NZPF Federation Flyer No 16 – 1September 2011

NZPF Summit

First a big thank you to all the Association Presidents who gave up their Saturday to attend the Summit, which was a great success. Thank you too for your hard work on the day in drawing out the key messages from the presenters and applying your own professional knowledge and experiences to those key issues. 

A number of themes emerged including:

• That we maintain a compulsory quality publicly funded education system

• That the NZC is championed as the central document to deliver an authentic and broad curriculum 

• That the teaching profession be self-regulating, set its own high professional standards for training and practice and govern itself.

• That there be continuing quality professional learning development available throughout one’s professional educational career.

• That the current education administration system of Boards of Trustees and self-managing schools be protected into the future.

• That the growing inequalities in NZ are addressed by government policies because these impinge on students’ ability to learn

Next Steps for combatting the effects of National Standards

National Standards remain high on the media agenda and are likely to become a major political issue throughout the election campaign. As the pressure comes on the National party to account for the strong opposition which the sector continues to demonstrate in respect of this policy, it is important that you all remain strong and hold fast to the reasons you opposed the policy in the first place. Government’s tactic will be to try and make examples of some of you in the hope that you will all then comply or at least significant numbers of you will. That would allow them to say, you never were opposed, you just needed help with your charter targets. Remember it is only months out from an election and it is unlikely that the Minister is going to take drastic action against all of you at this time.

We have already sent out advice in a special Flyer (8 August) on how to proceed once you have received your Ministry letter re your non-compliant charter.

Meanwhile, NZPF is examining a new avenue to combat the National Standards implementation and we will be outlining more about that in the next Flyer.

Ministry request for data on use of Facilities

You will all have received a request for information on the use of your school facilities. My suggestion to you is that you do not make this request high priority.  It may be worthwhile to reflect on the fact that for some time theMOE hasn’t sought our views on anything unless it suits them. That’s not a partnership. So think about that before you rush to fulfil this request. Public Private Partnerships are an accepted norm for an education system driven by this ideology and you may be unwittingly supporting that position by providing this information.

NZPF Elections

On August 30 financial members of NZPF would have received a pin and password by email from electionzfor the 2012 NZPF Executive.  Your vote is important, take time to have your say in the shape of the next NZPF executive. 

As you will see, I am not seeking to lead NZPF for another year. While I have felt honoured to serve as your President and I have enjoyed the challenge and work, I have found the year very difficult with what has happened in my home city.  My heart is back there with family, friends and my school.  I know you will understand my position. Paul Drummond will make a superb President and will be ably supported by Phil Harding as Vice President. Thank you for your support and best wishes this year. 

ICP Conference

NZPF President-elect Paul Drummond and I recently attended the ICP Council meeting and the World Convention. It was great to see that the programme included four workshops being presented by New Zealand principals. As a profession we can feel very pleased that our New Zealand education system is held in such high regard internationally and our presenters did us proud at this world event. Congratulations to all of those involved.

It was also good to see one of our NZPF gold business partners, Furnware exhibiting at the conference. Furnware is yet another success story on the world stage.

Some of the conference themes included the notion that today’s students need to become the ‘global citizens’ of tomorrow but today’s schooling is not preparing them for that. Sadly, the economic recession is resulting in systems that revert to traditional methods of schooling. 

Another theme, and perhaps the strongest, was that of the moral imperative of schooling to prepare children to live in a world that they want to live in. The question is: ‘What will that world look like?’As educators we need to think differently and carefully about what their future lives might be like.

If you would like to access the keynote addresses from the ICP conference, refer to www.icponline.organd click on 2011 convention – Toronto. I would urge you toread Stephen Lewis’s notes which offer a sobering message.

