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- President’s Report:
- A message from Dr Adam Fraser | A champion of the NSWPPA
- FLOURISH Masterclass | SAVE THE DATE - Friday 29 July 2022
- The Anxiety Project | NSWPPA Initiative | Expression of Interest
- NAPLAN
- P&C Federation Centenary
- NSWPPA | Authority to travel
- Public Education Foundation Awards | Nominations are open
- NSW Anti Bullying Roundtable - hosted by Minister of Education Hon Sarah Mitchell
- Schools for Schools | Principals for Principals
- Term 2 NSWPPA | Reference Group, Standing Committee and Working Party Meetings
- School Excellence in Action | Update about stream of work
- NSW Secondary Principals’ Council Executive 2022-2024 | Election results
- Membership of the NSW Primary Principals’ Association:
- NSWPPA emails being sent to junk.
- NSWPPA State Conference for 2022 in the APPA Conference in Sydney:
- NSWPPA Professional Learning- Term 2 | PLO Margaret Charlton:
- Key Updates from the NSWPPA Executive:
- And finally…..
As we end Week 4, I acknowledge the wonderful teaching, learning and leading happening in your school. The challenges remain constant – the covid cycle, chronic staffing shortages, disruption of classes and programs and the churn of work that must be done. Yet, there IS much happening in schools that we need to catch and celebrate. How remarkable are your teams! ? ! ? Your leadership teams, teaching teams, support and administrative staff are doing an amazing job and YOU are leading from the front. Take time to acknowledge what you are collectively achieving each and every day. Celebrate your achievements with your communities too. Often, they just do not realise how much goes into the granular detail of the magic you weave in your schools.
Many PPC’s have started meeting face to face and the attendance at these meeting has been incredible. Such a cathartic voice of ‘how good is it to be back together – in person! For some of our newly appointed Principals it is the first time they are meeting colleagues in over two years. Face to face Professional Learning has recommenced too. The Executive and I have attended a number of PPC meeting and have many locked in for the remainder of the term. We are of course cognisant that as we head into the winter months, we may again need to adjust our sails. The forums – including State Council if deemed necessary due to COVID and influenza will go online or take a hybrid model where possible. We do however hope to be hosting State Council in Sydney in Week 7.
We remain aligned with community advice given by NSW Health and respond to school and community specific needs. The health and safety of all is a priority.
Over the past four weeks, I have had the absolute privilege to speak to and work with some of the most remarkable principals in our schools. Some celebrating good news stories and upcoming events, some giving their all on Reference Groups, Standing Committees and Working Parties offering their time and expertise to the Association, some speaking to me about their upcoming retirement, celebrating a career move and a new opportunity, some sharing the challenges they are facing in their schools and their communities. What I know for certain and time and time again I see it, hear it and feel it is that every Principal across NSW knows their purpose. They know their ‘why’ and they deliberately gather the right people and the right resources to get the job done. The Principalship of NSW is in the very best of hands - dedicated, articulate, measured and focused leaders.
Continue to focus on YOUR wellbeing colleagues – in modelling that daily you set your teams up to do the same. We have come this far together in the most disruptive time of our professional lives – we have a way to go. There are mountains to climb, rivers to cross and chasms to traverse…. And what we KNOW for certain is that TOGETHER we WILL.
Smile – here comes week 5!
FLOURISH Masterclass | SAVE THE DATE - Friday 29 July 2022
Mark this date in your calendar – July will be upon us before we know it. This opportunity will allow all who have previously FLOURISHED to revisit and ignite the practices we committed to during the professional learning. We will also have the opportunity to share the professional and personal growth you’ve had using the learning you’ve embedded into your work and home life.
The Anxiety Project | NSWPPA Initiative | Expression of Interest
NSWPPA Executive are proud of this project that has been in process for a number of years and NOW it is being released. The content of the program is simply brilliant in terms of meeting the needs of students in our schools. I want to share with you how it came about and the processes we have undertaken in order to get to this point releasing the Expressions of Interest.
Deputy President Rob Walker and Vice President Trish Peters have been instrumental in leading this initiative and it has been presented and discussed at many NSWPPA State Council meetings.
Where it started …
- An Australian Primary Principals’ Association (APPA) survey exposed the scale of damage principals felt anxiety was impacting on student learning outcomes.
