14 November 2017

Newsletter Articles

President’s Report

Welcome to our latest edition of our Newsletter, coming just after Annual Conference and as the year gets even busier in our schools.

Annual Conference was outstanding again!!

The work that our Annual Conference committee do to get this Conference up, functioning & delivering at such a high standard is just incredible. A huge thanks to:

Christine Schnebli; Brad Griffiths, Vicki Harris, Merrilyn Jenkins, Shannan Judge, Anne Webb, Kerry Barker, Daryl McKay, Kerry Kurtz, Rob Walker, Mark Pritchard, Karen De Falco Chairperson Kylie Donovan.

At our AGM held during Annual conference, motions were passed to increase our State membership fee to $500 pa and membership fees are now to be paid by salary deduction (see article later).

We’ve also had a busy time with submissions. After much deliberation we made a submission to the Gonski Review after I attended a briefing with Gonski review panel members Ken Boston & Wendy Johnson in Canberra (see article later) and one for DoE funding for the next 3 years (a new & complicated process).

Annual Conference

With a great variety in speakers, activities and hospitality, our Conference again has been hailed an outstanding success. We were fortunate to have the Premier, Hon Gladys Berejiklian open the Conference and was followed by Minister, the Hon Rob Stokes, who elaborated on funding and our important role in public education ( his pun – more RAM for ewes cracked us up).

Talented performers from Gerringong PS, Narabeen North PS and Wollongong HS of the Performing Arts followed our Acknowledgement of Country performed by Liam from Clairgate PS. They set the scene for a wonderful 3 days. Craig Ruecassel, as master of ceremonies, was again pivotal to the success of the Conference through his introductions, questioning, jokes, linking the sessions and chairing our panel session – a brilliant job.

AGM

During Annual Conference, our AGM was conducted and there were several motions & two critical motions that were voted on:

The first two related to constitutional changes related to us attempting to keep our charitable status & were really around changing a few words eg “Secretary” for “Director General” and following solicitor’s advice, around payment of income tax.

In the Treasurers Report, Rob spoke of the need to increase our fees by $50 to attempt to cover our costs for the operation of the Association and our ever-increasing role in Professional development & supporting our Principals. I showed a table…

The motion “that the 2018 NSWPPA membership fee for each member be set as follows: $500.00(GST inclusive) for Primary School, SSP, EEC and Hospital School Principals

$250.00 (GST inclusive) for Central School Principals” Moved: Treasurer Rob Walker, Seconded: David Crowe & Carried

The next critical motion “that the amendments relating to payment of membership fees by salary deduction, be accepted” Moved: Lyn Davis, Seconded: Rob Walker & Carried. These relate to the Constitution

11.1.1 : The Association will be supported by an annual membership fee paid by each member through salary deduction. The membership will be determined at each Annual General meeting of the Association.

11.1.2 was deleted viz. “Area Councils will forward the annual affiliation fees for their Council for Principals not using direct salary deduction, to the State Council by 30th April each year.

Just an anecdote that goes some way to explaining the need for this. Just prior to Annual Conference we checked the membership of colleagues as it is a condition of registration. 66 members who had registered for Conference were not financial according to our records. Several Treasurers hadn’t forwarded late paid cheques and several thought they were paying by deduction. We get a fortnightly print-out from DoE of those who are salary deducting & when we cross checked several members were embarrassed as their salary deduction was not happening. It took us many phone calls & nearly 2 weeks to sort this out.

Awards Ceremony

During Annual Conference a highlight is the presentation of our Awards. This year was no exception. We congratulated the following for their outstanding efforts.

It was also a big moment for our participants in our Leadership Credential. After an 18 month journey of self-improvement and a school improvement challenge, they presented their evidence to a pair of our facilitators who validated that against the AITSL Principal Standard. Many will now take advantage of the opportunity Anne McIntyre has gained for us, 50% of the M.Ed with the University of Wollongong.

Congratulations to the following school leaders:

These school leaders were supported by the following group of facilitators who gave a lot of time & energy to support these leaders throughout the 18 months. We held a small ceremony after the Awards presentation to thank them for the great support.

Budgeting Tool

As you are aware the BPC budgeting tool is gone as it was seen as not fit for purpose and this was confirmed by feedback from schools.

Replacing the BPC is the Excel-based Enterprise Financial Planning Tool (eFPT). A collaborative approach has been taken to develop the tool to ensure it meets school needs. It has gone through user acceptance testing with our principal colleagues and overall has been well received.

It is extremely important that schools engage with the new financial planning tool to ensure budgeting is accurate, which as we know now includes staffing.

