Amesbury Digest - 13th February 2023

Tēnā koutou,

Last week we sent out an article about the required union meetings for teachers coming up in several weeks, and I said I would communicate with our community about the key issues teachers are fighting for. The teachers’ Collective Agreement is currently being re-negotiated. With the current offer several smaller changes have been made, including a small pay increase and an increase to the amount of release time primary teachers are given for planning and professional development. However, in the current offer to teachers there are a number of issues that have not been addressed at all, with a key one being the staffing ratios (class sizes) for primary schools.

Schools are staffed on a set ratio, with schools being funded for a certain number of teachers depending on the age of the child or young person. The staffing ratios are necessarily smaller with our youngest children, and they are also smaller with our older learners. The highest ratio throughout the education spectrum is the ratio of children to teacher for tamariki in years 4-8, where schools are staffed on one teacher per 29 children. This link shows the current staffing ratios for learners from year 1 up to year 13 (scroll down the page a little) and makes for very interesting (and frustrating) reading from a primary school perspective.

In 2021 an independent report was commissioned by NZEI to examine the concerns and impacts of primary school staffing. The report can be found here, and its findings are very clear and entirely unsurprising.

“Many of the current staffing entitlement settings have been in place since they were introduced in 1996. The changes to teaching and leadership have been huge. Societal change has been dramatic. Classrooms look very different.”

“In today’s schools, teachers and principals know that in the 21st century every learner must acquire the knowledge, skills and dispositions they will need for life-long learning in a rapidly changing knowledge-based society. In order for that to happen, schools must be fit for purpose. Staffing is critical to their success.”

Increased diversity, more students living in hardship, and increased additional and complex learning needs were just several of the widespread changes noted in the report that impact the needs and outcomes for our tamariki and rangatahi. The report made a number of recommendations if schools are to be able to effectively meet the needs of our learners. One of the recommendations was that “significant staffing changes are needed in primary schools and kura. Small modifications to the system will not suffice.” Their advice was to implement changes to staffing ratios in primary schools in three stages, with the key focus being to significantly reduce ratios for children in years 2-8 over time, reaching a ratio of 1:20 for year 2-3 tamariki, and 1:23 for year 4-8 tamariki.

This is one of the key issues our teachers are currently fighting for. The renegotiation of the staffing contract does not offer any changes to staffing ratios in primary schools, and they are not offered in the Primary Principals renegotiations, either. These upcoming union meetings are an important part of this renegotiation, and we strongly support our kaiako in attending these meetings and standing up for the needs of our tamariki.

We will keep you updated with the progress of the negotiations.

Ngā mihi nui, 

Urs Cunningham