- NSWPPA, through then President Phil Seymour, became aware of a child psychologist who had developed a professional learning program for those that worked in the area of student wellbeing (in and out of schools). The psychologist, Michael Hawton and the learning program was named ‘No Scaredy Cats’. Michael is the Director of Parentshop.
- Rob Walker to attend a single day training program with Michael Hawton to assess ‘where to from here’ addressing anxiety. Rob Walker presented options to the State Executive at the time and it was resolved the PPA would pursue the development of a professional learning program which addressed two things:
- Build the capacity of key people in a child’s life to
- identify anxious behaviours as they present in varying forms
- best respond to these behaviours so that, over time, the condition diminished and did not manifest for the child
The professional learning is provided for the Principal, an in-school implementation coach (a member of the school staff), teaching staff, SLSOs and parents.
The development of the project to the point it is today (released to the membership) has taken two and a half years. The PPA contribution has been driven largely by Rob Walker and Trish Peters and I. The State Executive have been kept informed through its development. Michael Hawton, Hayley Cravigan and Rob Steventon have been the major contributors from ParentShop. We have had contributions from CESE and from staff of the University of South Australia.
The Minister for Education has been kept informed of the development of the project as it has progressed as the NSWPPA continues to seek government funding for the broader implementation of the project. The Minister has also liaised with the Minister for Mental Health on the funding of the project. Unfortunately, at this stage this project has not been adopted so we decided we would initiate a pilot program – a user pay model.
The expressions of interest will be assessed against pre-determined criteria by members of The Anxiety Project Steering Committee which includes Rob Walker, Trish Peters and myself. The criteria relates to the school’s conviction to the eight commitments listed in the EOI. We will also be seeking to have a mix of profiles of schools (refer to the profile information collected in the EOI) so that the data collected exposes the effectiveness of the intervention in various setting in our schools.
EOIs close on May 23. Contact Rob, Trish or myself if you would like to discuss this opportunity further.
NAPLAN commenced last week in our schools – I extend my thanks to you and your coordinators and teachers in your schools for setting this assessment up for your Year 3 and Year 5 students. The adjustment and variation to routine at this time is stretched to say the least.
NAPLAN will be held in mid-March from 2023. Moving the test forward means this valuable data set will be available earlier in the year to inform teaching and learning programs and to give parents information about their child's performance earlier in the year.
Nationally, Education Ministers agree on these conditions.
- All results except for writing returned to jurisdictions within weeks
- in addition to the triennial program of sample assessments in science, civics and citizenship, and digital literacy, new assessments in these domains for Year 6 and Year 10 students will be available as opt-in assessments for all schools, starting with science in 2024
- results of opt-in assessments will be available to participating schools in order to support their teaching and learning programs, but will not be reported publicly
- from 2023, the existing NAP sample program will move from October to Term Two and will be undertaken at the same time as the opt-in assessments, allowing results from the opt-in tests to be compared against the national scale and results from the NAP Sample program.
New South Wales P&C Federation celebrates its centenary this year. It is timely to acknowledge the history and purpose of our P&C ‘s in our schools. Information about the celebrations has been distributed to all schools by P&C President |Natalie Walker and the P&C website is full of celebratory ideas.
It is timely for me to acknowledge the brilliant work our P&C executive and members do in our schools in both contributing to decision making, parent and carer voice, working in P&C run canteens and uniform shops, parent and carer led classroom support systems and the amazing and tireless work they do in fundraising for our schools. 100 years is something to celebrate.
NSWPPA State Executive, Chairpersons and members of Reference Groups, Standing Committees, Working Parties and PPC Presidents have received a copy the 2022 Authority to travel signed off by Murat Dizdar. This is required annually to attend meetings, forums, and State Council regarding the business of the Association. This Authority has also been sent to all DELs and ED’s. It is a matter of courtesy to ensure we inform our DEL’s when we are attending to the Association matters and le t them know who will be relieving for you on the day or during that period of time.
Public Education Foundation Awards | Nominations are open
Remarkable work is happening in each and every school every day.. NOMINATIONS are now open – this is an opportunity to show your appreciation and recognise one of your teachers, a member of your community, an SLSO, a member of your administrative staff or a school initiative involving your team.
The NSWPPA proudly contributes financially to these awards visit hubs.li/Q01b4QkM0 for details. Nominations close 8 June.
