World teachers day and a collective agreement update (P2P - 2009/14e)

Kia Ora and welcome back to school for the final term of 2009.

Join in World Teachers Day October 30

Imagine the power of thousands – or tens of thousands – of students, teachers, children and parents putting their “Hands Up for Learning” at the same time!

World Teachers Day on Friday October 30th gives us the opportunity to recognise teachers who ‘lead from the front’ in the teaching and learning process.  We already recognise others on our staff with events such as Support Staff Day, so this is a chance to say to teachers “you are the ones who make the most difference” to children’s learning.

NZEI is asking principals – as teacher leaders - to support members in schools and ECE centres around the country in celebrations of the work our teachers do.  Our main focus is for everyone to join in a synchronised “Hands Up” at 12.30pm on World Teachers Day, Friday 30 October.  We encourage you to reach out to students and parents in your school/ECE community and beyond to your wider community and ask them to join in this event.

The theme “Hands Up for Learning!” is a call for our community to think, talk and join in activities to celebrate the power of education. It is a message about the importance of investing in education, especially in a recession. Read more about World Teachers Day.

NZEI branches will also be funding advertisements endorsed by NZEI, NZSTA, PTA, the NZ Childcare Association Te Tari Puna Ora and NZ Kindergartens in many local papers in the week of World Teachers Day. We look forward to your involvement in this day.

Update on your collective agreement negotiations

I know you’re all busy, so congratulations to the around 40% of principal members who turned up to our NZEI principal meetings last term to discuss issues for the re-negotiation of our collective agreement next year.   Breakfast meetings obviously suited many of us!

The principals’ negotiations team met over the term break to begin work on developing a draft claim from your feedback.  This draft claim will go out to reference groups of principal members in November.  Your Principal Support Officer and local Principals’ Council representative will be organising meetings, with at least one in each NZEI Area Council.

It’s going to be a tough environment for bargaining as we’ve seen from support staff negotiations.  The Government’s offer to support staff is still effectively a nil increase, so paid union meetings for support staff meetings are scheduled this month. In most places there are morning and afternoon meetings, with paid release time of two hours to cover the meeting and travel time. Please discuss with your support staff how best to ensure that they can all attend a meeting while ensuring minimal disruption to schools.

Principal's pay, a new website, and the Education Leaders Forum (P2P 2009/13e)

Kia Ora, we are into the last week of Term 3 and surely planning how best to recuperate in the term break as we face the last busy Term 4 of the year!

Life for us all is action packed as appraisals finish, planning starts and staffing is sorted though the remainder of 2009 and into 2010. Here’s hoping the provisional staffing notices for 2010 are good news for us all when they arrive.

 

Principals' pay - a short history

Have you ever wondered why our pay structure is like it is, or how the various parts of it came to be bolted on?
NZEI has just produced a short video covering pay negotiations for principals over the past 20 years.  It's a useful counterpart to the discussions many of you have been having at the NZEI ‘Let’s Meet’ principals’ seminars that have been held over the past few weeks.

By understanding the political and historical context of pay negotiation, I think we are better able as a group to determine where we want to go next, and how we work within the current environment to win successful outcomes for principals. View the video at www.nzei.org.nz

www.principalskit.org.nz

The NZEI Principals’Kit has been updated during 2009 by the NZEI Principals' Council, based on feedback and information received from many principals. It aims to give you tools to help deal with issues that arise regularly for you in your role as principal.

www.principalskit.org.nz is YOUR site. If you've got feedback about the kit, can't find what you need, want more information or have a good idea about a resource for the site, please let me know!

Last call…

The Education Leaders Forum, a conference supported by NZEI, has just 8 last places available. It’s being held in Rotorua on Ocgtober 14-15th. NZEI members qualify for a special registration rate of $981.62 inc.gst.  For more information and registration, visit www.smartnet.co.nz/events/ELF/2009.htm 

Principal Meetings, The Connected Curriculum, National Standards (P2P - 2009/12e)

Term 3 seems to be flying by with us all managing this year’s tasks as well as starting the planning cycle for 2010.  Staffing Entitlement notices are due in mid-September, which will also start the staffing appointment cycle. Hang in there! Just over three weeks to go to the end of term….

Lets Meet

Our principal meetings are now under way with those held so far being mostly well attended. Do make sure you reply to your invitation to attend your local meeting.

The Connected Curriculum

You’ve probably received NZEI’s new Connected Curriculum DVD and booklet in the mail by now, but this is another plug for it as several principals have already told me how useful they’ve found it.

Every school is expected to critically review its curriculum to ensure it is consistent with the scope and intentions of the revised New Zealand Curriculum.  We are entitled to take ownership of this process by designing our own school curriculum in ways that meet the needs and circumstances of our students and the opportunities offered by our school’s particular context.

