Are you being paid to attend that Teacher Only Day?

I wrote this post in 2018 because this is an eternal problem for teachers.  It affects beginning teachers, teachers returning from unpaid leave and maternity leave, teachers returning to the profession and teachers who have come off a fixed term position the previous year.

It comes around every year, the time when teacher only days and the set up of classes in preparation for school beginning.

Every year new teachers enter the profession and teachers who were out of the profession or are on fixed term contracts come into new schools.  And every year these teachers have a similar problem: getting paid for teacher only days.

The issue is that the Ministry of Education says the education year begins on the 28th of January.  But schools begin their year with new staff before this date.  New teachers to a school are required to attend induction days, teacher only days, team meetings and set up their classrooms - and most of this is done before they are officially on the payroll on the 28th of January.

This year my school begins teacher only days on the 22nd of January, yet I am not officially on the payroll until the 28th of January.  But as a teacher who has come off a fixed term, and has had all the meager holiday pay I am due, am I now expected to attend several days of teacher only days and then set up my classroom ready for the new school year without getting paid?

Many will say, well that is how it has always been.

But I say, just because that is how it has always been, it doesn't mean it is the way it should be!!

I am not saying I will not be setting up my classroom, I just choose to do it when I am actually being paid for it.

We teachers are professionals, and we should be paid for every day we are in school and we should be treated as professionals, not as volunteers.  Some people, particularly beginning teachers, may have to give up some actual paid employment to attend these days in school.  Others may need to pay for child care.  Therefore these days can be at a cost financially to new teachers to the school.

And in how many other professions are you expected to work up to a week in advance of officially being on the payroll and set up your work space without being paid?  It is an insult to the teaching profession to treat teachers in such an unprofessional manner.

And here is the clanger: what if you are onsite working before you are officially on the payroll and you are injured in anyway?  Will ACC cover you and call it a workplace accident?  It really is a health and safety issue.  What other employment laws will I and my new employer be breaking by me being onsite and working before my official contract of employment commences?  (I mention this because the youngest victim of Pike River was not on the payroll officially when the disaster happened - not that something that bad is likely to happen in a school, it's just his family was not compensated fully for losing their precious son as a result).

This year, 2018, the 28th falls on a Saturday.  The Saturday of Auckland Anniversary weekend.  Should I spend the weekend setting up my class so I am worn out and tired for when school starts on Wednesday?  Why should teachers work so many weekends anyway?

Currently it is rather hit and miss if staff new to a school are paid.  I've been teaching for 22 years.  I've started a new school at the beginning of the year a number of times after a break in my service to study/relief teach.  I only remember one new school paying me once for attending these meetings.  I was younger then and less bolshy and less aware.  So now I am more prepared to stand up and say we should be paid.

Add to the fact that, particularly for a beginning teacher, it is expensive to set up a classroom.  Mostly teachers buy many things to set up the class themselves.  Sometimes they can claim items back through their classroom/team budgets.  But often they are buying items over and above what is necessary and creating resources from their own money to use in the classroom to enhance teaching and learning that the school may not reimburse at all.

I personally think there is a simple solution to solving this issue every year.  Move the date of the education year start a week forward.  That way it will fully encompasses the full week before school starts and ensures new staff to a school are paid for the teacher only days, meeting and classroom set ups they will be doing.

I would like to see NZEI and PPTA back this and take it to the Ministry of Education in the collective agreement negotiations this year.  I would like to see Education Minister Chris Hipkins take some leadership on this very small change to the calendar that would demonstrate good will to new and returning teachers in years to come, especially in a time when we have a shortage of teachers to start the school year.

Disclaimer:  I am not taking a dig at any school, especially my new employer.  I'm just stating this is a problem nationwide that needs addressing.  And I have no idea how my school is approaching this issue.

UPDATE:  the PPTA have a distinct clause in their STCA for this situation.  This is their clause:
3.2A.1 Regardless of the first day schools are open for instruction in Term 1, for normal pay and employment purposes the start of the school year is 28 January for those teachers that are employed for that year, except that for teachers being employed for the first time in a state or integrated school, or being employed after a break in service, their start day is as advised to payroll by the employer.

After some help we have found a similar clause in the PTCA which many teachers and principals may be unaware of (I know I certainly was and so were many of my NZEI friends including principals):

So if you find your school is not paying you for those teacher only days and meetings before the 28th of January, you now know where to find the right clause to sort that out.  

But it would make it easier in my eyes if the MOE start of year changed so no one missed out.

UPDATE TWO:  NZEI has approached the Ministry of Education for clarity, particularly as some principals have found some Novopay workers will action this and others have found some Novopay workers will not action these clauses, stating it would muck up holiday pay.  I would like to see the School Trustees Association also come on board to deliver clear instructions to schools to use the above clauses to ensure people are appropriately paid.

Edited: 17/1/21

It's not just the wellbeing and safety of students we need to consider, but the teachers too

As a profession - teachers, principals and support staff - we are extremely focused on the wellbeing and safety of our students.  We have extensive expectations, systems and processes in place to ensure the students in our schools are safe and if an incident were to happen, no matter how minor, it is documented, systems are improved or changed and dangers are rectifed.

But do we do the same for our staff?

In recent weeks there have been two big issues that impact the wellbeing and safety of school staff as well as students, and I have to question whether or not we are doing enough to keep teachers safe.

Firstly, it was reported last month that a number of Year 9 boys (that’s 13 year olds) at St Patrick’s College in Silverstream (Upper Hutt) had sexually harassed several female teachers.  The boys had apparently filmed the teachers in an inappropriate way without their knowledge and shared the footage.  This week it was revealed that the school had decided to keep the students within the school (after a short suspension) to ‘educate’ them, and that the female teachers had resigned.  See this article: Teachers resign from an Upper Hutt school after being sexually harassed by students (Stuff, 13 April 2017).

