement, and wellbeing.

The principal should present well-analysed data broken down into year group, gender, and ethnicity.

It should be presented to your board at least twice a year: around mid-year and when end of year results are known.

While the data can give you a snapshot of where students are currently at, a full analysis and explanation can be much more valuable for understanding and future decision-making.

These explanations could include information such as interventions, extension strategies, and expected progress.

What should the information you receive look like?

There is no set format, but any information provided to your board should:

• Be up-to-date and accurate.

• Contain no identifying information about individual students.

• Be presented in a way that’s easy to understand.

• Provide enough detail for your board to ask meaningful questions.

• Identify trends and patterns to show areas of strength and success, as well as areas for improvement.

• Evaluate performance against the National Curriculum statements, any external qualification system, and your board’s strategic plan.

Note: To protect privacy, the principal should remove personal information such as names and student numbers.

There are times when your board may need to discuss student achievement data for a group small enough that the students may be identifiable.

These discussions should be held in public-excluded business and treated as confidential.

How is student progress and achievement assessed?

Schools and kura use a range of assessment and aromatawai tools to determine whether students are progressing as expected.

These may include standardised assessments, classroom-based evidence, teacher judgment, and internal and external examinations.

The Ministry has approved several tools that are aligned with the refreshed Curriculum and can support schools and kura to meet their twice‑yearly assessment requirements.

One example is SMARTopen_in_new (Student Monitoring, Assessment and Reporting Tool).

It is free for all schools and kura in New Zealand and provides boards with clearer and more consistent information to support strategic planning, annual planning, and reporting.

It also supports improved reporting to parents and whānau by showing clearly how learners are progressing over time.

Note: aromatawai is a teaching, learning, and assessment approach based on Māori values, beliefs, and aspirations.

What other information could you monitor?

As well as progress against the curriculum, your board should look at other factors impacting student achievement.

These can include:

• Attendance, preparedness for learning, and overall engagement.

• Demographics of the school, students, staff, and community.

• Referrals for student behaviour (look for trends and patterns), the support provided, and guidance programmes.

• Participation in extra-curricular activities and leadership opportunities.

• Concerns and complaints raised with the school, particularly those related to bullying or discrimination.

• Staff, student, and community feedback.

How often should you be receiving information?

How often you get information depends on what you want to monitor:

• Data on attendance and behaviour management (stand-downs and suspensions) should be available monthly.

• School-wide curriculum level reporting should be at least twice a year.

• Information on specific targets is likely to be reported more regularly, often termly or after a particular intervention or programme.

There needs to be a balance between getting information regularly enough to notice changes, and not over-assessing students or putting too many demands on staff.

Think about:

• What information you want to receive

• How often you want to receive it

• What format you want to receive the information in

• Who will present the information.

Your board must clearly outline your reporting requirements ahead of the desired reporting times.

It’s a good idea to include these expectations in your board policies.

Setting expectations up front allows staff adequate time to collect and analyse the data that is presented to your board.

What should board members ask about the information?

To make informed decisions, your board should engage with the information provided and ask good questions.

Useful questions include:

• Does it provide a “whole picture” of student achievement?

• What trends or patterns are emerging?

• What is working well, for which students, and why?

• Which students are at risk or struggling, and why?

• What is the school doing to respond?

• Does the school have the resources and support required to improve outcomes?

When are you required to report on student achievement?

Section 165open_in_new and the School Planning and Reporting Regulationsopen_in_new outline the reporting requirements for boards.

• Every March, your board reports to the Secretary for Education through the Statement of Variance on the progress made by the whole school towards your board’s strategic targets.
• On an annual basis, your board must ensure that the school reports to the community on the progress and achievement of priority group learners, and the school as a whole.
• At least twice a year, parents should receive reports about progress and achievement towards all aspects outlined in the National Curriculum. (While it’s your board responsibility for ensuring this happens, it’s the school who prepares and sends out the reports).

Questions your board could ask

• Do we know how well students in our school are achieving?

• Do we understand the information we’re receiving?

• Have we identified the information we want to see?

• How often do we want to receive it?

• In what format do we want to receive the information?

• Who will present the information?

• Have we set clear reporting expectations?

• Does the school need support from our board to improve in any area?

• Are we meeting our reporting obligations?

Templates, resources, and references

Click on the link(s) below to access the templates, resources, and references related to this topic.

These may download or open in a separate browser depending on your device.

Ministry of Education

• SMART – Overview and access

Education and Training Act 2020

• Section 127 – Paramount objectives of boards in governing schoolsopen_in_new

• Section 164 – Teaching and learning programmesopen_in_new

• Section 165 – Monitoring of and reporting on student performanceopen_in_new

Other legislation

• Education (School Planning and Reporting) Regulations 2023open_in_new