What are Charter Schools | Kura Hourua?
Part 3, subpart 6A of the Education and Training Act 2020 (the Act) sets out the legal framework for Charter Schools | Kura Hourua. These are public schools, funded on a per-student basis, that have considerable flexibility around teaching, curriculum, governance, hours and days of operation.
The organisations who govern Charter Schools | Kura Hourua are called Sponsors. Sponsors can decide how to use their funding and can set their own curriculum. They can operate one school or multiple schools. Sponsors are accountable to the Charter School Agency | Te Tari Kura Hourua through a binding, legally enforceable, fixed-term contract to meet specific, measurable educational performance goals.
The Charter School Agency | Te Tari Kura negotiates and manages contracts with Sponsors and delivers funding. The Charter School Agency supports the Charter School Authorisation Board | Te Poari Whakamana Kura Hourua which approves Sponsors, monitors their performance and holds them to account. The Authorisation Board seeks ERO’s information and views on applications for new and converting schools to support its decision making.
What is ERO’s role?
Our checks and reviews of Charter Schools | Kura Hourua have different processes from our reviews of state, state-integrated and private schools.
ERO’s role depends on whether a Charter School | Kura Hourua is a converting state, or state-integrated school, or a new school.
For new Charter Schools | Kura Hourua, ERO completes:
- a pre-establishment check. This is an onsite verification check of planning, processes, systems and procedures regarding child protection, health and safety and personnel that are in place prior to opening the school.
- a new school verification check approximately one year after opening. This revisits the same areas as the pre-establishment check. It verifies whether policies and practices are known, understood and effectively implemented.
For new and converted Charter Schools | Kura Hourua, ERO completes:
- the first regular cyclic review on a school’s performance and the delivery of education services within three years of opening. Thereafter, ERO reviews each school on a three-yearly cycle, unless ERO considers more frequent reviews necessary. After two consecutive successful reviews, a school may move to five-yearly regular reviews.
Additional checks and reviews:
Under the Act, the Minister of Education can direct the Chief Review Officer (CRO) to conduct general or special reviews. The Authorisation Board may require the CRO to review the governance and management of a Charter School | Kura Hourua. The CRO may decide to undertake special reviews.
For converting schools, ERO may use the time between the school’s last published school report (before converting) and the projected first Regular Cyclic Review to determine whether an earlier, additional check (e.g. a New School Verification Check) is necessary.
School hostels:
If the school has a hostel for students, we will check compliance with hostel requirements and discuss this during the review.
We are interested in how schools support student boarders in hostels.
Read more about how we review school hostels.
International students:
If the school is a signatory to the Education (Pastoral Care of International Students) Code of Practice, we will discuss this during the review.
We are interested in how the school supports international students.
Read more about how we review the support of international students.
What happens before an ERO check or review?
We notify Sponsors by email of the dates for the check or review. The ERO reviewer leading each check or review will contact the Sponsor by email or phone to provide more information about the process and arrange our visit.
We ask Sponsors to complete and return a Sponsor Assurance Statement and Self-Audit Checklist related to what we focus on in the review. These may also be useful for schools’ own self-review.
Download the Sponsor Assurance Statement and Self-Audit Checklist here (DOCX 377.33 KB)
What happens following an ERO check or review?
Following each pre-establishment check, ERO will provide a letter of findings to the Charter School Agency.
Following each new school verification check, regular cyclic review and special review, ERO will prepare and send the Sponsor a draft report. This includes our judgements about whether the school is meeting or not meeting each requirement.
Sponsors can send us comments on the draft report, with supporting documentation, to advise us of any errors of fact or ask about the basis for the judgements.
We will contact the Sponsor about any comments or any changes to the report. Once this is done, we will send the confirmed report to the Sponsor. We also send this report to the Charter School Agency and publish it on our website.
A link to The Charter School Agency’s website is here.