The other big story originated from Northland, where principal Pat Newman explained that P babies and children with other high behavioural needs were a danger to his staff as well as fellow students.  Principal Federation Chair Whetu Cormick echoed that this was indeed a problem around the country, more so in certain provinces than others, but still a nation wide issue.  See this article: Teachers kicked, punched, stabbed by disturbed ‘P kids’ (NZ Herald, 13 April 2017).

The implications of the sexual harassment of the teachers.  

I have seen the article above commented on in four forums on Facebook and on Twitter.  There have been a variety of comments.

I’ve mostly seen many supportive comments of the teachers and dismay at the actions of the boys and of the school.  The general consensus is that the school has made an unsafe workplace for the teachers by allowing the boys to stay within the school environment and a condonement of the actions of the boys has been implied.  It is intimated in the above linked article that the teachers have resigned and that legal action (a personal grievance perhaps) is being taken.  I am wondering where Worksafe fit into all this, because surely it does.

I did see the odd random comment asking about how the teachers were dressed to encourage the boys to behave in a disreputable manner.  Needless to say that commenter was well and truly informed about the professionalism of teachers and schools like St Patrick’s having a dress code along with condemnation for victim blaming.

I did see some comments commending the school on wanting to work with these young men to improve their understanding of what is acceptable or not.  But to prioritise the students over someone’s ability to earn an income and feel safe in their workplace?  I think the safety and wellbeing of the victim should have been the priority here, not the students.  They have parents to think about their safety and wellbeing as well as the school.  However, in this case, the principal and board should have prioritised the teachers.

And I say this because, as many commenters pointed out, if it had have been the teachers sexually harassing the students, the teachers would have been kicked to the curb, outted publicly and lost their jobs, with the support rightly being on the victims - the students.

You may remember the Losi Filipo controversy last year, the Wellington contracted rugby player who initially was given a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket after a vicious assault on four other young people…. Well, Filipo went to St Patrick's and one commenter said that St Patrick's had put their support in behind Filipo.

The classic Van Halen song,
'Hot for Teacher' does not apply
in this case.

Then there were the odd comments on “boys will be boys” and references to the Van Halen classic ‘Hot for Teacher’ were made.  Yes, “boys will be boys”, but that doesn’t mean we don’t call them out and make them take responsibility for their actions.  They need to learn that there are consequences for every action, good or not so good or just bad.  If we don’t, as a society we will continue to condone rape culture and sexist behaviour.  And yes, some boys will get crushes on some teachers, but this behaviour certainly is not indicative of a crush.

I did see another few commenters supporting the school’s stance, saying it is a very good school with a great culture, that you can not lay the responsibility of the actions of a few Year 9 boys only in their fourth week at the school on St Patrick’s culture.  But let’s just remember that this is the culture that Filipo was immersed in for five years.

And then there were some other commenters who sat on the fence, who felt there was more to the story and therefore they could not yet make an informed judgement.  Fair enough.  But don’t defend the school while you are sitting on that fence, because they do have the power to give out more information than they are… but they have a process to go through first.  We can only hope that when the process is completed the public are more informed.

Regardless of which commenter anyone is, the fact remains that the perpetrators of the unacceptable acts have been allowed to remain and it is the victims that feel they have to resign and leave.  That is unacceptable and it continues to allow the rape culture mentality that invades our society to keep bubbling away because the school has implied that the perpetrators’ rights are greater than the rights of the victims.


This comes form Employment NZ:  "Health and safety law requires that employees and others are given the highest level of protection from workplace health and safety risks, as is reasonably practicable. This includes risks to both physical and mental health."  Consequently St Patrick's in in violation of health and safety law they are required to uphold.

The leaders of St Patrick's have failed the standard as good employers and have now shown other schools how not to have the backs of your staff.

Children who can not control their behaviour and pose a danger to staff and students.

Pretty much every teacher will have had a student like this.  At some schools you may have classes with a lot more than one student like this.

I have personally had students that swore at and abused me, stormed out of class to go hiding somewhere or to leave the school, who have thrown chairs and desks, or have used sticks from the playground or metal bars they’ve acquired from out of bounds areas to threaten and attack other children.  I’ve seen children randomly physically attack other children.

What set them off?  It may be a disagreement over a playground game or an item in the classroom.  Someone might of said something nasty or looked at them the wrong way - or just looked at them.  They may be tired or stressed or under an influence of a substance from outside of school.  You may see it bubbling and try to avert it and, while sometimes you succeed, you fail and the kid blows.  Sometimes the eruption comes without warning.

I’ve had kids with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, ADHD, kids on the autism spectrum, kids with sensory issues, P babies, kids from homes with violence, kids who have suffered abuse, kids who are not handling a parental separation or have lost a parent or sibling to death, kids with conduct disorders, kids with low self-esteem, kids who are on ORS or should have ORS but don’t, kids who are frustrated due to learning difficulties, kids who just can’t make friends or form healthy social attachments, kids with anxiety…. All sorts of kids have "gone off" over my teaching career.

Sometimes my experiences have been very scary.  I had one child swinging a metal bar around like a taiaha and I had to lock my class in a room and go seek help.  Another time I had to, along with the principal, physically intervene to stop a student from hurting themselves and several others at great risk to our own safety.  Both these situations were incredibly scary.  I’ve had to sit on the floor and hug a child to me to keep him safe and calm in an assembly because the noise was too much to bare for him.  The unknown is when a child decides to leave the school grounds.  In a small school the conundrum is who will go after them, because who will supervise the other students?

And this then brings into question a teacher’s professional safety.  When is a teacher allowed to step into a situation and restrain or handle students to prevent them hurting themselves or others?  When should a teacher step back?  Who decides if a teacher went too far?  What if the teacher is condemned for not having done enough?

Last October the Ministry of Education released a document called Guidance for New Zealand Schools on Behaviour Management to Minimise Physical Restraint.  Within this document it says:

Physical restraint is a serious intervention. The emotional and physical impact on the student being restrained, and the person doing the restraining, can be significant. There are legal and reputational risks if a student is harmed.

Staff need to use their professional judgement when they decide whether to use physical restraint. They should consider their duty of care to students, their right to protect themselves and others from harm, and their obligation to act lawfully.

