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Kia ora e te whānau
Do you experience a sense of powerlessness about how education works—how the system is organised and resourced; and what the system pays attention to? Do you feel that no matter how hard you rail against current reality change will never occur?
If you do, then reject that supposition. Change is possible!
Top of my list is to reclaim teaching and learning from those that seek to organise and control it as if they were running a production line in a factory. You know - inputs and outputs, all measurable and linear.
Every experience I have had over 30 years working with young people tells me that teaching and learning is beautifully complex—that humans defy categorisation and control.
That was why I was so incensed by National Standards. I was appalled that such a simplistic and stolid structure was applied to humans to categorise, control and ultimately judge achievement.
It was the worst example of the tail wagging the dog. Children’s learning subjugated to politics. Never again.
Let’s be clear—we are exiting the age of a technicised cognitive culture, but we still see the scattered remnants of this culture in our schools.
Ideas like:
Acceleration that emphasises vertical gain in learning as if vertical gain is a virtue. How about horizontal breadth and depth? Acceleration is a hangover of the march to see every student ‘at’ or ‘above’ standard. We may have removed the terms ‘at’ or ‘above’, but the idea of ‘standard’ remains. It is just expressed in a different language. The frenetic pace at which teachers are now asked to work is wrong. It is damaging the patience required to engage students in deep learning and thoughtful reflection.
The continued emphasis on reading, writing and mathematics to the detriment of other curricula. No-one argues that these three aren’t important. In an age when capability in multiple learning domains can create extraordinary futures, we still want to squeeze students into this straitjacket. Reading, writing and mathematics are part of the educational journey for students and so are all the other learning areas. So, let’s pay other curricula their due.
The dominance of hard data expressed in quantitative terms as a measure of school quality and educational success. Let’s stop the nonsense in our charters and Kāhui Ako achievement challenges that show deference to data goals as the ‘only’ true measures of progress and achievement. What utter nonsense!
The almost complete decimation of the arts in our schools—particularly dance, drama and music. These curricula can’t be easily measured in quantitative terms and nor should they. They express the essence of being human. Their demise is ironic in an age when we want young people better connected to humanity. The arts have fallen out of favour in our technicised culture—more emphasis is now given to coding than it is to dancing.
Let’s search out the remnants of this technicised culture in our schools and eradicate it! Let’s grow schools that embrace broad, creative and innovative approaches to teaching, learning and assessment. Simplistic, system led, top down ideas will never improve achievement. It is principals and teachers exercising professional freedom to implement ideas that work for different learners that will ultimately best serve young people.
The job of ERO and the Ministry of Education is to remove barriers to serving young people and to actively build relational trust. These must be clear, unequivocal goals. The damage to professional trust and confidence has been immense and only by ditching ‘big brother’ dogma and accountability regimes will we achieve professional renaissance.
I am determined that we will regain our rightful role as pedagogical leaders in our schools and communities. Professor Thomas Sergiovanni calls us to ‘moral’ leadership. This is leadership of practice that deep down you know is right. It is leadership by the profession not by political imperative or by bureaucrats.
Let’s get cracking. Be brave. Let the renaissance begin!
COVID-19
Please note the excellent advice received from the Secretary of Education regarding COVID-19 through the Ministry Bulletin for Sector Leaders and Special Bulletin as circumstances dictate. We play a critical role in building confidence in our communities that we have appropriate procedures in place and will act in accordance with the advice we receive.
Principals’ Advice and Support Scheme (PASL)
Do you know about PASL? About half of all principals in New Zealand belong to the scheme. You can subscribe to the Principals’ Advice and Support Scheme, which offers principals - who are members of NZPF - up to $25,000 in legal fees and a legal hotline should it be required. We recommend the scheme to members. Do follow this link to learn more.
NZPF 2020 Subscriptions
Please note that the 2020 subscription has been emailed to principals not to office staff. If you haven’t received your 2020 subscription notice then please contact NZPF and we will arrange to get another notice to you. My thanks to all of you who have paid your subs so promptly.
Ngā manaakitanga
Perry Rush
perry@nzpf.ac.nz
Banking Staffing Update - March 2020
March Return Information for schools with New Entrants (Primary, Area, Contributing)
Look for both the Staffing and Funding Notices which will be generated once MOE processes your Recent March Return.
The Staffing Notice will either confirm your provisional roll based staffing or increase it. Any increase will reflect the fact that you have a more favourable roll on the March return than the provisional roll generated last year, and if an Area school, you will also see that there is a new entrant adjustment applied to your March Year one roll. Other primary school types miss out on this assistance designed to give you sufficient staffing the get to 10 October before needing to apply for a “staffing roll change”. Resulting increases to entitlement staffing are backdated to the start of the year, but probably not soon enough to offset any of last years overuse that you might be trying to manage by moving Staff to BG during PP 23 to 26.
The good news is that there is a new entrant adjustment included in the Funding Notice for all of you, not just Area Schools.
Look at the roll number/s on the recalculation page you receive. The total roll number you see will be greater than the actual roll you sent in on the March Return because MOE will have recalculated the roll by adding 11/12ths of the March year on roll to your actual total. Your recalculated funding is improved in this boost creates a greater total roll than you received provisionally in September.
File the Table generated by your SMS, probably Called M1 or M3 and probably described as “Funding Year Level”, as the Y1 roll on that Table provides you with a minimum safe prediction to use when prediction the 2021 year 1 Staffing during the July Return process on the Supplementary Questions email you will receive in July. That number is also my recommended number to use for your prediction concerning the number of year ones you expect to arrive between ! March and 10th October on the supplementary question email. It becomes the initial prediction of the “New Entrant Adjustment” for next year’s provisional staffing considerations by MOE.
Contributing Schools: Make yourself aware of the Year 7 roll you may see on on M1/M3 and probably on the new Staffing Entitlement notice. Keep this in mind when you do the July Predictions! There is danger in including them in the year 6 box and leaving the Y7 box blank.
Gavin Price
NZPF Life Member. gavin.price@xtra.co.nz 027 607 6220
NZPF/APPA Trans-Tasman Conference
This conference brings together the Australian Primary Principals’ Association (APPA) and the New Zealand Principals’ Federation (NZPF) in Melbourne, 15 -18 September 2020.
The conference theme 'Leading Today For Tomorrow: Creative…Courageous…Connected' encapsulates the joys, challenges and demands of contemporary leadership.
This is a not-to-be-missed opportunity to mix with 1200+ primary school leaders from our two countries as well as international guests.
The conference website can be found here.
Early Bird registrations close Friday 29 May.
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.
School Accounting - Accessing the Best Financial Advice and Support
At Accounting For Schools (AFS), we add significant value to schools, by providing understandable financial reports, insightful observations, assisting with future planning through budgets and forecasts and providing free group training to support staff and Boards. We utilise Xero to ensure meaningful information is delivered in real time.
We are aware of key financial issues that impact schools and accordingly can tailor individual solutions to suit the School’s requirements. We provide reliable guidance, which allows Boards to have confidence in the financial direction of the School, when making spending decisions.
Teaming up with AFS will ensure that all aspects of the School’s finances are transparent and understandable, while providing access to expert advice and ongoing support throughout the year.
If you want more confidence about your School’s finances, then contact us today for a no obligation chat and let us help you plan for the future.
Accounting For Schools
admin@afsl.nz
Ph: 04-909-7729
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.
