Kia ora e te whānau

The Accord, negotiated by NZEI, PPTA and the Ministry of Education, as part of the pay negotiations settlement, included some critical workload and wellbeing issues in which principals have a vested interest.

The data from the recent NZPF road trip has been crunched and the 800 principals attending the 17 regional meetings have spoken.

Wellbeing and workload remain unaddressed for principals in their day to day work. Changes are urgently required so that principals can get on with the important work of leading their schools.  

On behalf of the principals of Aotearoa New Zealand, I am asking that NZEI, PPTA and the Ministry of Education address the issues outlined below in the next stages of the Accord process.

There are 10 critical issues. Principals consider the following to be of urgent priority.

Match primary management staffing entitlement, units and allowances to secondary
Primary schools are under-resourced with management entitlement, units and allowances and primary school principals are stretched and overworked. Resolution of this issue is required immediately. We expect this mismatch to be dealt with in next year’s budget. 

Provision of student counsellors at a 1:250 ratio in secondary schools made available to schools south of Year 9 to deal with the significant pastoral, mental health, and wellbeing challenges in our schools.
Schools are not resourced to deal with young people who require regular therapeutic interventions. This help is best deployed at school within relationships that can be established with staff and whānau. 

Isolation and Vulnerability of Principals.
Dealing with the structural weakness of principal employment by non-professional Boards of Trustees. Principals are routinely being harmed by a system that does not offer coherent support or fair conflict resolution mechanisms to deal with parent complaints or Board conflict. This damage and isolation must stop.

Delivery of Learning Support Coordinators to all schools.
Principals asked for Special Needs Coordinators to be centrally funded because we needed greater front-line staffing for learning support. What we got was a model we did not ask for and then for only some schools. The absence of ‘front-line’ Learning Support Coordinators is adding to the workload of principals who liaise with support agencies. These agencies do not have the capacity to deliver services to young people in a timely manner.

Disband Kāhui Ako and reinvest in front line services.
Principals are calling for Kāhui Ako to be disestablished. Some principals agree that there have been benefits of Kāhui Ako but not to the extent that they outweigh the massive need to better fund learning and behaviour. Of the $120m expensed on Kāhui Ako annually, $100m is directed to staffing salaries and allowances. Principals view this as inappropriate given the paucity of resources for students in crisis. Principals value cluster relationships but expect to exercise their own judgement about which schools they partner with. They would welcome funding to support PLD in their local cluster and do not expect payment to facilitate cluster collaboration. The disestablishment of Kāhui Ako and reinvestment of the resource on front-line services would free up considerable resource. 

Workload of Teaching Principals
Urgent improvements to the management staffing entitlement of teaching principals is critical. The pressure and expectations on these principals in small communities is immense. The job of principalship is fulltime irrespective of the size of school, yet these principals are expected to also be strong 24/7 community leaders as well as teachers. This job is onerous, and these principals need urgent support.  

Delivery of greater learning support funding directly to schools rather than agencies
Principals have solutions to learning support but cannot access appropriate resourcing to meet the scale of need. Support agencies and services are poor performing and log jammed. A better more responsive system would see schools funded to access services as required from an existing pool of resources or for services to be located on a school site and deployed by principals.  

Provision of Sabbaticals as a matter of right
Principalship is a high stakes and challenging job. Insufficient investment is made in recognising this and in providing for regular refreshment leave as a matter of right. NZPF recommends one term paid refreshment leave every 5 years be made available for every principal as a matter of right. 

Professional Supervision
Principals recognise that they are often isolated and lack the strong collegial relationships that allow professional guidance and reflection on their practice within a confidential and trusted relationship. Principals are calling for professional supervision and for this to be centrally funded.  

Secondment Opportunities and End of Career Opportunities
Principalship is challenging. It would enhance the whole system to have opportunities for principals to refresh and step out into alternative roles for a time. These roles might include secondments to the Education Review Office and the Ministry of Education. Principals would bring their practice-based experience to enrich and strengthen the work of these agencies. 

Further, we would encourage you to consider end of career pathways for principals such as into the principal leadership advisory service or professional supervision roles. These could be built into the system as a natural expectation for principals wishing to end their careers in a different role.

There is no doubt about the urgency to address these issues outlined.  They have existed for far too long and principals are approaching crisis point in juggling the relentless demands of leading their schools.

Our expectation of the Accord and for NZEI, PPTA and the Ministry of Education is to see speedy resolution of these issues. We will judge the success of the Accord outcomes against resolution of these critical issues.

Principals are serious about the need for our unions and Ministry to commit to tangible outcomes. We look forward to this occuring.

Rural Matters
NZPF periodically sends out a publication entitled 'Rural Matters.' The target audience for this publication is rural principals, although information might interest any principal.  Here is the link to the latest Rural Matters.

Ngā manaakitanga

Perry Rush
perry@nzpf.ac.nz