Appendix 1 NZ Post Primary Teachers’ Association initial Proposal

June 2000 - A paper presented to the Minister’s School Staffing Review Group by the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers’ Association.

Staffing changes should recognise

• The inadequacy of the administration time provided to schools for the administrative and management requirements of the secondary curriculum and assessment and qualifications requirements.
• The guidance and pastoral time which is actually used in schools, and the need for further time, particularly in the lower decile schools.
• The curriculum width and depth pressures created in secondary schools over the last decade.
• The problems of teacher work overlaid in the secondary and area system, particularly in relation to workload controls, overseas staffing levels,
• A range of components of different magnitudes to allow a combination of phased changes over time.
• There have been three distinct staffing changes that have adversely affected the ability of the secondary teaching force to maintain high delivery standards:
• The changes contained within the 1991 Budget, which cut several hundred secondary staffing positions from schools in 1992.
• The introduction of MRG in 1996, which again cut staffing from smaller secondary and area schools.  Among the most severely affected were the form 1 to 7 schools which were affected by the cuts in the form 1 and 2 schedules as well as changes to other areas of the staffing formula common to all secondary schools.
• The implementation of Special Education 2000 which removed entitlement staffing from many special education magnet schools and converted much of it into RTLB time.
• These staffing cuts reduced the number of teachers available, the demands on schools mounted through increased:
• administrative demands on, and the management complexity of, secondary schools
• levels of social disadvantage which have intensified the pastoral and guidance demands among adolescent secondary students
• range of student abilities and greater senior retention
• careers and vocational demands placed upon schools in a less secure employment market for students
• demands for wider curriculum in schools, especially at the senior secondary level
• class size at junior level and the increased class contact required of teachers to maintain curriculum width
• curriculum complexity at all levels in secondary schools
• assessment for qualification demands made upon secondary teachers
• demands for social education programmes – eg, sexuality education, and
• enforced and inadequately resourced mainstreaming of special needs students.

Results of the under-staffing in secondary and area schools

The inadequacy of the staffing provision for secondary and area schools has been a prime cause of:

• excessive workloads of teachers
• poor recruitment and retention for secondary teachers within New Zealand
• reticulation problems
• undermining of the curriculum delivery in the classroom
• reduced participation of staff in extracurricular
• reduced participation of teachers in professional development
• decline in the provision of guidance and counselling to secondary students generally
• increased class sizes.

Curriculum pressures

There has been a significant demand for additional courses offered in the senior secondary area.  Partly this is a result of the increased number and range of students who are staying on at the senior level, partly it is a consequence of competition between schools, and partly it is an outcome of changing employment and post-compulsory education factors.

The demand in secondary schools for specialist education requires subject specialists to teach, complex timetables, and complicated administration and management structures.  It creates pressure for numerous small classes at senior level.   The curriculum objectives and the achievement objectives in secondary schools are complex. This can be exacerbated by demands on secondary teachers to display deep curriculum, assessment and subject mastery across two subjects.

Mechanisms that deliver staffing to secondary schools must recognise the particular impacts that specialist-subject delivery place on secondary schools, especially at the senior level.

Provision of relatively few teaching staff removes the breadth of specialist skills that can be offered by a secondary school. This in turn impacts on the availability of subjects, the workload of its teachers and the viability of the school.

Class size

Large classes pose greater workload pressures in terms of:

• assessment for qualifications
• demands in class time for individual attention which have risen as social and behavioural problems have intensified among our teenagers in the last decade, and
• students pursuing individualised learning programmes, research or topics. 

This latter issue has become more of a problem under the curriculum guidelines where student-centred, self-directed research activities are given greater prominence.

The average year 9 and 10 science class size in secondary schools in 1997 was 25.9.  In simple terms, even assuming there are no introduction, closing summaries or class or group activities, this represents an average of 2.3 minutes of teacher time per student in each one-hour period.  In practical terms it is 1.5 minutes per student in a class of this size.  Classes can range to over 35 students.

The average year 11 to 13 science class size was 19.

To a large degree the students per teacher ratio determines class size.  Class size is also dependent on the curriculum width in the school.  Many large classes are generated, particularly at junior level, to provide the staffing to offer more senior courses, or to maintain the senior option choices.  This compromise can lead to both high contact levels and large contact numbers in many schools.  It also reduces the potential number of options in the junior school.

Management and administration

The point has been made that the administrative and management demands in secondary schools are complex and have increased substantially in the last decade.  The notional time allocation for these tasks bears no resemblance to school needs.

A school of 540 receives about 3 FTTE for management.  One of these is the principal and the remaining two are theoretically distributed across the other management components of the school – Deputy Principal (DP), Assistant Principal (AP), Heads of Department etc.  Even if the DP and AP teach a high load of half a timetable each there are only 25 hours per week left for all remaining administration time in the school.  

A school of 340 students has an administration time of 1.8 FTTE.  All of this could be consumed by the top three positions.

At 110 students a school may have only 0.8 FTTE management staffing – which isn’t even enough for the principal.  Small secondary and area schools often have teaching principals because of insufficient staffing resources to cover basic curriculum demands in the school.

Management staffing allocations do not reflect the management and administration demands in secondary schools.  Staffing for this time is taken from the curriculum staffing.  In effect, because the curriculum staffing allocation is also inadequate for the demands placed upon the timetable the management time required to complete tasks is transferred from the school day to out of school time.

