Kia ora e te whānau

Only one person holds the ultimate responsibility for what occurs in school and that is you - the principal. No one else experiences, quite like you, the nexus between the beautiful chaos of the human condition and the resourcing and regulations of the schooling model. It is often a confronting experience.

Last week I invited you to wonder about the changes you wanted to see in schooling. Thank you for your prompt and positive feedback and ideas. It is heartening to know that our profession has a strong beating heart.

One wondering that resonated with me came by way of Mary O’Regan, the President of Wellington Intermediate School Principals’ Association (WISPA). Mary questioned the management resourcing applied to primary and intermediate schools as woefully shy of the sort of resourcing required by modern schooling.

Do you remember reading the final report of the independent Tomorrow’s Schools Taskforce?

You might remember reading about the gap between primary and secondary management staffing entitlements in similar sized schools/kura. I had never seen this information so starkly laid bare and it shocked me.

By way of example, a staffing roll of 628 at secondary generates 4.2 FTTE management staffing entitlement compared with 2.5 FTTE in the same sized primary school. I am not bemoaning the level of secondary resourcing, but I am certainly shocked at the significant daylight between the two.

This is what the Tomorrow’s Schools Taskforce had to say about this matter: To achieve equity and excellence, we need all our schools/kura to have effective leadership. Primary schools/kura have not been adequately staffed to provide strong leadership teams.

So, there we go. I agree with you Mary and the Tomorrow’s Schools Taskforce does too!

As the parties to the Ministry/NZEI/PPTA Accord come together to start their work, I expect this anomaly to be dealt with. After all, principal workload is one significant focus of the Accord. Enabling schools to have the staffing resources to meet the challenges of this complex age is a fundamental responsibility of government.

Principals need the support of high-quality leadership/management teams and schools deserve a team that can provide the necessary support and oversight to give our students the best schooling experience possible.  

As we start our year off together, remember this.  Principals don’t think in grey about how to help kids achieve their dreams, we dream in bright, vivid colours!

Let's work together to make these dreams a reality.

Consultation on the proposed changes to the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand fees

I met with Lesley Hoskin, Chair of the Teaching Council this past week and amongst other things, discussed the proposed changes to the Teaching Council fees. 

Lesley emphasised the importance of understanding the separation necessary from government funding if the Teaching Council is to exercise the full scope of its function as an independent statutory entity. In other words, if the Teaching Council were to continue to be funded in part by government then it would be beholden to the government’s agenda. In this respect there is enormous value in a truly independent Teaching Council to advocate and lead our profession. The degree to which you judge the fee increase to be appropriate is a matter for you however I encourage you to submit feedback using the online survey form by the closing date of 21 February 2020.

I warmly welcome your feedback on any issues. Email me any time to share your ideas.

Ngā manaakitanga

Perry Rush
perry@nzpf.ac.nz