Kia ora e te whānau

Recently, principals have asked hard questions about the effectiveness of their representation by NZEI, particularly around their role as the employer’s designate and the advocacy they have a right to expect.

This week, I was pleased to read Mark Potter’s and Stephanie Madden’s NZEI Principal’s Council newsletter, in which they acknowledge that issues exist, and that change is required.

Last Friday, NZPF met with representatives of NZEI to discuss concerns including the call for a principals’ union.

The discussion was positive and while no commitment to outcomes was made, there was recognition that changes addressing serious issues for principals, are overdue.

As Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest peak body, singularly focussed on representing principals, NZPF is committed to championing your expectations and aspirations. Your expectations were made clear in the 10 road trip Accord priorities. These were forwarded to NZEI, with the expectation that they would advocate for them within the Accord process.

It is a strange truism that many NZPF members are also NZEI members and therefore when NZPF members speak on issues concerning principals, their concerns should resonate with NZEI.

That is why your contribution in discussing and identifying expectations of the Accord was so important. NZPF’s role has been to continue to press for progress on your behalf.

It is now 14 months since the settlement of our Collective Agreement. We are still waiting for a significant outcome from the Accord on principal wellbeing and workload.

While we give NZEI time to discuss their response to the serious issues raised, we continue  to explore plans for a principals’ union.

A significant amount of work is occurring.

I want to be clear that a decision has not yet been taken by the NZPF Executive to establish a principals’ union. We want all cards on the table first and to be certain that any decision taken will make significant improvements to our current reality.

I am proud of your contribution in sharing your top priorities for workload and wellbeing and for putting your hand up to say, ‘We can do better’.

Principals are known to put others first. Principals care about their students, their teachers, their teacher aides, their ancillary staff and their wider community and whānau.

The stressors, tensions and frustrations of the job are real.

It is time to look after principals. 

I look forward to a further planned meeting with NZEI over the next fortnight, after which I hope to report more concrete outcomes that will then inform our decision-making.

One thing is certain, principals’ interests are front and centre!

Creative Schools Index Launch
On Wednesday night I was privileged to be invited by Professor Peter O’Connor to attend the launch, in Auckland, of the Creative Schools Index, where I spoke, as a member of a panel, on the power of arts learning.

This was an evening to celebrate the arts.

The mission of the Creative Schools Index is for schools to be places where teachers and students can regularly experience the joy of the creative process by:

• providing schools with robust reliable data that measures their overall creative environment
• providing schools with nuanced and detailed data to suggest ways in which classroom pedagogy might shift across eleven dimensions of creativity

This work joins analysis to creative endeavour so that schools have information that develops a clear understanding of their students’ creativity profile. This information can then be used to plan for professional learning to support aspects of creativity.

Let’s think differently about student achievement in 2021. Let’s get serious about rebalancing the serious loss of creativity in our schools. Make creativity the core of your student achievement goals in 2021.

Please visit the website for information on how to access the Creative Schools Index.

Ngā manaakitanga

Perry Rush
perry@nzpf.ac.nz