Physical restraint should only be used in emergency situations when the student’s behaviour poses an imminent danger of physical injury to themselves or others.

This is the basis I personally have always applied to these situations.  It is a common sense approach.  But teachers and principals feel the ground has shifted under their feet and do not trust their safety as professional if they have to restrain a student in the midst of a violent outburst.  See: 'It could jeopardise teacher safety' - concerns over new laws guiding when teachers can intervene in school fights (1news, 28 March 2017).

The Minister in a recent answer in Parliament Question Time advised schools to call the police to deal with violent students.  I question if the police would come or not.  They have their hands full dealing with mental health call outs because our mental health system can not cope with the demand on their overstretched services.  

This is from a transcript of Question Time on Thursday 6 April 2017, when New Zealand First MP Tracey Martin asked a question to Education Minister Hekia Parata:

1. TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First) to the Minister of Education: Does she agree with the Ministry of Education's National Director for Learning Support that schools in Northland should contact the police when primary school children threaten teachers and other students with violence?

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Yes, I agree with the full quote that the ministry's National Director for Learning Support made and the context in which it was given. For the benefit of the House, he stated: "I would certainly see suspension as being a last resort. If we're talking about very violent behaviour, then that's a matter that schools need to be discussing with police." As per the Guidance for New Zealand Schools on Behaviour Management to Minimise Physical Restraint, released by the ministry in October last year, schools across the country should call the police in situations when a student cannot be managed safely and the imminent danger to students, staff, or themselves remains after all alternatives have been explored. As we expect in all situations, the police are the most appropriate people to deal with violence.

The Minister is correct in saying hat the Guidance for New Zealand Schools on Behaviour Management to Minimise Physical Restraint says the police should be called in situations when a student can not be managed safely and is a danger.  This is all it says:


In the event that incidents cannot be resolved quickly and where there is a sustained level of significant physical risk the police should be contacted.


In this press release from the Te Tai Tokerau Principals Association, A Cry from the Heart: lack of assistance for children’s needs, a principal states: “Last time I called the police to help in Kaitaia they told me very politely not to do it again. They took 2 hours to get here and the kid could have really hurt himself.”  So clearly the police are really not in a position to help schools deals with students who are a risk to themselves or others.


In the NZ Herald article, 'P babies' are now at primary school (13 April 2017), Principal Pat Newman says he is disappointed in the response from the Ministry over his claims that children in primary school are presenting with more violent behavioural problems now and that P is at epidemic levels.  Ministry of Education spokeswoman, Katrina Casey said on Radio New Zealand there was no hard evidence that schools were dealing with more children with behavioural problems.  Newman countered that with, "What evidence is needed? What is hard data? Do we have to wait until a child or teacher is seriously hurt? There is not one principal in New Zealand, and certainly not in Te Tai Tokerau, who is not telling the ministry that this is the reality.  In fact a few years ago we in Te Tai Tokerau, in partnership with the ministry, researched the levels of violence we were putting up with in the north, and the ministry has that information."


The article continues as follows:


Casey said the ministry spent about $95 million on behaviour assistance for about 10,000 children last year, and that number of children had not changed much in the last couple of years.


"If this is the case, why are we only receiving help to cover two hours a day on average for high-end behavioural needs? The answer is always that there is no more money available," Newman said.


"Why is there little help for psychological counselling for these children?
"Why does it take a year to get a foetal alcohol assessment done, and little funding to actually help the child once diagnosed?"


Casey had claimed that stand-downs and suspensions for assaults had remained static for the past six years, and a recent survey of secondary school teachers by the Council for Educational Research found student behaviour had become less of a problem.
Newman rejected that, too.


"We have severely abused children in our schools," he said.


"The ministry has the figure in Whangarei of the high behavioural needs children currently in early childhood education in this town who are due to come through the primary service, and it is huge."


What planet is the Ministry of Education on?


Clearly there is a disconnect between the Ministry of Education and the reality of what is happening in schools.


And Pat Newman is not a happy principal and I bet that he is not the only unhappy principal.


Personally, as a teacher, I am scathing.


I can tell you that there is not enough support for schools to help these children.  I can't remember when I last saw a any form of psychological counselling in a primary school.  The last time I saw a Ministry behavioural specialist was in 2006.  We can't even get a speech language therapist for the most needy children who can not speak properly.  And as for the Wrap Around Services Ms Parata crows about, well good luck ever seeing them!  I wrote about a young teenager who has fallen out of the system because it doesn't work in Where are those wrap around services, Hekia? last year.  Nothing has changed.


Everything that Ms Parata and her minion Ms Casey says is complete and utter BULLSHIT because at school level we never ever see them and children are falling through the cracks educationally because the Ministry of Education does not have the specialists we need to help these children.

This government is failing our most vulnerable students and their Predictive Risk Index to fund schools will do diddly bloody squat to change anything for these vulnerable children while there are no specialists in the Ministry of Education to support these children and no funding for schools to put programmes and support staff in place to ensure these children reach their potential.


This government, this Ministry of Education and the Minister of Education, Hekia Parata, have failed the standard when it comes to our most vulnerable children.  And they are failing the classmates of these children and their teachers, support staff and principals as they are put in danger by these children for whom help is a mythological fantasy because the Ministry simply does not have the resources.



While Boards of Trustees are responsible for the health and safety of staff and students, they are being hamstrug by the Ministry of Education due to their lack of funding and support.

If only they had listened to those of us at the chalkface.  If only $359 million had been spent on the children where it would make the most difference instead of on that IES folly, Communities of Learning.






Acknowledgement:
The top picture regarding teacher wellbeing comes from this article:  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/teacher-stress-needs-wellbeing-policies-daniela-falecki

Am I the only person thinking this about the teaching profession?

I've been wondering.... wondering if we're becoming so obsessed with professionalising teaching we're losing sight of the individual teacher.

This may be controversial.  But I think if someone is not willing to stop and challenge this road we seem to be travelling, we may go too far down the road of no return.