The Connected Curriculum resource was produced by NZEI and its Principals’ Council, in partnership with Lester Flockton and supported by the Ministry of Education.   The DVD/online resource and print booklet draw on Lester Flockton’s intellectual property and his wide experience with schools and the Curriculum. NZEI has provided every primary school, area school and kura with a copy of this resource  to help schools focus on what will be needed for effective implementation of the Curriculum, so do take some time to review the DVD content and the help and advice it provides. If you’re having any problems printing the pdfs from the DVD you can also access them, along with the printed materials at www.nzei.org.nz/connectedcurriculum

We’d appreciate hearing your feedback on the Connected Curriculum resource – please email me with any comments you have.

National standards: working with parents

With the Ministry of Education’s public consultation phase for national standards over, the Government is now considering the standards for gazetting in October. NZEI’s goal is to ensure the focus is on the New Zealand Curriculum as the driver of teaching and learning.  National standards should be tools to support learning by providing signposts for literacy and numeracy.  We will continue to guard against league tables and advocate for the “safe warehousing” of assessment data.

With parent/teacher/student assessment interviews coming up this term in many schools, consider how you can communicate to parents the importance of personalised learning and the ways teachers use “rich” assessment – the formal and informal interactions between teaching and learning - to provide evidence of student progress and achievement.

View a resource for parents on these issues

National standards, term 3 meetings, and Fair Deal Friday (P2P 2009/11e)

In my last ezine to you I indicated that in spite of having successfully gained an extension to the timeline before formal reporting on student achievement against the national standards is required, there was still a need to focus on several unresolved issues.

I am pleased to inform you that the NZEI National President, Frances Nelson, has now met with the Minister of Education to clarify further details of the process going forward – see below for further information.

Naku noa
Ian Leckie – NZEI National Vice President

National Standards

The extended time-frame relates to the requirement to report schools data outside its usual processes. In 2010, schools will be required to work with the standards and determine what this means in the context of their own school curriculum. The standards will be part of the discussion with parents around student achievement.

The following pieces of work are underway to address the feedback from the consultation process undertaken last term -

1. The reporting to parents process - a group set up to work on "plain English" reports, schools will work with their community on what it will look like in each school (the format).
2. The MOE is working on the standards and the material for schools taking in to account the feedback around the levels and the alignment to the curriculum.
3. Issues around how to deal with the data (including protecting it from mis-use) are being worked on and once some potential solutions are identified, work will be done with the sector on this.
4. A Professional Development process will be available to schools late in 2009 and into 2010 to enable them to connect the standards with the revised curriculum.

There is much to be done to ensure an educationally sound process emerges from the debate. As information comes to hand, principals are encouraged to engage with the material and provide NZEI with feedback around the direction of the work

Term 3 meetings with Principals

‘Let’s Meet’ invitations to attend these meetings were sent out earlier this week and should be in all primary schools by tomorrow. I would like to strongly encourage all principals to attend one of these meetings so that we get your ideas and feedback ahead of next year's negotiation of our collective agreement. The full list of meetings is on the NZEI website

Support Staff - Fair Deal Friday

A special thank you to all principals who supported NZEI's Fair Deal Friday by attending a rally, signing the pledge poster or enabling your support staff to participate. The day was a great success and we collected in excess of 12,000 signatures. NZEI is looking to get bargaining back underway in the near future, we will keep you informed of developments."

Principals not receiving the Principal to Principal E-zine

Please check with your principal colleagues to see if they are receiving these e-zines. If they are not, email shelley.struthers@nzei.org.nz and she will put them on the mailing list. As the collective bargaining activities begin to gain momentum it is critical that NZEI is able to be in direct and immediate contact with its principal members.

NZEI’s work on National Standards is starting to achieve results! (P2P 2009/10e)

The following information is from a NZEI media release on the Minister’s decision to extend the timeline before formal reporting on student achievement is required.

This is indeed a ‘victory for common sense’ and with the 2010 primary principals’ collective employment agreement bargaining well and truly on the horizon, it is a timely reminder to us all that the collective voice of principals and teachers does have the capacity to influence - look out for invitations to attend principal meetings being held in your area from late August through September.

Meanwhile, NZEI will continue to focus on other unresolved national standards issues around leveling, professional development and, protection of the data.

Naku noa
Ian Leckie – NZEI Vice President

NZEI’s work on the implementation of National Standards is starting to achieve results!

One of our key submissions to Government was that the timeframe for the reporting of national standards needed to be extended. Education Minister Anne Tolley has heeded this advice and on Wednesday announced that school reporting of data to the Government would be delayed until 2012.

There is still more work to be done - for example, to ensure principals and teachers are supported sufficiently and get professional development to implement the standards and to engage parents in the wider discussion about learning and assessment. NZEI's concern that data might be turned into high stakes school “league tables” has still not been resolved. However, President Frances Nelson says NZEI is encouraged the union's concerns have been listened to.

“Teachers and principals will look forward to having more time to connect the standards with the new curriculum. We want to get both things right so student learning isn’t compromised. We were concerned that the pressure and reporting requirements for national standards could undermine the work being done on the curriculum.”

New timeline and the press releases from both the Minister and from NZEI