The support that schools need will be delivered through training in the eFPT from Week 5 of Term 4 2017. While we understand it is a busy time for schools, we strongly advocate your attendance at a training session.

Flourish

It’s all go for the 4 Flourish groups that the State PPA are organising.

The Broken Hill group has already had one session and is about to have their second at Mildura on Wednesday November 8. I attended the launch of the Ballina group last week and our Castle Hill group will start on November 15 and the Sutherland group is set to start on November 20.

Our inaugural pilot at Shellharbour has rounded up and we are awaiting the evaluations. The Executive will now wait on impact data and feedback from each of these groups before we commit to any more groups starting. Anecdotally colleagues are really impressed with the focus of the sessions and report a much happier view on their role.

Gonski Submission

Along with AGPPA and APPA we have lodged a submission to the Gonski “Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools”. As Deputy President of APPA, I was invited with President Dennis Yarrington & ACPPA President Brad Gaynor to meet with Gonski panel members Ken Boston & Wendy Johnson prior to making our submissions. They stressed the importance of solutions, how do we measure growth for students and schools, the importance of leadership, what should learners learn…

The key questions we had to answer were:

What should educational success for Australian students and schools look like?

What can we do to improve and how can we support ongoing improvement over time?

Are there barriers to implementing these improvements?

We will put the submission up on our website.

Leadership Scholarships

Leadership Fellowships for principals in NSW public schools are now open. These prestigious Fellowships provide a unique opportunity for principals to undertake research in key areas of educational leadership in Australia or overseas.

This year the following awards are offered:

The State Frank Farrell Leadership Fellowship

This is awarded for an outstanding application from a primary school principal. The late Frank Farrell was a highly regarded principal and President of the NSW Primary Principals' Association during its foundation years.

The State Florence Ramstead Leadership Fellowship

The Florence Ramstead Award will be awarded to an outstanding application from a primary school principal. Florence Ramstead was a highly regarded principal during the 1980s.

The State Jim Harkin Leadership Fellowship

The Jim Harkin Award will be awarded for an outstanding application from a central or secondary school principal. Jim Harkin was a highly regarded principal and President of the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council.

The State Mary Armstrong Leadership Fellowship

The Mary Armstrong Award will be awarded to an outstanding application from a central or secondary school principal. Mary Armstrong was a highly regarded principal and President of the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council.

Fellowship recipients receive $10,000 and up to 10 days special leave. Long-service leave cannot be added to the leave. Recipients will undertake their Fellowships during 2018.

Part 1 of the Leadership Fellowships applications will be reviewed by the State Leadership Fellowships Selection Panel and successful applicants will be asked to complete Part 2 of the Leadership Fellowships Applications. All successful applicants will be provided with individual feedback to support the second part of their application.

Part 1 of the Leadership Fellowship application must be submitted through the Leadership Fellowships website by 5:00 pm on Friday 1 December 2017.

Part 2 of the Leadership Fellowship application must be submitted through the Leadership Fellowships website by 5:00 pm on Monday 19 February 2018.

Further information about these Fellowships can be found on the Department’s website at:

Leadership Strategy

Following the release of information around the strategy a few things have started to move:

• In your SBAR you should have received your school’s share of the $50m interim funding to support you move some of the administrivia from your desk. It’s called School Support Allocation (Principal Support).
  - The minimum allocation is equivalent to a 0.2 FTE school administrative office rate or $11,382
  - Schools transition from the minimum to a per capita amount at about 215 enrolments. Above the minimum allocation schools receive funding on a per capita basis, equivalent to approximately $53 per student. Eg: 300-215 = 85 X $53 =$4505 + $11,382 = $15,887
  - 700 – 215 =485 X $53 = $25,705 + $11,382 = $37,087
  - SSP schools receive an allocation (when above the minimum allocation) based on their notional enrolment (where notional enrolment is the number of established classes multiplied by 30)
• The new Directors have just been announced and will be in place to start Day 1 Term 2 2018. Their onboarding will start this week as part of their 20 day Induction. You will have noticed quite a few primary colleagues picked up Director roles and the difficulty is now how to fill these positions. DoE will be piloting a bulk Principal Recruitment – Targeted Roles process as a pilot. Details will appear this week when the positions are advertised in bulk, however we have expressed our concerns about the 1st phase of the process which will see a panel of 8 Directors do the initial cull in the bulk process. We, along with the SPC have pushed strongly to have principal representatives in this process, however this will not happen.
• PSL positions have been advertised and we have PPA representatives on the panels for both the 1.0 positions and the 0.2 coaching positions.
• The two teams have been in training to commence the pilot for the TIP support for schools in the Tamworth and Ultimo Operational Directorates.
• The Executive staffing bands have now been extended to cover additional Executive entitlements in our primary schools, which is great news for our growing schools. The 2nd DP that is appointed at 701 gains Executive release 1.0 at 1050 students.