New can be great; change and innovation is vital.  But we need to carefully balance this.  We need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater in this drive to professionalise the teaching profession.

I say this because we individualise, personalise learning for our students, but the currently climate is trying to make teachers uniform, cookie-cutter versions of what is supposedly a 'professional teacher'.  And I worry about this because I think we are beginning to squeeze what makes each teacher special out of them and consequently the joy of teaching.  I worry that we are not appreciating what makes each teacher special - their talents, their strengths, their weaknesses and even their own failings.

And some of the current generation of principals seem to be inadvertently leading this.  Some of them seem more intent on ticking the boxes the MOE demands than forming strong relationships with their staff, finding out what makes them tick.  As a result some of them are not always utilising the strengths and talents of the individuals on staff.  Parental expectations and pressures also put these principals in a difficult position, often in opposition to supporting their staff.

As a generation of old school principals retire I feel that the essence of teaching and the 'history' of the New Zealand education system is being pushed into the junk room in favour of the 'sanitising' of teaching into a profession of tick boxes rather than relationships.  Many old school principals tended to have an understanding of their staff and what made them tick, what balance of people were needed to having a dynamic learning school.  Some often made concessions or created opportunities to keep the best people in their school (not to say that many of the current generation of principals don't do this, because each principal is their own individual).

In the effort to create cookie-cutter professionals we also have created an issue with one size fits all whole staff Professional Learning Development (PLD).  Again this does not take into account the strengths or weaknesses each individual teacher has.  Whole school PLD has been the norm for the last ten years or so, and the current government killed other PLD options in 2009 when they cut funding to the Teacher Advisory Service meaning that the teacher who had a weakness in science could no long access a science advisor or attend a science course run by Advisory.

In the face of PLD becoming an expensive option for schools with the government's focus on outside providers (who charged an arm and a leg due to being private providers), teachers have fought back in providing PLD for themselves in what interests them, the needs that they have, and forming their own networks.  Educamps and Eduignites have sprung up.  These are based on the unconference format, which means anyone on the day (present or virtually) can present for five minutes on a topic - it may be an app, a website, an event, a product, a classroom programme, a learning experience.... there are no limits.  Educamps tend to focus on what will impact learning and the classroom, whereas Eduignites will broaden out into personal learning, sharing experiences that make the teacher the person they are, new opportunities, political thinking....

In 2013 @MissDtheTeacher established #edchatnz on Twitter fortnightly on a Thursday night.  It created a formal opportunity for teachers on Twitter to meet virtually and discuss various education topics.  This hashtag has enabled random conversations at any other point in time to spontaneously erupt.  This gives educators the opportunity to learn from each other as well.  Personally, I have learned heaps from this forum that has never come to my attention before and I have made new connections, networks and friends as a result of Twitter, Educamps and Eduignites.

From #edchatnz has come many other hashtags for specialist areas in New Zealand education, such as for science teachers, geography teachers, English teachers, PE teachers, primary teachers, principals..... schools are creating their own hashtags to encourage professional discussion.... There was even a conference (in an unconference style) held in early term 3 at Hobsonville Point Secondary School.  This is real time learning, real time PLD, driven by the people interacting with each other.

Yet is this form of PLD recognised in this current drive for professionalism that teaching is experiencing?  Is the individualisation of what each teacher needs allowed to breath?

As part of the Registered Teacher Criteria (RTCs), we are now expected to do a Teacher Inquiry.  How many of us actually know how to do this?  This has stepped up in the last couple of years, more schools are paying attention to this as they recognise it as needing to be part of the appraisal process for each teacher.  But I have an issue with this.  I don't know how to do this.  Has any PLD on this been supplied in any school I have been in?  Not while I've been there.  I think I should make my teacher inquiry "what is a teacher inquiry and how do I do one?"

Then there are the companies that are helping schools to revolutionise their appraisal systems and provide the teachers guidelines in how do teacher inquiries and evaluate their professionalism and skills against the RTCs.  I heard about one such company this week.  I am not going to name the company, because there is still so much I have yet to learn about them and the system they have, so these are my initial responses from the little I've heard and comprehended. 

There is a matrix of sorts that a teacher is assessed on.  Let's say they were poor at replying to emails.  This could drop that teacher from being considered an advanced teacher to an amateur teacher despite the relationships they have with students, their planning and programmes and how effective they are and the teacher's contribution to the 'corporate life' (I hate that term in the school setting) of the school.  If you are not doing professional reading, you are considered an amateur.  And then there were a variety of other things from any individual's life outside of school in their personal and family lives that could reduce your professionalism to amateur level.

This came through my Facebook feed on Sunday morning from a group I belong to called Badass Teachers or BATs (the USA group).  And this is where I see these appraisal systems leading to, making value judgements on teachers using student assessment data and scores from teacher performance matrixes to give an evaluation score and label to a teacher that is completely separate from the reality of the classroom interactions, relationships and learning.

 

So I have an issue with where we are going into New Zealand in how we evaluate teacher performance and why, because teaching is an art, not a science.  It is about relationships that are formed, bonds of trust and affection and respect that make a classroom an effective learning and teaching space for students and teachers.  When we sanitise and cookie-cut the art of teaching, not only does the joy of teaching disappear, but the relationships will suffer: teacher:student, teacher:teacher.  Do I spend all my time on returning emails so I am judged to be a professional, or do I take the time to interact with students and observe their interactions in that time before the morning bell goes off?  Should I never read a Wilbur Smith novel or a Women's Weekly magazine again?  Should I go home and be a hermit and never have any personal life experiences where I may ruin my professional reputation by accident?

 

And where will these evaluations lead in the long term?  We all know that Hekia Parata (Minister of Education) has performance pay in her sights, despite denials after her initial slip of the tongue.  Do we want to help advance her vision of performance pay in education?

 

As teachers, are we failing ourselves, our own standards, by letting the art of teaching become a science of teaching?  Are we down trading from the joy of teaching to the professionalism of teaching?  Are we ceding that being a teacher is more important than being a family member, a friend, a participant in any sporting/cultural aspect of the community, union/political activist?  Are we "blanding" the teaching profession?