NSW Anti Bullying Roundtable - hosted by Minister of Education Hon Sarah Mitchell
Last week I had the privilege of attended the NSW Anti Bullying Roundtable hosted by NSW Education Minister Hon. Sarah Mitchell. The two hour forum was both informative and confronting. The focus being on prevention and early intervention to protect and strengthen the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people.
It is a collective responsibility of all key stakeholders – NSW Education, NSW Police, NSW Health, Digital industries, e-Safety Commission, Parent Councils, individual students, parents and communities.
The Australian e-Safety Commissioner | Julie Inman Grant spoke about the role of the e-Safety Commission. We are planning to invite her to the Term 3 State Council Meeting to share the important role the commission can play on keeping our students safe online.
The discussions and suggested actions discussed during this forum will be explored and revisited in the next state forum Education Minister Mitchell hosts.
This is a critical area to ensure the mental health and wellbeing of the children and young people of NSW is addressed at home and at school.
Members of the DOVES Student Council were an integral part of the forum. The five students in attendance were impressive. They had strong thoughts, recommendations, and actions forward.
Emma Mason – mother of Tilly Rosewarne showed the most remarkable courage in sharing their family’s story. Emma had a clear message of the actions required in order to change things for children and young people being bullied. Emma had recommendations for Education, Health, Law Enforcement and Legislation. Tilly’s story was on 60minutes on Sunday night.
Schools for Schools | Principals for Principals
It is about the connection and care I am hearing!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to EVERYONE INVOLVED. Such is this initiative, that the personal connection from Principal to Principal is very powerful. There is expression care, kindness and gratitude. So many wonderful stories are being shared. The money your communities have raised has been the difference for many of our schools, colleague principals, teachers, support staff, administrative staff, students and communities.
Never underestimate the power of kindness – there is no greater gift than expressing and showing care and empathy for others.
Thank you too to the schools who have been sharing their fundraising efforts through photos and videos. Keep on SHARING so I can celebrate with you and include them in upcoming What’s Hot editions.
Health and Safety provided me with the list of schools impacted – schools, staff, students, and community property. I’ve had a few emails and calls from some principals listed letting me know that their school /community wasn’t in fact impacted and we have quickly been able to reallocate donating schools to schools in need.
The humbleness and generosity of these principals has amazed me time and time again. The Principalship has so much to be proud of – connected and strong we are despite all that we are facing. Our colleagues in flood affected areas are a priority and proudly we stand with them on the long road to recovery.
Term 2 NSWPPA | Reference Group, Standing Committee and Working Party Meetings
The NSWPPA State Executive in their Liaison roles are currently meeting with Reference Group, Standing Committee and Working Party Chairpersons and members. These groups can be incredibly proud of the scope of work they are covering in an active and responsive manner. The rigour and detail in their work continues to be outstanding. Meeting with key DoE personnel is one component of these groups’ roles – the other is the action forward they take in ensuring their work positions Principals, teachers and schools focus on the right work.
Many of these groups are pivotal in providing feedback to relevant work currently on the schedule and that which is coming. The investment of time and commitment of all those involved is truly remarkable. The business of the Association is to support, empower, advocate and lead. The advocacy and commitment articulated and actioned to ensure the work of corporate is consulted and collaborated on, refined and fit for schools is ALWAYS the priority. The strength of some of the relationships these members demonstrate ensures the voice of the Association is heard. It must be said that there are times when what we are presented with is a government initiative or response or an initiative with a political shade. Focussing on the right work continues to be what we advocate for. We focus on the action forward and feedback to refine the policy or procedure.
Between these meetings, much work goes on. The work of these groups is to be acknowledged and celebrated. There are many occasions that consultations and collaborations have a quick turn around time and connecting groups together to gain depth of perspective remains a critical point. The work these groups do is about the depth of knowledge, influence, commitment and voice they have.
I feel really privileged to sit in and engage in the work of the Association with these groups. These groups are charged with the mechanics of how these portfolios and issues land in all our schools. Addressing issues that come from the 43 PPC’s are part of the work they do. The voices from the floor at State Council too is invaluable – our delegates are charged with bringing forward the voice of the Principalship.
It has never been more important for our Association to be ‘in the room’ and ‘at the table’ in every instance. The Executive and I are well positioned.
I extend the invitation again for all members to contact the Executive and I at anytime to discuss issues. At times, the issues are site specific and at other times we are hearing the same thing across the state. Please call or email – we are here to move your voice, ideas and concerns forward.
