(2009) Rose Ryan's presentation to the CTU women's biennial conference July 2009

(February 2010) Guidelines for for principals, boards of trustees, teachers and guidance counsellors.    Guidance counsellors have traditionally been trained and registered teachers who have additional specialist qualifications in counselling.   Guidance counselling has always been regarded as a specialist teaching role, even where it has not involved any classroom teaching.

(August 2009) This handbook provides you with the vital information you require in starting your teaching career and the reasons why you should join your colleagues and become a member of the union.The information contained in this publication is a quick reference only. Keywords: new teachers, beginning teaching

(January 2010)  The government’s intent is to implement National Standards in New Zealand primary schools despite a lack of evidence to show the policy will achieve anything positive. This is a misguided approach to a manufactured “crisis” with disastrous effects on students and teachers.    The policy is driven by ideology. Research evidence shows that National Standards will not lead to improved outcomes for students. They will simply label individual students as failures, and may lead to league tables that wrongly label schools as failures. Many countries that have gone down this route in the past are now turning away from it. Refusing to recognise the weight of local and international evidence against such policies is most unwise.

(January 2010)  The government seems bent on implementing National Standards in New Zealand’s primary schools from 2010, yet there is no robust evidence to show that this policy will result in improved achievement for the students currently “falling behind” .   In fact, there is ample evidence that this will be a misguided approach to a manufactured “crisis” , with disastrous effects on student and teacher wellbeing.   In a policy environment where “evidence” is normally required to justify the expenditure of scarce government resources, it is extraordinary that a policy would proceed on the basis of simple assertion.   PPTA is forced to conclude that this policy is based on ideology rather than fact.

(December 2009)   In general contact with parents and students by phone is best left to those who are trained or have the responsibility to do this eg deans, attendance officer, senior management team. Guidance for teachers on telephone contact with parents and/or students.

(October 2009)  Barbara Hill Field Officer PPTA. Managing employment law issues in schools is becoming an increasingly demanding responsibility in an era of high expectations of accountability placed on boards of trustees and teachers by successive governments and the public.  Since the advent of “Tomorrow’s Schools” in 1989, school boards have been “self managing independent Crown entities” with varying levels of knowledge, experience and training, operating within a decentralised education system.  External bodies, such as the Ministry of Education (MoE), the Education Review Office (ERO) and the New Zealand Teachers Council (the Council), to varying degrees, place requirements on employers and/or employees, provide advice and assess/audit their performance.  They are not, however, accountable for what happens in schools.