Kia ora e te whānau

Welcome to the new school year. After the turmoil of 2020 we come back refreshed but wondering what lies ahead!

Whatever 2021 brings I know you will continue to be the rock that your community depends on and that you will continue to reach out to colleagues for support and encouragement. 

While the COVID challenge taught us many things it also slowed progress on numerous aspects of the Government’s education agenda.

I want to be clear that it is now time to exercise pace with the most urgent aspects of that agenda alongside our own school goals. We urgently need change to address achievement challenges and inequity.

NZPF is ambitious for schooling and principal leadership. Last week, we held our first National Executive meeting of the year, in Taupo. Despite the ignominy of fishing up and returning to the lake, only two very small trout on our pre-meeting fishing expedition, we later discussed and agreed our top priorities for 2021.

These priorities are:

• To continue to advocate for concrete outcomes from the Accord process including progress on principals’ 10 wellbeing and workload expectations of the Accord.
• To enable a response to the issue of violent and dysfunctional young people at school. Principals have called for urgent help and we expect Government to deliver this year.
• To work in partnership with Te Akatea Māori principals’ Association to further extend Te Ahu o Te Reo Māori and advocate for better iwi resourcing and coordination to enable effective engagement with schools to support local curriculum development.
• To establish, in partnership with Principal Peak bodies, the Teaching Council and principals throughout the motu, a Principal Leadership Centre. Look out for an announcement soon!
• To partner with the Ministry to refresh and refocus the New Zealand Curriculum to ensure it has more specificity and therefore national coherence.
• To contribute to the establishment of improved national coherence in the pedagogy of reading, mathematics, science, and the arts.
• To see a Curriculum Advisory Service established in the Ministry of Education and ensure it is staffed by practicing educators. The loss of our trusted and talented curriculum advisory services dealt a blow to the provision of coherent thought leadership for schooling. We have not recovered from this loss and their absence is keenly felt. We would ask that the Ministry of Education builds strong relationships with curriculum experts in schools so that these professionals can be empowered in national leadership roles.
• To seek a review to PLD provision to better connect it to agreed national priorities so that important and agreed change can be developed in a coordinated manner across all schools.
• To analyse the quality of ITE provision and seek substantial changes to teacher training to ensure it re-values practice-based pedagogy.
• To ensure the implementation of student counselling services in the primary and intermediate school as Government has promised.
• To work with ERO and the 75 schools involved in the pilot of the new ERO operating model to ensure the model is relevant and credible.
• To establish an NZPF Union arm so that principals can have their own representative organisation at the bargaining table.
• To work with NZSTA to explore solutions to the issue of principals’ vulnerability in the workplace, especially their status as members of a Board and employees of that same Board.
• To continue to review the Kāhui Ako in partnership with principals.
• To seek improvement to learning support particularly fair and equitable provision of resources such as Learning Support Coordinators.

Not a small set of goals but then principals don’t lack ambition!

I very much appreciated all the emails and phone calls last year from principals keen to share a perspective or simply to encourage me in my role as your National President.

I count serving you and our profession as a privilege. Whatever this year holds please know that NZPF will continue to concentrate all efforts on your interests.

Contact me at any time! It is my goal to get out and meet you, in your region, throughout the year, so do not hesitate to invite me to speak at your local events or meetings.

NZPF National Conference Rotorua 2-4 August
I have some exciting news to share about our National Conference in 2021. Because of the limited scope for international travel in 2021, attendance in person at the APPA/NZPF Trans-Tasman Conference in Melbourne is impossible.

As a result, NZPF has scheduled our own National Conference for Rotorua 2-4 August 2021. The theme is Principalship: Power, Passion, Pace! The organising committee, led ably by Jill Corkin and supported by the Conference Company, are currently working up the detail and will make this available soon. Mark these dates in your diary now and start anticipating the opportunity for all members to network, learn about and celebrate principalship.

If you were the recipient of an NZPF study award in 2020, it can be used for the National Conference in Rotorua. If you are still registered to attend the APPA/NZPF Trans-Tasman, then look out for a communication from the organisers to further facilitate a refund. Please be aware that the APPA/NZPF Trans-Tasman will still proceed. It is likely that attendance will be enabled remotely for New Zealand based principals for a small fee.

Our focus is firmly on establishing a wonderful National Conference in Rotorua 2-4 August. That is the priority so get it into your diary now!

NZPF Union Arm
The NZPF Executive is excited about the opportunity for NZPF to be at the bargaining table. This is appropriate and necessary. It drives greater energy and commitment to do better for principals. We want to work closely with NZEI to achieve the best industrial representation for principals, because we are stronger when we work constructively together.

We are currently finalising proposed changes to our Constitution to enable NZPF to add a Union arm. We will be in touch over the next few weeks to share the detail with you and to seek your views about this proposed Constitutional change.

Pūaotanga: An independent review of primary school staffing
It is pleasing to see this initiative announced by NZEI yesterday. Such a review is urgent and has significant relevance for teachers and principals. I am particularly encouraged to see such a high-quality review team in Steve Maharey, Cathy Wyllie, Peter Verstappen and past president of NZPF, Whetū Cormick. Please take the time to make a submission at www.puaotanga.org.nz

Congratulations NZEI. Good stuff!

Education Review Office New Operating Model
As the year commences, I took the opportunity to write to the 75 schools piloting ERO’s new operating model to outline NZPF’s expectations for changes to the review model. Please find a copy of that letter detailing our concrete expectations here.

Ngā manaakitanga

Perry Rush
perry@nzpf.ac.nz