Nga mihinui me tearohanui

Peter

Peter Simpson

Proudly supported by our Gold Business Partners

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Upcoming Dates:

September 16 – 17 Executive committee meeting

September 24 – Election results declared

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This Flyer contains information on:

1 Snippets from August Executive Committee Meeting

2 Aggregation of Sensory Resources

3 2011 New Zealand Teachers Council Election – voting opens 1 September

4 Banking Staffing Update

5 Microsoft – Building Skills for Tomorrow Roadshow

6 Telecom Foundation

7 Presenting: Greentree Game On

8 Business Partners

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1 SNIPPETS FROM AUGUST EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING

• Members are advised to remain up to date with developments in the RTLB transformation. Check out the latest by clickinghere

• Note the timeline for changes for transfer of ORS teacher entitlement in 2012 and teacher aide funding in 2013.  See item below on this.

• The NZPF executive encourages regional associations and individual principals to make a submission based on the latest report on changes to Health Camp schools clickhere

• Members are reminded that the Te Ariki professional leadership development programme is now independently run and supported by NZPF and NZEI. We encourage you to look into this programme as a leading example of promoting continuous quality improvement for your school. You can also use the programme for your own principal and teacher performance appraisal process and save yourself the expense of hiring external evaluators.

• NZPF executive members extend support to all the schools that have submitted non-compliant charters and encourage you to follow advice sent out in a special Flyer in August and remain firm in your stance. 

• Members are encouraged to access the speech which President Peter Simpson delivered to the Te Akatea conference.  To read clickhere.

• Members are reminded to plan for the 2012 Trans-Tasman NZPF/APPA conference to be hosted in Melbourne 19 -21 September next year.

• We encourage you all to visit ourfacebookandtwittersites and join the discussions taking place there. 

2 AGGREGATION OF SENSORY RESOURCES 

Part of Success for All, Every School, Every Child

Cabinet agreed that fragmented teacher and teacher’s aide resources for vision and hearing impaired students be aggregated and provided to three sensory schools -The Blind and Low Vision Network NZ (BLENNZ), Kelston Deaf Education Centre and van Asch Education Centre.

A staged and managed process for the aggregation of resources to the three sensory schools has been planned.The first stage 2012 is to expand the specialist teaching workforce to better support Vision and Hearing Impaired students throughout the country.

• Staffing entitlement now allocated to enrolling schools to employ 0.1, 0.2 FTE additional teachers for ORS students will go directly to the sensory schools (Deaf Education Centres and BLENNZ) to employ full-time specialist teachers in blindness and low vision and for students who are Deaf and hearing impaired. These specialist teachers (RTDs and RTVs) will itinerate to enrolling schools. 

• The ORS 0.1 and 0.2 teacher resource will be provided to the three sensory schools from 2012 for the 420 ORS students verified as Deaf or with a significant hearing impairment and for the 250 ORS students who are verified as blind or who have low vision as their primary significant educational need. 

• There will be no change to the teacher’s aide allocation process for these students for 2012. Teacher’s aide will continue to be allocated by the Ministry of Education and other fund holders. 

• Specialist services will continue to be provided by Ministry, Special Education and other fund holders and the sensory schools will work in partnerships with the specialist services providers in the provision of services to students and enrolling schools.

Principals and senior staff from the sensory schools have had meetings with enrolling schools over term two and these will continue into term three. Where it is in the best interest of the student the sensory schools have negotiated local arrangements for 2012. 

Schools will be informed of changes in their September 2011 staffing and funding entitlement notices and this will be updated in December 2011for 2012. 

If you have questions or concerns please contact 

Bernie Mulcahy, Principal, van Asch Deaf Education Centre  bmulcahy@vanasch.school.nz

Jane Wells, Principal, BLENNZ  jane.wells@blennz.school.nz

David Foster, Principal, Kelston Deaf Education Centre  davidf@kdec.school.nz

Yvonne Hope Project Manager Ministry of Education  yvonne.hope@minedu.govt.nz

Let teachers know that funding for the training of Resource Teachers Vision and Resource Teacher Deaf is available to increase the training intakes in 2012 and 2013. These awards support the Postgraduate Diploma in Specialist Teaching offered by Massey University and the University of Canterbury. Study Awards cover tuition fees, paid study leave and also includes a travel and accommodation contribution.  To find out more click here Applications close 16 September 2011. 