School Excellence in Action | Update about stream of work
SPC President Craig Petersen and I meet regularly with the SEiA team: Emma Kriketos, Daniel French and James Brigden. Please note the stream of work and support available to Principals and their Executive teams. In particular please note the availability of the PSL’s to work alongside you and with you.
I invited Emma, Daniel and James to provide this summary as this was the discussion in our meeting in week 3.
PSL Workstreams 2022
The Principals School Leadership are pivoting in the role after the deferment of External Validation until 2023. It is important at this critical time that we take the opportunity to work with our PSL colleagues to support our wellbeing by engaging them in coaching and shoulder to shoulder support in our schools for our complex issues and management of barriers to school improvement. In discussions with Emma Kriketos, Director Principal School Leadership and External Validation we will continue to work together to keep the focus on the workflow areas below:
- Wellbeing and coaching support
- Support and guidance of principals in the management of school level matters
- Shoulder to shoulder support to principals, executive and communities in completing Annual Reports within the timeframe (Term 2)
- Sustained ongoing evaluation of Strategic Improvement Plan (SIP)and Implementation and Progress Monitoring (Terms 3 & 4)
- Support corporate areas within the department to assist with program delivery
- Deployment of staffing support to schools – PSL support is prioritised for leadership positions and coordinated following the Guidelines for backfilling staff due to COVID-19 https://education.nsw.gov.au/inside-the-department/covid-19/vaccinations/guidelines-for-backfilling-staff-due-to-covid-19
Please reach out to the local network PSL here or email PSLCoord@det.nsw.edu.au to access these supports.
Universal Resources Hub now supporting schools
The Universal Resources Hub - a much-anticipated feature of the School Success Model – was launched earlier this year and has been visited by over 30,000 teachers and school leaders. The Universal Resources Hub has been designed to host high quality, evidence-based teaching and learning and school improvement resources in one easy to access place. The quality-assured resources are designed and developed to support student learning outcomes and school improvement across key areas of practice. The Universal Hub aims to help schools find the right resources, in identified priority areas, including Reading and Numeracy, Attendance, Financial Management, Curriculum, Inclusive Practice and School Excellence in Action. Resources will continue to be released each term. More information may be found here.
SPaRO Development Group
School Planning and Reporting Online software (SPaRO) is the digital platform for all aspects of school excellence, curriculum and policy monitoring and registration activities. A new pathway for communicating and analysing user feedback and experience of SPaRO has been established this year with the SPaRO development group. This group has broad representation of SPaRO users including PPA, SPC, NSWDPA and primary executive. Of course, all users can leave feedback at any time through the SPaRO email, sparo@det.nsw.edu.au . This group assists SPaRO to decide development priorities, understand user experience and analyse suggestions from schools. The group will report through association representatives on a regular basis.
Annual Report Support for Schools
A series of short MyPL drop-ins have been launched to assist principals and school teams with completing their annual reflection/ annual reports. The sessions are differentiated by subject with choices of time slots. Additional sessions will be added throughout the term while there is demand.
Course Title | Course code | Duration |
Reporting on needs-based funding in your Annual Report using SPaRO | NR34555 | 30m |
Completing evaluation of strategic directions in the Annual Report using SPaRO | NR34557 | 30m |
Annual Report Support Tool
As schools complete their Annual Report towards the end of Term 2, the Annual Report Support Tool will come in handy prior to publishing. It guides the writing, reviewing and development of the Annual Report. The tool is designed to support principals implement the relevant components and requirements of the School Excellence Policy. You can find the tool here.
NSW Secondary Principals’ Council Executive 2022-2024 | Election results
Join me in acknowledging the outstanding leadership of the 2020-2022 NSWSPC Executive and CONGRATULATE the newly elected SPC State Executive.
President | Craig Petersen
Deputy Presidents | Ann Caro | Christine Del Gallo | Denise Lofts
Treasurer | Mark McConville
Executive | Kylie Adams |Tracey Breese | Kyle Bryant | Kim Chapman | Charles Gauci | Kylie Hedger | Tim Lloyd | Cassy Norris | Michael Smith | Greg Wilson | Michael Rathborne ( continues as Central School Representative 2021-2023 ).
