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Ka haei rawa au ki a Rūaimoko, kotahi ngaruetanga ka whiti he tau kē.
I know the labours of Rūaimoko, who, simply by shaking the earth, causes the season to change.
Kia ora e te whānau
Seasons of Change
As Autumn approaches, here we are - focused on mitigating the impact of Omicron on students, staff and whānau.
Omicron cases are increasing everywhere including in schools. That means we need new protections. NZPF has requested more ‘Rapid Antigen Tests’ (RATs) for all schools, so you can better manage covid outbreaks amongst your teachers and staff. The air cleaners, ordered by the MOE, are yet to arrive in schools, but will be welcomed, particularly in the colder regions of the country, where keeping windows and doors open is not always an option.
As COVID spreads through our schools, communities and whānau, we are constantly thinking about how to protect ourselves from the virus. We now think harder about how we work, how we social distance; we are more aware of ventilation and we wear masks indoors. We have our vaccine passes at the ready and we think more carefully about how we interact with people both in and outside of work and home.
Mental Health and Wellbeing – The first step in a Post-Pandemic Recovery
Something we learned from the Christchurch earthquake, is that sustained pressure on students and families affects health and wellbeing. In the years following the earthquate, the number of students with ‘Post-traumatic Stress Disorder’ increased. This led to the development of the ‘Mana Ake’ programme.
The Canterbury “Mana Ake’ programme is a joint ‘Ministry of Education – Ministry of Health’ initiative, involving thirteen NGO health providers and eighty front-line wellbeing support workers. Led by school principals, the initative was co-designed, to provide systemic wellbeing support for students and families. It has enabled young people to remain engaged in learning and has been successful in both rural and urban areas.
One of the strongest dimensions of the programme is the on-going professional development provided for education staff, including PLD on anxiety and trauma. Mana Ake fills a gap in the provision of wellbeing assistance for tamariki as it is free, based in schools and is not just for the ‘most complex’ cases. ‘Leading Lights’ is the Mana Ake website resource for education staff and a repository of education resources.
As we look ahead to a Post-Covid world, there is opportunty to think about and plan for a recovery that will support students, staff, principals and communities. Attending to our individual and collective mental health and wellbeing comes before teaching and learning.
Teachers know that successful learning starts when students are in a ‘ready to learn zone’. In a Post-Pandemic environment, we want principals, staff, students and whānau to all be supported to find that ‘ready to learn zone’.
This year the ‘Mana Ake’ programme has been extended, through health, to five areas in New Zealand. But, we have ten education regions and within them 2,500 schools, staff and students that need support, if we are to lead a ‘world class post-covid education recovery’. The season of COVID will eventually end. When it goes, we want to be ready. Equitable access to mental health wellbeing support is the first step for those who need it.
How to make ‘Mana Ake’ a national priority for our four Ministers of Education, our Ministry of Education, three new Te Matua Regional directors, ten regional directors, our principal associations and our schools, is the challenge! But this is also an opportunity to set a new post-covid culture in which we as education practitioners co-construct a national Mana Ake in partnership with the redeveloped Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health. There is also a compelling economic investment on return for every dollar spent that adds weight to this proposal.
Looking ahead, no-one should miss out on learning because they need mental health support as a result of a global pandemic. That includes principals.
Covid Information to share with parents
As well as creating ‘logistical overload’ for schools, Covid is a huge concern for parents. The health sector has developed some excellent resources for parents on the KidsHealth website which you may wish to share with parents. Please check out the links below -
https://www.kidshealth.org.nz/covid-19-caring-child-covid-19
https://www.kidshealth.org.nz/covid-19-why-wearing-masks-creating-airflow-helps
New content is being added regularly to COVID-19 | KidsHealth NZ
KidsHealth also covers a huge range of general child health topics that may be of interest to parents and help to reduce anxiety in your community.
International Students Submission
Submissions on the International Students Review for which the government has proposed to limit the enrolments of international students under Year 9 are due very shortly.
We have received feedback from principals asking for a survey to inform our submission and we have agreed to that. You can access the survey here which will take you less than 5 minutes to complete. The survey has a 24 hour turn around time and we will publish the results in this newsletter next week.
Have your say today!
Wondering of the Week:
How much of your time as a principal is devoted to finding additional sources of income and resources for your school?
Poll is closed
Results of last week’s poll:
Ngā manaakitanga
Cherie Taylor-Patel
cherie.taylor-patel@nzpf.ac.nz
NZPF Awards -NOTE: Rural Teaching Principals Conference cancelled!
Due to COVID distractions, the closing date for applications for NZPF awards has been extended to 15 March. The following awards are available to NZPF members:
- Don Le Prou Award
- Tauri Morgan Memorial Award
- PLD Grants for Principals' Associations
Click here for further details.
If you have applied for support to attend the Rural Teaching Principals Conference, we regret to say it has been postponed till 2023.
We will transfer your application to the NZPF Conference, Christchurch, September 14 - 16 2022.
If you wish to apply for support to attend a completely different conference, please contact the NZPF national office HERE.
NZPF Conference - Early Bird Registrations
Registrations for the 2022 NZPF Conference are open. The conference will be held at the new Te Pae, Christchurch Convention and Exhibition Centre, on 14 - 16 September.
Register before the early bird deadline of 31 May to save up to $100 on your registration.
Visit the website to register now.
NZ Principal Magazine also Online
You and/or your team members can easily access the NZ Principal Magazines online, as an e-magazine or as a PDF. Additionally you can search for a previous issue, an article by title or by the author of the article. All magazines back to Term 1 2012 are available in this format. To view or search click here.
Principals' Legal Advice & Support Scheme
More than half of all NZPF members now subscribe to our wholly owned PASL – Principals’ Advice & Support Limited. For many years, the scheme was administered by the Dunedin office of Crombie Lockwood, a national insurance broker. After a longstanding arrangement, changes to the Financial Markets Regulations resulted in Crombie Lockwood being unable to continue to provide their banking and invoicing services to PASL. The Board of PASL therefore contracted Jacquie Kenton, jacquie@pasl.nz to be the sole administrator for the scheme. Jacquie worked as PASL administrator through Crombie Lockwood, so is well familiar with the scheme.
Subscribers to PASL will notice no substantial differences with this shift since all of the administration activities will continue uninterrupted. We thank Jacquie for her continuing service to the PASL scheme.
NZPF assures its business partners that, as members, you will contact them to have a conversation if you are purchasing products, services or solutions for your schools that a business partner supplies. Please support our partners as their assistance to NZPF means better membership services to you.
