Principal's Update - 4 July 2019
Ka puta Matariki, ka rere Whānui. Ko to tohu tēnā o te tau e! Matariki re-appears, Whānui starts its flight. Being the sign of the new year!
Kia ora e te whanau
Well Term 2 is done and dusted, how quickly the time went by! We managed to squeeze a lot into the ten weeks, with excellent team learning programmes, whole school events, class trips, performances and many winter sports activities. My grateful thanks to our teachers for all your hard work this term, especially with the changes we have been making with our assessment and reporting via LINC-ED. I hope you all take a well-earned break.
Many thanks to all parents who have participated in the learning conferences this week. I hope you found them worthwhile - being in the middle of the changeover to LINC-ED has made the reporting side of things a wee bit of an adjustment this time round. Our children are getting to grips with it too.
You may be aware by now that principals, who are members of NZEI, have voted to reject their latest collective agreement offer. Teachers have voted to accept their offer and settle their agreement.
Whilst the primary teachers were successful in obtaining pay parity with their secondary colleagues, that was not the case for the primary principals. The offer to the primary principals was unchanged from the first round of negotiations.
Principals have repeatedly said that the status of the profession must be lifted if we are to attract quality senior teachers into school leadership positions and have a sustainable work force for the future. That means reduced workload, reduced working hours and reduced stress. It means addressing learning support with workable solutions, increasing access to specialist support and increasing pay for principals.
The Minister has said that there will not be any more money for principals in this round. It is our hope that there will be movement on this issue quickly and the Minister will address the issue of parity for principals as he has for teachers.
Have a wonderful, safe and relaxing school holiday break, I hope we get some fine weather over the two weeks.
"The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit."
Hei konā mai
Kim Alexander
Principal, Tumuaki