80, 15, 5 percent: What we know; what they need…

Summary

This Disruptive Antisocial Behaviour (DAB) working group arose from the 2008 conference recommendations following the paper presented by the Hutt Valley/Wairarapa region, to consider actions and responses to disruptive antisocial behaviour in schools. The group met in March, following the Taumata Whanonga (Behaviour Summit), a multi-sector meeting which also arose (in part) from the 2008 PPTA conference recommendations.

This paper reflects outcomes from the working group, the taumata, and other relevant work that is happening in education and other parts of the public sector – notably the Ministry for Social Development (MSD).

A concern for some of this work, all of which began prior to the 2008 election, is the extent to which the current government has a commitment to following these programmes and recommendations through. A disturbing example is that of the alternative education review, which became substantially smaller, and much less public, following the election. Nonetheless, it is heartening to find strong pockets of evidence-based work, and programmes in development that, given time and sustainable funding, will lead to improved community outcomes – both social and economic. The ongoing challenge is to get a long-term commitment from government to allow good programmes to develop and embed – as the findings below describe.

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Connected secondary schools

Summary

This paper considers the inconsistencies that have plagued the digital revolution in secondary schools. It identifies the barriers that devolution of school management, a competitive ideology and funding constraints have put in the way of a coherent and effective information and communications technologies (ICT) network for schools.
As well as giving credit to the many boards, principals and teachers who have contributed to the enhanced learning that ICT offers, including the Virtual Learning Network (VLN), the paper also acknowledges those policies that give cause for optimism, including the laptop scheme, central purchasing of software and hardware, funding for network upgrades and the $1.5 billion investment in broadband.
Against this, the paper identifies continued problems with funding and coherency (including the threat posed by the digital divide), health and safety issues, the need for technical support, burgeoning electricity demands, teacher workload and the short-sighted decision to cease funding the VLN e-learning principals.

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Duty outside timetabled hours

Summary

In 2008 Annual Conference established a Duty Taskforce to collect data, prepare a paper for the 2009 conference and offer advice on what PPTA’s long- and short-term policies might be.
This paper is the outcome of the taskforce’s deliberations.
The paper considers the range of duties outside the timetabled hours and the workload and safety issues associated with them.
It identifies the differences between professionally constructive duties and those which offer little towards the development of good relationships between students and teachers, and which could be done differently or more effectively.
A report on the findings of the survey of duties outside timetabled hours, which was undertaken in term 2, will be available to conference delegates. It will provide more information on what constitutes existing practices in schools.

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Housing affordability

Summary

This paper is the report from the Housing Affordability Taskforce, established by the 2008 Annual Conference as a recommendation from the Auckland region paper on this topic.
It considers the issues around housing and rental affordability, particularly in main urban areas.
It looks at current housing affordability factors and the groups of teachers most affected by housing and rental costs.
The impacts on recruitment, retention and movement between regions are reviewed.
It considers a range of approaches that could be taken by PPTA to help address the housing pressures on specific groups of members.

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Integration or disintegration

Summary

This paper provides a brief background to the passage of the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act 1975 and then summarises some of the concerns about the act’s operation since then. The main problem is that integration has allowed a number of private schools to integrate into the public system and receive full funding for teacher salaries, operations and a significant proportion of property costs, yet still charge parents substantial “donations”.

The paper also raises broader questions about the watering down of the special character requirements in the act to a point where they have become little more than a device to select students from wealthy backgrounds, the increasing number of religious-based schools in an imagined “secular system”, the cost to all New Zealanders of allowing the continued creation of small, expensive-to-operate secondary schools, and the appropriateness of religiously
“tagged” positions.

It reiterates the PPTA position, which is that, having served its purpose, the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act should be repealed and no further schools should be integrated. Instead, the sections of the Education Act that allow the establishment of Kura Kaupapa Māori schools (s155) and “designated special character” schools (s156) should be used to set up new schools under the jurisdiction of the minister of education. Existing integrated schools can also be re-established under section 156 so all state schools are treated fairly.

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Mentoring for secondary teachers

Summary

This paper arose from discussions among Te Huarahi and the young and new teachers network.

A joint working group was established to consider how a mentoring model could be developed that would establish a support system for teachers at all stages of their careers.

The working group proposes a national network of trained and qualified mentors, employed on a regional/cluster-based model. Individual teachers would be able to access suitable mentors, either from their cluster or from other clusters around the country. This would be of invaluable help to the profession.

The paper summarises the deliberations of the working group and outlines the proposed model.

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The role and structure of Annual Conference

Summary

Constitutionally, Annual Conference is the supreme decision-making body of PPTA. Conference papers are distributed in members in branches who vote on the recommendations then send representatives to regional meetings where a regional position is reached on the policy papers. Regional decisions are then conveyed to annual conference by a regional delegation, democratically elected according to a formula that takes account of total membership in the region. The pace of change presents a challenge to conference’s supreme decision-making powers because more and more decisions have to be made by executive between annual conferences. This paper asks members to reflect on the strengths and weakness of the model and invites comments about possible changes.

NOTE: This paper is for internal discussion only so may be read on the members-only side of the PPTA website.