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AJHS Shortlisted for NZ Education Excellence Award

Last week Albany Junior High School was notified that they have been shortlisted in the Top 10 nationally for the New Zealand Education Excellence Awards under the category ‘Quality Teaching and Instruction’.

AJHS wanted to share this achievement with the community, and add some context around their recent journey.

Their vision is to ensure that every ākonga (student) is equipped to access, engage in, and succeed across all areas of the curriculum, and to grow as confident, capable learners prepared for their future pathways.

What AJHS has focused on:

Over the past four years, post covid, AJHS has taken a very deliberate, evidence-informed approach to strengthening teaching and learning across the school.

Many Year 7 students were needing additional support with literacy, which was impacting their ability to access the curriculum to learn across all subjects. In response, AJHS developed a coherent, school-wide strategy, focused on:

• Structured Literacy – explicitly teaching reading, spelling, and writing skills
• Explicit Teaching – clear, step-by-step teaching so students know exactly what to do and how to succeed
• Building Teacher Capability – ensuring all teachers are confident, consistent, and skilled in how they teach

Importantly, this has not been a single programme. It has been a phased, whole-school approach, led through deliberate leadership and aligned systems, to ensure every classroom supports student learning in a consistent and effective way.

Strategic leadership and implementation:

This work has been carefully led and built over time to ensure it is sustainable and embedded:

• 2024: Establishment of Literacy Leaders to build internal expertise
• 2025: Formation of a Literacy Taskforce to design and coordinate a school-wide approach
• 2026: Appointment of an Explicit Teaching Lead to embed and scale effective practice across all classrooms

This leadership structure ensures that improvement is not dependent on individuals, but is supported, monitored, and embedded across the school through a vision, strategy, leadership and teaching.

Investing in the right support:

To make this work successful, AJHS made carefully considered decisions about resourcing and staffing, including:

• Establishing Literacy Leaders and a school-wide Literacy Taskforce
• Appointing an Explicit Teaching Lead to support teachers in classrooms
• Providing ongoing professional learning for all staff, including coaching, modelling, and feedback
• Aligning teacher professional growth to explicit teaching practice
• Training teacher aides and relief teachers to better support students
• Implementing structured literacy tools such as The Code, and robust assessment systems to track progress

These investments ensure that improvement is not short-term, but sustained, consistent, and embedded across the school.

What AJHS is seeing:

AJHS is already seeing strong, measurable improvements for students:

• Significant progress in spelling and writing, particularly for students who needed additional support
• Fewer students in lower achievement levels, and more students moving into expected and above expectation levels
• Increased confidence, engagement, and willingness to take on challenge

At the same time, AJHS has strengthened its teaching workforce, with:

• greater consistency in teaching practice across all classrooms
• improved teacher confidence and capability
• stronger support systems and shared approaches across the school

What this means for AJHS students:

This recognition reflects that AJHS students are learning in a school that is:

• focused on evidence-informed teaching practices
• committed to equity and ensuring every learner can succeed
• investing in high-quality teaching and support systems
• continually reviewing and improving how they teach

While AJHS is proud of this recognition, the work is ongoing.

Their current focus is on:

• extending these practices into Years 9–10
• strengthening alignment across all learning areas
• continuing to build a consistent, high-quality learning experience for every student

A collective achievement

This recognition reflects ‘The AJHS Way’: integrity, respect, courage, and culture, which underpins achievement. AJHS knows that who their learners are and how they show up each day drives their habits of success.

No matter the outcome of the final awards, this recognition affirms that AJHS is making a meaningful difference.