I leave you with a few pictures to inspire your own thinking, whether you agree with me or not, and some of these pictures may be contrary to what I have written even.  The whole purpose of this post is to ignite thinking, ignite discussion and conversation, to challenge the reader's thoughts.

Labour's Education Policy - An antidote to the GERM infection of the last six years.

The first weekend of July saw the Labour Party well and truly launch its 2014 election campaign.  They had a three day Congress in Wellington, and I attended the Sunday when David Cunliffe made his keynote speech and laid out the bones of some very important policy Labour wants to base its campaign on.  And education was at the core of it.

I was very far away from the middle, coughing my germs I had to the empty space on the edge of the auditorium, hence this terrible photograph I took.

As a teacher, any announcements on education are of great interest to me, particularly if they are going to get rid of what I think is detrimental in education (GERM policies, National Standards, Charter Schools, performance pay, IES roles, no teacher representation on EDUCANZ) and will promote and/or improve what teachers know to be valuable in education (teacher education pre-service and for those in practice, special education, class sizes, work load, New Zealand Curriculum, and so on).

I was not disappointed.

But please do not think that I am merely basing who I will vote for on education.  Education will be the first thing I think about though because I work in it, I'm passionate for learning and children, and it pays for the important things I do like eating and shopping and the internet - the priorities in life.

However, I do also consider other things like the following:

• the economy - will they balance the books and be responsible?
• employment - will their policies create jobs or put people out of jobs?  Will they make it fairer to the employee so they have job security?  Will the Living Wage happen so that we don't have the working poor living in poverty?
• housing - will I be able to buy a house before I truly get wrinkles?  Will rental houses be warm and dry and healthy?  Will all those families living in cars and garages get a state house?
• environment - will they improve the health of our waterways so I can swim in the Waikato and Waihou Rivers with confidence?  Will the kauri survive the kauri die back disease?  Will our native birds be protected?  Will 1080 be used in the bush?  Will the Maui dolphin be protected?  Will oil drilling and fracking be placed under much tougher regulations?
• Christchurch - will those poor people get a fair deal from their insurance companies?  Will the rebuild meet what a modern city should/could be?
• manufacturing - will there will be manufacturing in New Zealand?  Will people be encouraged to invest in improving our primary goods (e.g. milk, wood, wool, etc) before exporting rather than sending off the raw product?
• the regions - will the people of the regions be able to stay and have a good standard of living with a job close to home, or will they have to move to Auckland?
• health - will they make the waiting list process more transparent rather than the lie it currently is?  Will more people get their operations sooner so they can become productive members of society again?  Will more get put into addiction services?  Will nurses get paid better and get more nurses in wards to reduce their workload and improve patient care?  Will care in our rest homes be upgraded for the elderly?
• welfare - will we see children of beneficiaries taken care of?  Will solo parents get a fair shake of the stick when it comes to improving their education and work prospects?  Will WINZ go back to having caseworkers who know what's going on with each client so they don't waste time?
• TPPA - will they give away our rights and freedoms to run our lives and our country free from foreign companies dictating what should happen in New Zealand?

So as you can see, I have a few issues to consider.  They may not be the same as yours, or we may have some in common, but it is our responsibility as voters in a democracy to consider who we will vote for and why.

So on Sunday as I listened to David Cunliffe's speech (you can watch his speech here, along with other speeches from other Labour MPs), I did have cause to be happy about a number of things.  Consequently I tweeted and retweeted things, and then I put it all together with Storify (please excuse the places where my fingers and the smartphone disagreed on what letter I pushed).  So here is what I heard and saw:

You can now see why I was a happy teacher.  And now I want to go and look more in depth at the education policy.

Early Childhood Education and Families:

You may remember back in the end of January David Cunliffe did his own State of the Nation speech and he announced some key policy for families and pre-schoolers, the Best Start for Our Kids policy:

• All families earning under $150,000 per year will receive $60 per week for a baby’s first year of life. For parents who are eligible for paid parental leave, the payment will kick in once this comes to an end. Low and modest income families will also receive $60 per week between the child’s first and third birthdays.
• Free early childhood education for three, four and five year old children will be extended from 20 to 25 hours a week
• Paid parental leave will be extended from 14 to 26 weeks as set out in Sue Moroney’s Member’s Bill.
• Free antenatal classes for all parents who want them and extra visits from organisations like Plunket for those who need it most.

This caught people's attention and the paid parental leave bill promoted by Sue Moroney is a particularly popular policy.  This bill has received support across the House - except from National who want to veto it and put up their own half-baked 18 week scheme in Budget 2014.  Hopefully after 20 September, Sue's Bill will be passed and enacted.

Labour will also do the following for pre-schoolers:

• From July 2017 (the tenth anniversary of 20 Hours Free), Labour will extend the Free ECE policy to 25 hours for three and four year old children. The policy will also apply to those five year olds still in early childhood education services. (Extending Free ECE to 25 Hours)
• Labour will restore over time National’s funding for highly qualified ECE centres. We will work with the sector to reinstate the policy of 100 percent qualified staff in all teacher-led services.  The first phase of restoring funding for 100 percent qualified ECEC centres will be provided in Labour’s first Budget in 2015 and come into effect from January 2016.
• We will build more ECE centres in high-need areas so there are enough places for kids who need them.

And Labour has committed to the following by establishing a Ministry for Children:

• We will do away with the Families Commission and focus funding on an independent Children’s Commissioner.
• We will also implement a plan to measure and set targets to reduce child poverty that would be backed up by legislation, and report on progress every budget.

These are important steps in the early years.  For every $1 spent on children in the first five years of their lives, we save $11 later on for each child.  Getting in early saves money and creates a healthier individual in all ways as a citizen, and a healthier community.  I think that it is important that ECE services are teacher led and employ fully trained and registered teachers who understand how young children develop and to ensure their learning needs are meet alongside the growth of their social skills and physical development.

Schools - Years 0-13:

Now this was the part that was especially important to me, being a teacher of primary aged students.