3 2011 NEW ZEALAND TEACHERS COUNCIL ELECTION – VOTING OPENS ON 1 SEPTEMBER

From 1 September – 1 October 2011, all registered teachers with a current practising certificate will have the opportunity to vote for one of the four sector-elected members on theNew Zealand Teachers Council governing body. 

Your vote is important as it will help determine who is best suited to influence direction and lead the teaching profession for the next three years.

You can vote online via the Teachers Council’s website www.teacherscouncil.govt.nz.  Independent election contractors, Electionz, are sending all teachers a personal voting ID number (PIN) and password on 1 September 2011.  If you haven’t received your voting details by 8 September, please contact the Election Helpline on 0508 666 336 or email elections@electionz.com  

Have your say this election! Vote TODAY via www.teacherscouncil.govt.nz

Back to Index

4 BANKING STAFFING UPDATE

Predicting End of year balance

Pay period 09 marks the halfway point in the banking staffing year, with total usage for each fulltime teacher at or near 13.00 FTTEs.  A simple way to predict the balance likely at pp 22 therefore, is to double the current balance.  Remember that there are still 17 more pay periods left to deal with your circumstances if you also use the time for balancing next year to manage the predicted over or underuse.

Calculating FTTE cost of employing a teacher in term 4

Usually 6.50 FTTEs are required to support a fulltime position for 10 weeks in term 4, but if you employ someone for 8 weeks in term 4 this year then you will use 4 FTTEs during term time and the teacher will accumulate 17 days holiday entitlement (1.20 FTTEs), so plan to use just 5.20 FTTEs for the term 4 position.

5 MICROSOFT – BUILDING SKILLS FOR TOMORROW ROADSHOW

1 National Schools RoadshowMicrosoft are running a free set of professional development workshops for principals, curriculum leaders and IT managers in the education sector with a theme of “Building Skills for Tomorrow”.

The Roadshow is designed for a Principal to bring their team along for a Professional Development session around using ICT in education.   The events have three streams:

• Principals – breakfast session

• Curriculum Leaders – morning session

• IT managers – afternoon session

To find out more and register click here

2 Innovative Educator Awards – the Microsoft Partners In Learning network seeks to celebrate and support educators who are using ICT in innovative ways in the classroom.   In Sept-Nov Microsoft are running a national Innovative Educator Award competition, with the winners heading to the regional and world wide competition events.

• Awards details – click  here

Entries close on 28 October 2011

If you have any queries regarding the Building Skills for Tomorrow Roadshow or the Innovative Educator Awards please contact Evan Blackman email evan.blackman@microsoft.com or phone 09362 5609.

6 TELECOMFOUNDATION

In July Telecom launched their new channel for all its philanthropy activities - the Telecom Foundation.  This is a separate charitable trust with all its activities focused around ‘Enabling a better future for kiwi kids’ and encompasses volunteering, payroll giving, fundraising and access to expertise.

Under the Foundation all Telecom staff (over 8,000 nationwide) have been given one paid day per annum for volunteer work for any charity, community group or school.  The Foundation is looking for opportunities for staff, as individuals or teams to register for any upcoming projects that require volunteers and as such are looking for charities, schools etc to register these events

To date there have been a wide range of projects requesting volunteers to help paint a school hall, plant trees, assist with the facilitation of a school netball tournament and a call for help with developing an sms communication system.  

If your school has an upcoming project/event that requires volunteers, register the details at www.telecomfoundation.org.nz/volunteering

Telecom has staff located in Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Hamilton, Invercargill, Mt Maunganui, Napier, Nelson, New Plymouth, Queenstown, Rotorua, Tauranga, Timaru, Whanganui, Welllington and Whangarei.

7 PRESENTING: GREENTREE GAME ON

This December, one lucky organisation will walk away with the ultimate painkiller and multivitamin: $250,000 worth of Greentree business software, including implementation and cloud hosting.It’s the sort of prize that can help transform an organisation, making it more competitive – primed for business.

ENTER GAME ON AND U2 COULD JOIN WE3!www.greentreegameon.co.nz

8 BUSINESS PARTNERS