Pastoral and guidance

There was a guidance component in the pre-MRG staffing delivery mechanism to secondary schools.  Schools were required to provide guidance time.  The inclusion of guidance time in an inadequate curriculum component under MRG, and rising pressures on administration time requirements and curriculum delivery has meant this time has been eroded.

Not only are we faced with pressures to transfer guidance time into administration and curriculum but also schools are facing greater demands on the guidance professionals.  This demand arises not only from a significant increase in social and emotional problems in the adolescent student population, but also there is increasing demand from:

• the much larger senior component of the school, which adds to the counselling role involving the increasingly complex problems of the young adolescent, as well as the particular problems of the young adults at the senior end of the school
• teachers for guidance and counselling through stress and its related problems.

Career counselling is also placed under pressure within the modern secondary school.  The requirements imposed on the career counsellor are more complex in an environment of higher unemployment.  These are higher still in schools serving low decile communities and areas with poor employment prospects for senior students.  In a number of schools the guidance-transition-careers counselling role is often combined.  While partly this is a logical integration of roles in many instances, it is also an outcome of insufficient staffing resource to allow appropriate time to be given within the school to each of these rather different guidance and counselling roles.

The Association notes that schools are required to provide appropriate guidance and counselling, but there is no targeted staffing for this purpose. In falling roll situations, schools are now pushed into reducing guidance and counselling time to protect curriculum delivery.  At the same time many schools have reduced the time available to their guidance teachers for guidance and counselling work which has increased the need for such teachers.

We also note that the demands on guidance and counselling teachers vary with the size, ethnic composition and decile of the school.

Maori students and teachers

Much of the recent research into the impacts of Tomorrow’s Schools indicates that the gaps between Mäori and non- Mäori students in educational achievement have been exacerbated by the changes of the past decade.  To some degree this is a consequence of the tendency for Mäori students to be concentrated into small schools and in low decile schools.  Addressing Mäori student needs will partly depend on resolving the staffing problems of the schools in which they are most significantly represented. 

High drop out rates and high suspension and expulsion rates reflect the need among our Mäori students for high levels of additional guidance and support within our schools.  In addition Mäori face relatively low academic achievement levels.  There is strong evidence that small classes assist with the academic success of students from low socio-economic backgrounds.  However, there is insufficient staffing in our secondary and area schools to meet either one of these additional needs.

Mäori teachers have particularly high workload pressures associated with the high level of pastoral and community responsibility placed upon them. This leads to high turnover rates among our Mäori teachers and creates greater difficulty in achieving adequate Mäori representation in the teaching force. It also reduces the total number of successful in-school role models for Mäori students.

General changes required

The MRG formula in its current form needs to be replaced with a mechanism which delivers staffing to secondary schools in a way that recognises their curriculum, qualification, administrative and pastoral needs.

A new staffing delivery mechanism must recognise the real-world needs of secondary and area schools and their students.  The age and educational level of the secondary student creates significant demands in curriculum breadth, the social, pastoral and guidance needs of adolescents, and the careers and in qualification needs of young adults facing work or further education.

Staffing quantum

Teachers have sought increased staffing to alleviate extreme workloads and contract controls to regulate time spent in student contact to maximise the quality and quantity of the time they have to spend on their lesson preparation and assessment duties.  

There needs to be significantly more teachers in the secondary and area school system to resolve the inadequacy of staffing levels and the workload and recruitment/retention problems faced by the sector.  We believe it requires an input of 1,800 FTTE to achieve suitable class sizes and administration time to address workload problems and a further 3,500 FTTE (in addition to roll-growth generated staffing increases) to begin to make significant headway in improving student outcomes.

Priorities

All secondary and area schools require more staffing to meet the curriculum, management and pastoral demands of the real school in the 21st Century.

We are well aware that there are other areas that can assist in improving student performance and relieving the significant burden of work-overload facing our teachers.  However, these can only supplement and not replace the need for more teachers in schools.

Secondary teachers identified the priority areas for phased improvements as small secondary and area schools and low decile secondary and area schools.

Supply issues

The internal supply situation for secondary teachers has been damaged by the neglect and under-resourcing of the secondary education sector by previous administrations and we are accepting phased improvements. 

The particular difficulty of supplying trained and qualified Mäori teachers is also acknowledged.  It is particularly important therefore that there is a strong indication to existing Mäori teachers that their workload pressures will lighten in the foreseeable future to limit the loss rate from that group of teachers.

Our belief is that the recruitment and retention problems will require a phasing which indicates that staffing problems are to be quickly resolved.  This will slow the loss of teachers from the system, persuade teachers who have left the profession reluctantly to return to the classroom, and encourage potential teacher trainees to consider the profession.  In addition, teachers who have moved from full-time teaching to part-time hours because of excessive workloads would be encouraged to return to full-time teaching with manageable class contact.

It may still be that in the short term, increased staffing levels are matched by an increase in unfilled positions.  The Association is prepared to assist with the management of this.  We believe, however, that it is crucial to create additional places as soon as possible.

Proposals

• An early change to the base curriculum staffing levels
• Implementation of a moderate Ongoing Resourcing Scheme or Special Education unit staffing component
• A base guidance component
• A decile weighted guidance component
• Improved staffing for management by the inclusion of a base component
• Improved curriculum ratios
• Curriculum guarantee staffing.

These can be illustrated in the following table.