Labour will back quality education and invest in 21st Century Schools by:

• Hire 2,000 more teachers
• Reduce the average size of secondary school classes from 26+ down to 23.
• Reduce the size of senior primary school classes (Years 4-8) from 29+ down to 26.
• Invest $104 million in new classrooms.
• Support professional development for our teachers.
• Put in place a programme that provides an affordable option, available to all schools, for Year 5-13 students to have access to a portable digital device, in the classroom and at home.
• Commit $25 million to provide teachers with professional development during the 2016 and 2017 school years to assist them to make the most effective use of digital devices in the classroom.
• Partner with schools, local government and communities to put in place infrastructure that will allow students, particularly those from low-decile schools, who do not currently have internet connections to use their portable devices to access the internet at home.
• Develop a comprehensive plan for rebuilding out-dated and worn-out school buildings, so that every school has access to modern learning environments by 2030.

So far so good.  Every teacher will tell you that a few less kids in their class means more time for the remaining students, a relief from some paperwork those few more kids create.  It can mean the difference between teaching and crowd control.  And when you consider how big a 12 year old is, a few less bodies in the room creates space.

Teachers have been left in the wilderness since the Advisory Services were dismantled in 2009.  Professional Development for many teachers became a distant memory as the new arrangement has often been too expensive, so only selected people get to attend PD courses.  Also, it means that if you have a weakness in science, there were no advisors to come and advise you anymore.  Consequently teachers and principals are welcoming the long waited proposed return of the Advisory Service so schools can again access quality advice and cost-effective PD.

A digital device for all Year 5-13 students is music to my ears, probably because it would make what I want to do as a teacher who loves teaching digitally more of a reality in more schools.  It is good that Labour are also planning on backing this with PD for teachers (because plenty will need it) and internet access in the home.  The internet access solution will be interesting to put into practise as I can see there may be many pitfalls to overcome and it won't happen overnight.

And just this weekend I was with a friend who teaches in a decile one school in Porirua.  She told me her classroom was straight out of the 70s.  So an upgrade of her and her student's working/learning conditions is desperately in need.

Labour will also:

• Fund schools $100 per student per year if they don’t demand donations from parents.
• Scrap National Standards and return schools’ focus back to teaching the full breadth of New Zealand’s internationally acclaimed curriculum.
• Require schools to report student progress to parents in all areas of their learning.
• Ensure every child develops the basic foundations for further learning by extending Reading Recovery so kids falling behind can catch-up.
• Re-direct resources spent forcing ‘National Standards’ on schools into teacher professional development programmes to assist students who are underachieving.
• We will repeal charter school legislation and no more charter schools will be created under Labour. 

Donations have always been a bone of contention, and I can see many schools will be winning with this piece of policy.  I can see how schools like Auckland Boys' Grammar and the like will not be keen on this policy, but parents will like it.  For many schools the funding created by the donations system is the difference between having sports gear for the kids at lunch time to play with or not having any sports gear at lunch time; the difference between having a digital camera in each syndicate or not having a digital camera at all; the difference between having a school production or not having a school production.  Different schools rely on that money for many things that the Ops Grant does not pay for.

 

You many have noticed that I have bolded and highlighted in red two very important policies: getting rid of National Standards and Charter Schools.  These represent the cornerstone of GERM philosophy, of creating a crisis in education and then privatising our quality public education system.  Prior to National enacting National Standards, New Zealand was ranked in the top five of the questionable PISA rankings.  Since National Standards were introduced we have slid down the ranks.  Infact each country which has introduced policies like National Standards (i.e. Common Core in the US, Naplan in Australia, Key Stage Testing in the UK) and consequently Charter Schools, have slid down the international rankings in more that just PISA. 

 

Labour will require teachers to focus on our world leading and much acclaimed New Zealand Curriculum, on all learning areas, and to report to parents on all the learning areas.  This is great for children, because it means we can celebrate those children who also excel in art, physical education, science, music, drama, dance.... not just reading, writing and maths.

 

And I am really pleased to see that Reading Recovery will get a boost and that the National Standards budget will be redirected to help those kids that don't receive ORS funding but need extra help.  Reading Recovery funding has been tightly squeezed each year, and definitely there was less money for the end of 2012.  The earlier we can get in and help students with their learning, the sooner they will be able to become independent and confident learners.  One way the Professional Development could help is teaching teachers how to recognise dyslexia and help children with dyslexia overcome the obstacles that dyslexia likes to create.

 

"Every week 40,000 kids turn up to school without breakfast or without lunch and are fed by charities. But there a more kids who need help. The last nationwide survey of children’s nutrition undertaken by the Ministry of Health found 83,000 children aged 5 to 14, sometimes or often went to school without breakfast.
"Labour will partner with community and voluntary organisations, incorporating the most cost-effective approaches currently operating, to provide free food in every decile 1-3 primary, intermediate school that needs and wants it."

There are schools that see kids turning up day after day without having had breakfast and a poor lunch if any.  I recently read of a teacher who brings bread, butter and spreads to school to feed the kids without lunch - until her principal told her to stop doing it (so she had to get sneakier at feeding these kids).  I have a friend who teaches at a decile 6 high school.  She has a toaster, bread, butter, spreads, jug, milk and milo ready for any kid who needs it in her class.  And it is well used, and she gets better work out of the kids who ate than the kids who came hungry and did not use the food and facilities she provided.

 

Tertiary Education:

 

"The National Party is removing the right of students, staff and other community groups to be represented on university councils. It follows the Government’s introduction of voluntary student association membership and is a further silencing of students.
"Labour is making a commitment to students that when we are elected to government we will ensure they are represented on university councils and have strong student associations.
"We believe having those who are involved in learning and teaching on the governing bodies of universities is a good thing and adds value to the decisions being made."

This is not a good move for universities as it takes their accountability to students, staff and the community away.

There will be more tertiary education policy announced in the lead up to the election.