Membership of the NSW Primary Principals’ Association:
We have welcomed many newly appointed Principals to the Principalship. I encourage PPC Presidents and Delegates to follow up with new and relieving Principals to join the Association using the salary deduction form. The business of the Association is reported by Delegates at local PPC meetings. The voice of the Principalship is put forward by the PPC Delegates and taken to the appropriate DoE personnel.
NSWPPA emails being sent to junk.
It seems that a number of emails coming from the NSWPPA are going to your junk email boxes. We are working with the department on this however it is a good idea to check your junk emails and put the following domains on your safe senders list.
@schoolzineplus.com (noreply@schoolzine.com and nswppa@schoolzine.com)
@nswppa.org.au (admin@nswppa.org.au)
@cvent.com (this is the email domain for our Professional learning bookings)
This should mean that your NSWPPA emails will land in your inbox. If you have your focused and other inboxes on they will probably then go to you others.
For more information on your inboxes and safe senders you can find it on the department’s email personalisation page.
NSWPPA State Conference for 2022 in the APPA Conference in Sydney:
SAVE THE DATE IN YOUR CALENDAR NOW:
Term 4 Week 4
Tuesday 1 November pm registration and networking event | Wednesday 2 November |Thursday 3 November | Friday 4 November at the Sofitel Wentworth Sydney.
Details will be forthcoming soon regarding speaking program. You will need to be ready to register for this as this conference is open to government principals across Australia.
NSWPPA Professional Learning- Term 2 | PLO Margaret Charlton:
Building leadership effectiveness in 2022
The NSWPPA leadership programs have been highly successful in enhancing the capacity of school leaders across our schools. We continue to offer a mix of face to face and online programs for Term 2.
Please support your NSWPPA professional learning opportunities.
Founded on the Australian Professional Standard for Principals and focused on learning excellence for students, teachers and school leaders.
NSWPPA Principal Credential Program 2022-2023
Audience: Principals, experienced APs and DPs, school leadership teams
Duration: 3 x 2-day seminars plus facilitated collegial learning over 18 months
Accreditation: Pathway to 50% Masters of Education (Educational Leadership), University of Wollongong
Expressions of interest are currently being taken for this key leadership development program. In its ninth year this program has contributed significantly to building key leadership competencies for Principals and experienced executive.
The Principal Credential provides a substantial pathway of learning for school leadership. This program enables leaders to focus their influence and their learning on the core business of teaching and learning to have the greatest influence on student learning outcomes. Within the program, formal learning is provided through a series of seminars that enable access to international best practice, educational research and thinking. The key learning within the program is led by Ann McIntyre. The program also includes facilitated collegial learning and focused individual learning with an experienced principal coach. Successful participants will receive a pathway for 50% of a Masters of Educational Leadership at Wollongong University.
Information and an expression of interest for the next program for 2022 is available through the information flyer.
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Audience: Principals, school executive, school leadership teams
Delivered online and face to face.
No matter how competent a person is, he or she will not have sustained and lasting success unless they are able to effectively lead themselves, influence, engage and collaborate with others, and continually improve and renew their capabilities. These elements are at the heart of personal, team, and organisational effectiveness. The 7 Habits will enable you to intentionally align values, behaviours, norms and systems toward a central strategy where culture becomes a force to drive results. You will learn how to grasp the 7 Habits as a powerful tool for creating a great culture and model and reinforce the 7 Habits to create an operating system for effectiveness in your teams and school.
Leading at the Speed of Trust
Audience: Principals, school executive, school leadership teams
Delivered online and face to face.
When trust is low, suspicion is high, and communication is guarded. With high trust, communication, creativity, and engagement improve. Trust is one of the most important aspects in today’s school environment and like any other discipline, creating trust is a learnable skill. With increased trust our attention is redirected towards improving student learning outcomes. Leading at the Speed of Trust will provide the mindset, skillset, and toolset that will measurably increase a participant’s ability to deliver results in a way that inspires trust.
The Middle Leadership Imperative
Audience: Assistant Principals
Duration: 4 days - 2 x 2-day seminars delivered over 2 terms
The role of the middle leader has become increasingly important to the work of schools through increased accountability and responsibility of principals (Dinham 2016). This course will empower middle leaders through a practical understanding of the environmental and personal inputs into middle leadership, the key roles middle leaders play and the potential impact in relation to teachers and students. The program addresses three key themes:
Middle Leading - Leadership structure, role of the middle leader; interdependent skills of leading and managing; leadership qualities and character strengths
Collaborative professionalism - leading a team, communicating effectively, managing difficult conversations, importance of relationships and building trust, and feedback
Ideas in action – Narrowing the focus on improved student learning outcomes, how to lead for improved practice.
