Professional learning days for isolated area schools

Guidelines for the use of the three funded additional professional learning days in isolated area schools

The provision:

The 2007 settlement of the Area School Teachers’ Collective Agreement provided that from 2009, each area school deemed isolated, shall receive funding for three days each year for professional learning per school, for the purpose of enabling permanent and long term relieving teachers to visit other schools for professional learning.

This provision is by way of providing three additional teacher relief days per year to each eligible school, upon application by the school. The list of eligible schools is available below. This relief shall be used to cover for one or more teachers’ absence due to visiting another school for the purpose of engaging in professional learning. No other expenses are met by the Ministry of Education for this purpose. Other costs will be a matter for consideration within a school by its board.

The purpose:

This provision of three days per school for professional learning is separate to any other provision for professional learning that a school may already provide from its own professional learning budget. The intention of introducing these days was to:

• support, enable and encourage visiting of teachers between schools for professional learning, for example, the exchange of professional ideas, learning and activities, and;
• assist in addressing particular issues of the more isolated area schools in New Zealand in relation to opportunities to interact with teachers in other schools.

The process of allocation in a school:

The 2007 settlement requires that there is consultation between the employers and teachers on the process for allocation of these three professional learning days per school. This means that there should be an open and timely process for teachers to have input into how the days will be used.

Schools must consult with teachers when developing their own policy about how this allocation is made prior to actually making the allocation. Some possible options for this might be:

• Where there is already teacher representation and input, eg through a professional development committee, then this additional allocation may be made through this existing committee;
• A specific professional learning committee/group is set up with teacher representation, whose tasks include both the development of policy for allocation and the actual allocation process itself;
• Senior management invites teacher representation into specific discussions and processes around development of policy and allocation of these professional learning days.

The application for teacher relief for professional learning days:

Please complete the application form for professional learning days funding, which can be found below and send by fax to the Ministry of Education Industrial Relations Unit on 04 463 8159 or post it to the Ministry of Education Industrial Relations Unit, PO Box 1666, Wellington.

As part of the application, each school must outline the planned activities for the professional learning days, and the expected benefits to the teacher(s) and school.  This is important for the purposes of Ministry record keeping; no relief teacher funding will be supplied if the application form is incomplete.

The school may apply for the entire amount at once, or in up to three separate allocations.

Consultation

For the purposes of these guidelines, reference can be made to the interpretation of what constitutes consultation as stated by Goddard CJ in Communication and Energy Workers Union v Telecom NZ Ltd [1993].