 

Adult Education:

Labour has committed to reinstating adult education:

• Restore $13m per year for Adult and Community Education
• Another $9m per year on top of that from 2018
• $1m per year of extra funding for ACE English for speakers of other languages (ESOL)

"It’s a cornerstone of New Zealand communities and offers pathways for New Zealanders looking to retrain and reengage with education, and for new New Zealanders to gain the skills and community connections to grow and establish their new lives in New Zealand.  Labour recognises that a lot has changed since the National Government cut ACE funding, which is why the allocation of this funding will be made in close consultation with the adult education sector. We believe that to get the best results for all New Zealanders who want to access ACE we need to work alongside the sector."

I think that reinstating Adult Community Education is a win:win.  It was a conduit for people to get skills and further their education.  But not just for those people, I have taken my fair share of night classes: te reo Maori (excellent for increasing my te reo use in the classroom) and Spanish (I had two Uruguayan students whose English wasn't flash, and learning Spanish helped build my relationship with them and understand their frustrations).

These are the policies that have been released so far to do with education at the time of publishing this post (14/07/14).

I personally am pleased with the direction Labour is taking with education.  It is clear that it has consulted and actually listened to stakeholders and intends on being collaborative in the true sense once it takes over the government benches (fingers crossed) in late September.

I think Labour is meeting the standard when it comes to education policy.  I will endeavour to update when future education policy is released, and when Labour becomes the lead partner in government I will be reminding them of their policy promises and monitoring their follow through.

GERM attacks again: Hekia Parata is canning the Teachers' Council.

The 30th of April is a crunch point for quality public education in New Zealand.  It is the day that a pitiful amount of pitiful consultation, Hekia styled, ceases on some very important and possibly catastrophic changes to education in New Zealand. 

During the first half of last year, consultation for changes to the Teachers' Council began, after a review had been conducted since 2010.  Some very knowledgeable people in education were tasked with going out and gathering and collating opinions and ideas about how the current Teachers' Council was going and how it could be reformed.  By July the consultation was over and a report was compiled.  For most teachers, busy with running a classroom, and life in general, this probably did not even cause a faint blip on their over stimulated radar.

In early November Hekia Parata announced that she would be disbanding the Teachers' Council.  It will be replaced by the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand and a transition group working towards having this established started in the new year.  Legislation has to be passed to allow this all to happen, which has begun its progress in Parliament and the latter stages will happen very soon.  Further down this post I have links so you can have your say.

Below is a list of people who have been appointed by Hekia Parata to the transition group of EDUCANZ:

• John Morris ONZM (Chair)
• Nancy Bell (Deputy Chair)
• Steve Maharey CNZM
• Paul Mathews
• Richard Newton
• Hoana Pearson
• Graham Hingangaroa Smith
• Margaret Southwick QSM
• Arihia Stirling
• Linda Tame
• Allan Vester

Now I only personally recognise a few names on this list (John Morris - former Auckland Grammar principal; Steve Maharey - former Labour MP who was the Minister of Education for a time and now the head honcho at Massey University; Linda Tame - principal at a Christchurch high school whose name fails me and mother of Jack Tame the TVNZ reporter based in New York), so you'll see that I've linked in the transition group's MoE page and I've google searched their names and added links to everyone from other sources so that you and I know who they are.  For some it was hard to find a profile on them, so I've linked to a news story or such other thing to give you a glimpse of the person. 

An interim Chief Executive, Julian Moore, has been appointed and took up his role on 31 March. 
Mr Moore has significant experience in senior management roles across the public and private sectors in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. He was recently the interim Chief Executive Officer at the Central Region’s Technical Advisory Services Limited (TAS) – a shared services company providing regional and national services to six District Health Boards.
He has also held senior management roles at the Wellington City Council and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise.
The role of the interim Chief Executive will focus on managing the transition arrangements with the New Zealand Teachers’ Council and working across the education sector to establish a professional body that reflects the needs of teachers and education leaders in the 21^st century.
Mr Moore has a strong background in leading organisations through complex periods of change. He also has considerable experience in governance, relationship management, branding, and establishing new boards and sub-committees.   (Early Childhood Council)

Reaction in November from the right wing commentators and politicians was very vocal.  Initial media reports hailed Hekia Parata's reforms as essential and to the benefit of the profession, children and how well educated children will be due to the reformation of the Teachers' Council.  Media (especially the NZ Herald and Fairfax) had been long campaigning that the Teachers' Council were enabling dodgy paedophiles to infiltrate schools and then protecting them (see this link as an example of their arguments).

Naturally the teacher unions, NZEI and PPTA, were unhappy about the prospect of their members being unable to elect representatives directly (Teacher unions to fight council reforms 2/11/13).  The two teachers' unions said the change contradicts the council's goal of leading and representing the teaching profession.  NZEI's Judith Nowataski has continued to push the need for EDUCANZ to be a meaningful body for teachers due to having teacher participation in press releases such as Teachers will fight loss of voice on Government's new Teachers Council.  And the PPTA has been running paid union meetings (PUMs) over the last term over the issue of the changes to the Teachers' Council.  This article, Teachers' union concerned over new council (The Waikato Independent, 11/4/14), demonstrates that 800 secondary teachers were concerned enough to pack out the Founders Theatre in Hamilton.

Slowly it has filtered through to the awareness of the average teacher, and it seems that in the last month or so, after a lot of articles in the newspapers and discussion in local teacher union meetings finally getting noticed in staff rooms, that teachers are getting heated up about the implications of EDUCANZ.  Teachers are not happy that they will have no opportunity to elect representation and that changes to the Teachers' Code of Conduct could stifle teachers' voices in the education debate.

Editorials such as this Stuff editorial, Improved Processes, published in the Southland Times and the Marlborough Express (16/4/14), will have annoyed quite a few teachers.  Little gems such as: "Little wonder teachers are protective of the Teachers Council. It's probably only polite since it has been so very protective of them.  Unhappily, this has been at the expense of accountability to parents and the public."  And then this one:  "They may have a point for decent representation, but frankly a stronger say by the Government is looking preferable to the outcomes of the teacher-controlled club that has been ready, willing and able to close ranks for far too long, and which is showing a professed interest in openness only when the do-next-to-nothing option has been utterly exhausted."  All very emotive of course.

