This is personal message from your children's teachers and principal. As teachers we love what we do, but not enough funding for schools means that we don’t have the time we would like to support all kids to thrive. There is an increase in demand for additional learning support and we see too many kids missing out. We can fix this though, and we’d love your support to do this together.

 NZEI Te Riu Roa primary teacher and principal members are campaigning to ensure our primary schools and kura have the staffing needed to enable all tamariki to reach their potential. Smaller class sizes, more time for individual students and more specialist learning support staffing would make a huge difference.

As a first step, we need Government on board to increase funding for staffing of primary schools to a level that’s comparable to secondary schools. This table from the Tomorrow’s Schools Independent Taskforce Report (2019) shows the disparity in funding, and we've added what fairer funding would look like for our school.

• If primary schools were funded equivalent to secondary schools PPS could potentially have 4 extra full time teachers.

• If primary schools were funded equivalent to secondary schools PPS teachers could potentially earn a share of $83,250 through additional roles that would improve student experiences and outcomes. E.g. sports groups, drama groups, music groups etc.

As a staff we were shocked to learn of the disparity between primary class sizes and secondary class sizes.  This has a huge impact on the amount of individual time that your child receives from their teacher.  We do not understand why 8-12 year olds are in classes with higher ratios than secondary students who would presumably be more independent learners. The table below shows the teacher to student ratio at each year level.

We are also frustrated with the discrepancies in Classroom Release Time.  If you’re a teacher you’re entitled to Classroom Release Time (CRT) each term to do other work such as:

• planning
• evaluation
• reporting
• assessment
• attending to the pastoral needs of students
• personal professional development
• research
• syndicate meetings

Primary teachers are entitled to 10 hours of classroom release time each term. This equates to one hour per week per teacher. 

Secondary teachers however, are entitled to at least five hours a week of non-contact time. 

Ways you can support us:

• Share this information with others
• Write an email to the minister of education at https://www.facebook.com/EducationGovtNZ/
• Support us on Strike day Thursday 16th March