FACE TO FACE we were!!!!! It was such a joy to be back face to face last week with ALL COVID precautions in place! There was incredible energy in the room and I am really confident your Delegates will have rich reports to present back at PPC meetings. I would like to acknowledge the incredible participation and engagement we saw and felt in the room. There is so much to cover and such a brilliant suite of presenters joined us. As you can imagine last week we had to be incredibly agile as the agenda changed with great regularity!!!!

Tammy Anderson Principal Briar Road PS |Todd Osland Principal Edgeworth PS opened with authentic and heartfelt Welcome to Country narratives. On both days, their narratives set us all up knowing our purpose. Thank you to both Tammy and Todd – we were all inspired and moved by your Welcome.

Your Delegate will detail the key messages – this is a simple summary for you to scan.

Simone Walker | Group Deputy Secretary

I hosted an ‘In Conversation’ session as it was the first time we have had the opportunity to meet Simone in person. It was incredibly encouraging hearing what her greatest hopes were and her plan of action resonated with us all in the room.

She acknowledged those who have been affected by recent flooding and the hard job of getting rid of everything; she talked about feeling empowered about making the decisions that were necessary. Simone shared her professional experience and background of social work in disability and health. She said everything was about perspective – can't make it better but can make it smoother.

She acknowledged that IER was challenging (and quality time). When asked what her greatest hopes were.. her response was to focus on outcomes and SSM; action research is highly valued; creating transparency with head office; knowing who to go to; getting consistency; cookie cutter approaches don’t work.
I interrogated the notion of collaboration/co-construct/co-design/voice with stakeholders; there are two types of people who work for DoE; we want more than consultation we are after partnership. Simone said, “No-one likes to be done to” – she spoke of democratisation of policy and process; co-design needs to be purposeful. The right time for collaboration is early on not after the decisions have been made – sometimes we retrofit consultation to a decision. THIS is where the Association wants to be.

I asked her how she would ensure this happened across the system – her response .. we will be looking at functional designs of collaboration for the future. There’s a cultural change as well as an information change needed in the IER space. I asked about setting schools up for success and spoke about the short time frame – Simone indicated that the timeline is still there and was made aware that the right support must be available. Feedback should be given back through NSWPPA; Simone will get back to us about other channels for feedback.
We went on to talk about COVID. The taskforce was acknowledged – but an unintended outcome is staff shortages. With the coming winter, what is the COVID plan? There is a winter plan and expecting a significant flu season; transmission is community-based not school-based; planning for it to go up, have to make good health decisions and sometimes there needs to be a circuit-breaker.
I also asked about re-assess timing on new policies – need to identify what matters most; we can’t deliver EVERY directorate’s priorities. Simone responded that legislation often is a driver for new policies. She indicated it was her job to put on the brakes; she said a staged approach is needed.

The Executive and I will continue this conversation so that we have clear and consistent actions forward.

Joanne Jarvis | Director School Leadership Institute

• Sees work of the Institute works hand in glove with the NSWPPA Professional Learning
• Vision / Mission – influence leaders in the system
• Professional Learning for Teacher Leaders/ Middle Leaders/ Senior Leaders/ Principals/ Directors Educational Leadership
• Staff Noticeboard for programs – Insights Series Matt Church & Andy Hargraves – 4 May 10-11:30 am
• Principal Leadership Framework resource will be released in Term 2
• Adaptive Leadership Paper to be included in Principal Leadership Framework release
• FASTstream 50 – 3 phases -> teaching & teacher leadership -> Middle Leadership -> Senior Leadership - Cohort 2 applications open 14 March (50) close 1 May … EOI for school open 2 May close 31 May
• Joanne Jarvis PODCAST series available in the intranet

Joanne has also supplied more information which has its own heading further down this What’s Hot Bulletin

Paul Wood | Executive Director Educational Standards and Megan Kelly | Acting Executive Director Curriculum Reform