And those of us who are vocal, active in social media and other circles have been having discussions and sharing thoughts.  Some have even published their thoughts.

A blog post, EDUCANZ, Professionalism and Politics, by bsprout (14 April 2014), hits the nail on the head as to why these changes are being pushed by Hekia Parata and her puppet masters.  What follows are some of bsprout's comments that stood out for me:

I find it appalling that we have a Government that is deliberately and dishonestly undermining the teaching profession by suggesting that there is a crisis in teacher quality and discipline and that political measures are needed to solve it....
There are more than 103,000 registered teachers in New Zealand and in the last financial year 59 were brought in front of the disciplinary tribunal and the majority were removed from the Teachers Register and barred from teaching. This means that probably less than .05 of teachers have behaved badly enough for the most serious consequences and not all of those would be sexual in nature....
It seems overly heavy handed to use misconduct as the driving reason to change the current Teachers Council. If that was the case then some adjustments to current practice and the existing body is all that would be necessary. Instead we have a whole new entity that will have all those on the Governing Council being appointed by the Minister of Education....
Under a National led Government, teachers will lose any professional independence and become classroom technicians that have to support politically prescribed programmes and data collection. Children will not have teachers who exist to meet their individual needs but be forced meet whatever targets the Minister feels necessary to set for them. Any teacher accused of misconduct is likely to be named and shamed before guilt is proven, which will possibly see many of the remaining males in the primary sector forced out of the job through the stress of false accusations.

Boonman has managed to address the facts and take a chance to put a bit of satire into the discussion.  His post EDUCANZ? Of course we canz!! really cut to the point of what is wrong with the proposed EDUCANZ: 

There has been some concern expressed by people working in the education community that EduCANZ will become a kind of proxy board appointed by the minister and tasked with getting rid of anybody who disagrees with government policy. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Let me elaborate.
The board of EduCANZ will be appointed by me. We have a huge pool of talent available to us which I will be completely ignoring and instead appointing only people I either know personally, am related to (including by marriage), or are members of the various business lobby groups who often wine and dine members of the National Party at the many official and unofficial functions held around New Zealand.

Boonman has also blogged his submission to Education Amendment Bill No.2 and it is well worth a read.

Dianne at Save Our Schools NZ has been a tireless blogger on all the issues in Education over the last two years since the class size debate stirred her activist heart back into action.  In her post Easy way to make a submission on the Education Amendment Bill 2 Dianne listed the following facts about EDUCANZ:

• All members are to be appointed by the Minister of Education.
• Teachers do not get to vote in a single representative to EDUCANZ.
• The Bill stipulates a maximum of teachers possible on the council – no minimum – meaning it is possible that there would be no teachers of the council at all.
• Even if some teachers were on the council, they would still be hand-picked by the Minister of Education.
• The new “limited authority to teach” (LAT) provisions mean that someone “with specialist skills but not a teaching qualification” can be authorised to act as a teacher for three years at a time without the employer having to prove that they have tried unsuccessfully to fill the position with a trained and qualified teacher.
• LATs have a lower good character and fitness to teach threshold than registered teachers, as LATs with criminal convictions are not barred whereas registered teachers are.
• The Bill (Section 382) replaces teachers’ current aspirational Code of Ethics with a more prescriptive Code of Conduct, which could be used to gag teachers from opposing or speaking out about government policies (such as National Standards, PaCT, performance pay plans, and so on).
• Teachers will still fund more than 90% of the operations of the Council through their registration fees.

Now the parts in bold and red I've done to really drive those first two points home because it's never a good sign when the government appoints people to an organisation they want to replace that belongs to other people.

In Dianne's earlier post The new Teachers Council: Just what is EDUCANZ' remit, exactly? (8/4/14)she quotes a letter from the PPTA to Hekia Parata regarding the EDICANZ chair, John Morris:

More concerning for me is the contempt that Mr Morris is showing for the 70,000 or so teachers who are going to be expected to fund the operation of his grandiose performance pay scheme. It is unacceptable that before teachers have had an opportunity to comment on the legislation and before the actual board has been formally established, the chairperson of the Transition Board has declared what the role and function of the body is to be. How can teachers have any trust in the process for establishing the new council when the chair of the interim board has revealed an agenda to use the body to introduce performance pay?

So what can you do?
It doesn't matter if you aren't a teacher or a parent or that you are just a plain old member of the public, because your voice counts.  You can contribute a submission to the Education Amendment Bill No.2 because you want to be heard.  But you have to do it by Wednesday 30 April. 

If you want to do a quickie submission you can click this link below:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/EDUCANZ

If you want your submission to really reflect your thoughts you can click this link below
http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/sc/make-submission/50SCES_SCF_00DBHOH_BILL13015_1/education-amendment-bill-no-2

And if you would like some further ideas about how to do a submission, I suggest that you look at Claire Amos' submission that she has posted on her blog (21/4/14) Teaching and E-Learning: The EDUCANZ Bill - I have made my submission, have you made yours??  It is well worth a read.  I particularly like her points about the make up of the Medical Council - after all, do you think doctors would put up with their council having no actual doctors elected to it or on it at all?

I'm still working on my submission, so my next post will be my published copy of my submission.

But I am worried.  Hekia Parata's history of consultation is pretty dismal at best.  Just think Phillipstown School and the Christchurch reorganisation and the stuff ups over Salisbury Residential School - the courts found fundamental errors in the consultation and the Ombudsman is looking into it all.

If the worst comes to the worst, and Hekia gets her way with representation and some of the more concerning things such as naming teachers accused of something before any hearings, then consultation will have been ignored Hekia style.  If this happens then Hekia will have failed the standard and then I think every teacher should send their practice certificates back in protest and refuse to pay for the next one if our professional body doesn't actually represent us as teachers. It would soon be a problem when there are no teachers at schools and because ten days is all you can teach without a current practicing certificate. Do you think doctors would put up with this shit with their Medical Council?