Please contact Margaret Charlton if you wish to run this program locally.
Please Note: Program invoices
Currently all program invoices from our Cvent registration system are being filtered by the DoE to junk emails. Please check there for your invoice when registering. Please enable emails from Cvent to come to your DoE email account.
For more information please contact:
Margaret Charlton
Professional Learning Officer
Mob: 0408 905 051
mcharlton@nswppa.org.au
Key Updates from the NSWPPA Executive:
NSWPPA Awards 2022 | Vice President Jude Hayman
Every year we have the honour to recognise the work of our colleagues through the nomination and selection of recipients of the following awards which are presented to the successful recipients at the NSWPPA State Conference.
Awards are
LIFE MEMBERSHIP or FELLOWSHIP
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD
PROFESSIONAL AWARD
ABORIGINAL EDUCATION AWARD
SOCIAL JUSTICE / EQUITY AWARD
Please see the attached document for nomination criteria and submission information
The HPGE Professional Learning Resource Hub is Live! | Vice President Norma Petrocco:
The HPGE Professional Learning and Resource Hub (HPGE Hub) will support you as a teacher or school leader to more effectively implement the High Potential and Gifted Education (HPGE) Policy.
The HPGE Hub is a central location for HPGE professional learning (PL) and resources.
In the Hub you will find:
- Tier 1 PL orientation to policy courses
- New tier 2 PL courses on finding high potential in all 4 domains and talent development
- Acceleration support package
- Differentiation support package
- Action research resource
- Domain specific discussion papers
- DEL/PSL package update
For more information about the HPGE Hub contact hpge@det.nsw.edu.au
Duty of Care – Paid Programs | Secretary Greg McLaren
Duty of Care - Supervision esp. Third Party/Contractors
(incl. ‘Paid Programs’ for PDHPE, Creative Arts and school camps etc)
This article relates to using thirty party/contractors to supervise students without a Department employed teacher present. The advice I have consistently provided to Principals when asked about this type of circumstance is that it should not be done.
The Department’s duty of care to its students is non-delegable. The Department (or its Principal representative) cannot contract out of that duty by relying on a third party/contractor.
Clearly, the Secretary cannot be present at 2200 schools every day.
Instead, the Secretary has established a system and procedures whereby Principals and teachers (and some other employees in some circumstances) are responsible for exercising the duty of care, on behalf of the Secretary on a day-to-day basis. Note the arrangements are for the supervision of students to be performed by employees of the Department and not contractors.
The Department fought a massive industrial fight in the mid-1990s to ensure that the supervision of students (before and after school) was regarded as within the scope of the duties of teachers.
Supervising students is an important part of what our teachers do every day. It is part of the scope of work of teachers, especially in a primary school setting.
The expectation of parents is that their child will be supervised by an employee of the Department (typically a teacher or school leader) from the moment the student enters the school premises until the student leaves the school premises to commence his or her journey home. We endorse that expectation, and we remind parents that supervision is provided at school by teachers, commencing 30 minutes before the start of the school day.
Under the NSW Work Health and Safety Act 2011, the Department must do everything reasonably practicable to ensure that students are not exposed to risks to their health or safety while they are at school. Under the Common Law, the Department and its staff have a duty to take reasonable care to keep students safe.
Paid Programs Consideration
Scenarios for “paid programs”. While this could have a wide range of meanings, you might consider two examples. One being specialised sporting/PDHPE work (eg a hypothetical “Ellyse Perry Cricket Academy”) and the other a specialised Drama/ Music program.
Under the scenarios described, the work is required to be delivered under the supervision of a teacher. The contractors, no matter their qualifications and expertise, are NOT employees of the Department (or are not employees of the Department on that day). The duty of care is required to be exercised by employees of the Department who are subject to the direction, control and supervision of the Principal.
It seems that the correct characterisation of what is happening is that it would be in ‘school language’ as an incursion - that is the students are on the school site between 9.00 am and around 3.00 pm, and that the Principal must arrange for supervision of the students (and their learning) by a person or persons who is a qualified teacher and is on that day employed by the Department to work at that school.