• Outlined their roles and vision. Understand various contexts of schools develop curriculum and reform to make actual change. Improve effectiveness of teachers. Once in a generation opportunity.
• Support for curriculum reform – K-2 English and Mathematics resources and PL is available with more being released in 2022. Flexible, on demand resources.
  APCI support to strengthen practice.
• Develop further resources and PL as other syllabuses are released – learn from what we have already done.
• Curriculum Reform Communities (CRC) – support schools to enact curriculum reform. Place can come to share journeys, seek support and learn from others.
• NESA Teacher Expert Network – NESA version – test NESA materials, CRC DoE support implementation.
• Paul’s team - Literacy & Numeracy team, RAG, multicultural, distance ed, learning from home, financial literacy, COVID ILSP
• 5 Literacy & Numeracy priorities – see powerpoint in Delegates kit
• Whole school approach
• Focus on improving Lit and Num
• Effective Practice
• Data to drive learning
• Families supported as partners
• APCI – phase 1 & 2 70% of phase 1 filled, 50% phase 2 filled
• Paul wants to work with small schools to find ways forward. Testing a virtual delivery for schools that haven’t been able to fill.
• Assessment resources available from the DoE - See powerpoint
• COVID ILSP – March 2022 – 1432 schools spending money. 3241 staff recruited.
• $279m funded.
• 21 schools involved in external/online delivery largely remote & unable to attract staff
• Online delivery to support staffing issues due to COVID – Live Online Lessons – available.

Minister Sarah Mitchell | Minister for Early Childhood and Education

• Apologised for not being on site, but she has been visiting schools around Lismore and other flood areas.
• Praised Principals and staff in flood affected communities for their efforts.
• Looking how to get students back to learning. 70 demountables on their way.
• Some schools have alternate learning venues. Wellbeing support and emotional support for students and staff.
• Importance of schools in recovery.
• Not only schools lost but homes of staff

There were a number of questions from the floor sent to the Ministers Office – I will provide the responses as they come to hand.

Sue French | Principal in Residence | School Leadership Institute |School Workforce

• Wellbeing needs of principals project – grew from Bushfire Response.
• Realised that it needed to be differentiated for individual school/principal circumstances – unlike most other DoE initiatives.
• Frustrations/stresses of the role – e.g., lack of functional DoE search engine.
• Investigating use of the Principal Support funding – to safeguard its continuance.
• Conducting long term research into principal workload – collating existing findings to make it too powerful to be “overlooked” by the DoE. Includes principal involvement and will need more to tie it all together.
• Principal role – high levels of both job satisfaction and stress.
• Aim is to design and implement improvements to the interaction between principals and the DoE and work with all stakeholders to reduce unnecessary demands and improve sustainability for the principal role.
• Complex process – identifying what constitutes success is to be determined. It is anticipated that the “solution” will not be a simple checklist or similar.

Trisha Ladogna | Director Behaviour Strategy Inclusion and Wellbeing Directorate | Learning and Improvement Division

• Readiness Planning Support
  Achieving School excellence in wellbeing and inclusion
  Applying the Care Continuum
  Restrictive Practices Framework
  Tailoring health and wellbeing approaches at your school.
• Reviewing record keeping processes and updating if necessary to make sure that parent consent for the use of restrictive practices is documented end of term 3
• Update existing student plans where restrictive practices are used to comply with new framework policy end of term 3
• Develop new school behaviour policy ready to be implemented at the beginning of 2023
• There are 5 inclusive education coordinators for NSW- response that this is in addition to the 2000 already trained. These are not additional staff, they include existing LW staff eg HSLOs, LWOs etc
• What learnings can we take from suspension centres that can be shared? Surprise that primary schools do not have access to suspension centres
• In school suspensions have been removed from the document as a result of SPC & PPA feedback
• Co-commissioning with DCJ, Health, police etc
• MAPA- still available, has gone out to tender, nobody put in a tender so there is no new training available

From the floor:

• Can you stop a child from running on the road? Yes- sorry if we have given you the impression that this is not the case,
• Great need for specific examples and clarity around what is and is not restrictive practice, and duty of care- what is the line? We need to be clear on this as staff are worried and fearful about what they are able to do to keep kids safe.
• Can we have a list of what is a restrictive or prohibited practice? The current document has ambiguity
• There’s a restrictive practice checklist in the framework – if you check all those things off, then you are compliant
• You need to have a plan for a student, if it is an emergency it doesn’t fall into that category - legislation covers this
• Perception that IFS is dwindling, stats say that across the state it has increased. There is inconsistency across the state
• No plan to remove Support Classes or SSPs
• In terms of environmental restraints, SINSW and PEOs are responsible.
• Allied Health professionals are a key listed support for this new strategy. However, in areas outside of Sydney there are NO providers willing to service these areas despite being listed on the DoE website as doing exactly that. No provider will work face-to-face or even telehealth even though they identify that they will. After 2 years of constantly ringing everyone on the list I have given up. Is the DoE relying on these supports to make this strategy a success? (Danny Scott, President Queanbeyan PPC)

We want to support the process of implementation, but the supports external to the school and through the DoE are not in place. Eg Queanbeyan allied health professionals not reflective of actual availability