Letters of Direction

There has been a lot of angst among members around filling unfilled vacancies and Directors threatening letters of direction. With directions from the IRC, DoE had little choice other than to ensure vacancies were filled as the Award was being breached. As I mentioned to both Dep Sec Murat Dizdar & Secretary Mark Scott, threatening letters of direction was a step that damages relationships. Only one was issued to ensure we complied with the Award.

Executive Director, Trina Schmidt also used this process to ensure teachers who had not complied with their WWCC registrations got the message that they needed to move quickly. Principals were cc’d into the correspondence. There were 3,271 teachers who received this direction even after countless emails & texts.

Banksia Road PS

Sadly I visited Banksia Road PS last week following that horrific accident where two students were killed and several others injured. Principal Hamish Woudsma and staff were shattered by the events of that day, but stood together to support each other, their students and community. The Premier, our Minister, Secretary, Deputy Secretary Murat Dizdar and ED Sylvia Corish all attended to offer support. On the day after the accident when I attended, there were 30 teachers from surrounding schools who came to support the teachers, many school counsellors, Directors Chris Charles & Kathy Powzun, AMU and Network office staff, all there to offer support & comfort. Murat has added Principal of Rosemeadow PS, Paul Hughes to the school as additional support in the short term.

A huge thanks must go to all who are supporting the school and it’s community who will have a long recovery process.

Around the Traps

Deputy President, Robyn Evans & I attended the Broken Hill PPC meeting in MIldura last week and updated them on current issues and enjoyed a fabulous cruise on the Murray. In an interesting side light, I ran into retired Director Trish Webb whose father Hal Ritch was my first District Inspector when I was appointed to TIC at Tooma PS (on the very eastern end of the Murray River).

Great camaraderie, support for each other and Christmas spirit was shown. Thanks to Buronga PS Principal Jodie Treverrow for her hospitality.

School Excellence Framework

Around the traps we are hearing that the School Excellence Framework Version 2 has been welcomed by most as an improvement on the previous aspirational framework. Schools are using this framework to organise their next 3 year Strategic Plan.

Just a reminder following our last SEAG meeting – the 400 schools that have completed their EV this year can use the SEFSAS 1 for their Annual Reports which need to be completed in Term 1. You may like to tweak it a little, but basically it can be used for your Annual Report. All other schools will use the SEFSAS 1 to complete their Annual Reports as you are assessing against your plans that you have completed for the last 3 years. Some schools may like to utilise the SEF SaS 2 - it is an option.

State Council

Our next State Council meeting is being prepared for November 23 & 24 at the Novotel Sydney Central in Haymarket. Delegates, chairs and Executive will hear from Senior DoE officers and will be able to question & inquire about future directions. We will also discuss the vexed question of colleagues representing on multiple Reference Groups/ Working Parties and Standing Committees.

In 2018, Executive have decided that Presidents will attend both Term 1 and Term 2 meetings in a change from previous years. Term 1 particularly is important as we change membership of Reference Groups based on their decisions. The Term 2 meeting is designed to keep Presidents abreast of the latest happenings in DoE and PPA.

APPA & AGPPA

Both National Associations have been working hard to finalise their Gonski submissions to inform the Federal Government’s directions. Past PPA President, Geoff Scott, as research officer for AGPPA, has been heavily involved in the AGPPA submission.

AGPPA and APPA met with Federal Minister Simon Birmingham and APPA met with Opposition Deputy Leader Tanya Plibersek where we certainly pushed for a greater understanding of the needs of primary schools, the importance of funding on a needs base, ITE (Initial Teacher Education) and Leadership development.

Here is a link to the latest APPA Connected Leader:

We all know that this is a really, really busy Term, so keep your sleep up to ensure you recover & have the energy for those long days as we rush towards the end of Term and all those activities that drain us.

As always, look after yourself and keep in contact with colleagues. As a State Executive we are always here to help.

Regards

Deputy President Robyn Evans; Secretary Jackie Malecki; Treasurer Rob Walker and Vice Presidents: Lyn Davis, Terry Fisher, John Mularczyk, Di Robertson, Louise Green, Ian Reeson and Phil Seymour President.

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