We know that:
“Particular care should be taken where casual staff attend and/or replace regular staff members on excursions. Among other things, they must be briefed about any student with particular health care needs and the role they may have in supporting those needs. They must also be briefed on any student who is the subject of a risk management plan and should complete any relevant training, including the department’s annual child protection training, e-Emergency care training and anaphylaxis training prior to participation in a school excursion.”
How much more that risk would be if a mere contractor was the only person providing the supervision instead of a casual teacher?
Students (and their parents) are entitled to have the student’s health information and personal information kept confidential. The Department is entitled to “use” that information, by providing it to an employee who has a need to know that information in order to perform his or her duties and to support the child in his or her education.
Generally, a school is not permitted to “disclose” a student’s personal or health information to a third party (contractor). For this reason alone it is difficult to see how a Principal could ensure adequate supervision was provided to student, where the contractor is not aware of relevant information/risk factors about individual students. This approach would not be “putting the student at the centre of everything we do.”
In the event of an incident, student injury or death during the activity, the question of supervision will be at the forefront, both for the Department’s reputation and in relation to legal liability. This could easily be found by a Court to be a negligent failure by the Department to provide any supervision, rather than providing some supervision which in hindsight turned out to be insufficient.
Teacher Accreditation
If the person performing the work for the contractor does not hold Teacher accreditation by NESA, then both the Department and the person would, on the face of the matter, be committing a criminal offence. A Principal who permitted that arrangement would, in effect, be conspiring with the contractor to commit a criminal offence.
Child Protection
The scenario raises for me two insurmountable child protection issues:
- How is the Department providing a system of supervision to prevent the contractor from engaging in reportable conduct or other actions towards that would be in breach of the Code of Conduct?
- How is the Department satisfied that a student who discloses a risk of serious harm to the contractor will have the same support that would be available if the student had made the same disclosure to an employee?
Excursions and School Camps
Please note for all excursions and school camps that occur outside school grounds and often outside school hours, the duty of care still applies to those activities, including travel to and from a venue.
Industrial issues
Extending to the above scenarios, if the SLSOs are left on class while the teacher is taken off duty. That approach would be ripe for industrial disputation and on one view would under the Department’s procedures require the SLSO to make a mandatory notification against the teacher [and Principal] for leaving students unsupervised.
Therefore in conclusion, in my view, it is irrelevant whether or not the contractor has a departmental approval to teach because they are not being engaged as a teacher by the Department [on the particular day the person is entering the school site to deliver services, rather than perform duties as an employee]. They are a contractor engaged by a third-party provider and the duty of care owed by the Department cannot be delegated to a contractor.
“If someone is employed by the Department, not engaged as a contractor by a third party, they are paid as a casual teacher via the SAP payroll and exercise the same duty of care as any other casual teacher. However, these people are not engaged as casual teachers, not paid the same rate and cannot be delegated a duty of care.”
Personal Liability of Employees
On a less scary note, generally teachers and Principals are not personally liable for loss or damages claimed by a third party (student) for injures arising from the performance of the employee’s duties.
As abovementioned the Department’s duty of care and documented procedures require students to be supervised by teachers (or other suitable member of staff), if a student is injured by a contractor because the Principal ‘wilfully’ decided to provide no teacher supervision to the class, then the usual indemnity by the employer might not apply. The principal may be personally liable for any loss or injury that a student or students experience.
This article was put together with the assistance of Legal Services and Industrial Relations personnel. Also sourced was NSW Legislation, DoE PES: Code of Conduct, DoE School Leadership Institute resource: Duty of Care to Students, & DoE Legal Services: Duty of Care (and behaviour management)
On behalf of the NSWPPA Executive - Rob Walker, Bob Willetts, Michael Burgess, Jude Hayman, Trish Peters, Norma Petrocco, Michael Trist, Stuart Wylie, Greg McLaren, Gregory Grinham, Mark Pritchard, Lisa Beare and Margaret Charlton, I thank you for the work you are doing in your schools each and every day. We are continuing to face the daily challenge of COVID and the challenges of staffing our schools. Our challenge is to keep in the forefront of our minds what matters most. Narrow your focus – sharpen your measure and catch those bright spots each and every day. YOU MATTER and YOU continue to be the difference in your school.
Have a fabulous week everyone!
Robyn
Robyn Evans
NSWPPA President