Preparations for the 2014 Moot were shaped by a on the policy. It was therefore not surprising that a significant backdrop of growing disquiet over the Prime Minister’s ‘Investing contingent of 140 provincial principal leaders assembled in for Educational Success’ (IES) policy announcement. The IES Wellington this March. policy challenged the profession to choose collaboration over The Moot, or day of discussion and debate provided a jam competition. That seemed an innocuous enough proposition for a packed programme heavily weighted in favour of political profession steeped in collaborative practices and the government debate, especially about the IES. Beginning with the President’s investment to encourage more of it was initially applauded. What speech the programme included the Minister of Education, was not so straightforward was that this collaboration would be Hekia Parata, Secretary for Education, Peter Hughes, and in the situated within a framework of clustering schools under what afternoon an ‘on the couch session’ chaired by retiring principal the Prime Minister called ‘Executive Principals’, selected for Geoff Lovegrove from Feilding, which featured representatives their expert skills and who would be paid $40,000 in addition from all the major political parties. to their ordinary principal’s salary. There would be 250 of them In between, the Te Akatea President Peter Witana and Pasifika and they would leave their own schools for two days a week to spokesperson Faatili Iosua Esera updated us on issues of lead these clusters of about ten schools each, although being in concern to them. Phil O’Reilly from the Employers’ Federation a cluster would remain voluntary, at least initially. Beyond the gave us a run down on his expectations of schools, including executive principals would be expert and lead teachers who that they develop good citizens who are problem solvers and would also be paid additional money ($20,000 and $10,000 each critical thinkers, who are resilient and persistent, who tell the respectively) to share their expertise with other teachers and truth, turn up on time and can work in a team. Kids with these there could be as many as 6,000 of them. ‘Change principals’, attributes, we were told, would be work ready. He showed less about twenty in number, would be paid an additional $50,000 as interest in schools focusing on any skill set beyond a good an incentive to take on the most troubled schools and transform grounding in the basics because skills, he told his audience, can them. Further, an innovation fund of $10m would be available be trained. Cathy Wylie of NZCER told us of the current state for professional development. of schools’ health. Her research The goal of this policy was Collaboration is trusting that showed that principals are expressed very clearly as lifting stretched too thinly. Whilst student achievement especially better things will come from us all parents are happy and boards for priority learners. confident, principal stress working together than from one of are To pay for all of this, the levels are higher. There is Prime Minister was prepared us working alone. That means all disappointment that progress to invest $359m, nearly all of in teaching practices for the which would be going towards participants are treated and valued NZ Curriculum has stalled and boosting the salaries of selected it is difficult to acquire suitable equally. teachers and principals. This PLD. The system needs more new shape for collaboration was somewhat different from the coherence, according to Wylie’s findings, before progress can traditional collaborative practices where teachers work in teams be made. and syndicates to share best practice within schools and where principals form clusters outside of their schools for various NZPF President’s Address purposes and engage in professional development programmes President Philip Harding’s address set the platform for the Moot agreed by the participants. In these existing clusters, no one gets which was always going to focus on the IES. He reminded his paid more for sharing what they know and no one is considered audience that the policy would proceed with or without the more of an expert than anyone else. Everyone has a contribution support of principals. The national executive, he said, believes to make and cluster co-ordinators are chosen from amongst the that true collaboration is a preferable way to operate than participating principals. It is not uncommon for the participants competition and it is better that NZPF retains its membership to bring in an expert in a particular field or pay an advisor for of the working party and has as much influence over the design of the policy as possible. training a cluster of principals in some agreed area of need. He was quick to point out the features of the policy that The Moot promised to explore the many elements of the IES policy and invited participants to feed into the NZPF position troubled him. Collaboration, he said, is ‘trusting that better
Secretary for Education Peter Hughes, NZPF President Philip Harding and Minister Parata all addressed the Moot
things will come from us all working together than from one of us working alone’. That means all participants are treated and valued equally and the notion of ‘executive principal’ does not sit comfortably in that space. He quoted Canadian educationalist Michael Fullan who concurred that an imposed top-down structure was unlikely to work without genuine buy-in from the players. Harding noted that the policy was being launched into a sector ‘characterised by deep mistrust after six years of betrayal and hidden agenda. There is no ‘shining star’, showing that the path this policy leads to is a good path to embrace,’ he said. He noted that the policy was not based on best evidence or sound research and said that principals would never agree to national standards being the arbiter of all that is good about schools or clusters of schools. He raised the issue of wider consultation saying that despite the undoubted affect the policy will have on parents, communities and Boards, these groups had been left out of the discussions. He also signalled that weaker schools could be swallowed up by their stronger neighbours and the policy could lead to the establishment of ‘super boards’ governing clusters of ten schools which would be led by a single principal. ‘It could signal an end to ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’ and self-management as we know it,’ he said. He predicted that principals would not be motivated by the extra money and would not want to leave their own schools for two days of every week to work with ten others. The working party designing the policy, he said, had made some changes. These included removal of the position titles and making cluster participation voluntary. He also said that the money was increasingly being referred to as a resource rather than ‘additional pay’. ‘The policy,’ he said, ‘is developing into a ‘tight-loose’ state. It is tight enough to get cabinet approval but
loose enough to be flexible and improved at the implementation stage.’ The Minister & Peter Hughes The Minister opened her address by dispelling a number of currently circulating rumours. She assured her audience that: ‘There is no funding review.’ ‘There is a drive to ‘declutter’, to get rid of those things that impede good leadership.’ ■■ ‘We will keep ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’ and parent involvement.’ ■■ ‘We are interested in PAI (public achievement information) not league tables.’ ■■ ‘The Regulations Taskforce is hunting out regulations and compliances that get in the way of your work. If it is not a value add we will get rid of it.’ ■■ ‘The review of the Teachers’ Council is to achieve a more rich consultative mechanism between what you do and what we do in Government. We have quality teaching and leadership and they make a difference. They are the cornerstone of EDUCANZ, the body leading your profession. It will determine how registration and re-registration occurs, capturing a balance between qualifications that are theory and practice.’ ■■ ■■
The Minister introduced the IES policy as a collaborative system creating communities of schools, four new roles, inquiry time and of course money to support career pathways. ‘It is the best way to close the equity gap,’ she said. In answer to a question from the floor about whether the framework for IES is in fact fixed, the Minister replied, ‘It is not the practice of any Government to negotiate around a
Geoff Lovegrove chairs the ‘on the couch’ session with the politicians
Principals from across the country discuss together the pros and cons of the IES policy
Budget announcement’. ‘The thrust and intent of this change is about professional learning and collaboration. It is about career pathways and a $10m innovation fund. How the roles fit together is the job of the working group. This is not a structural change,’ she said, ‘it’s about communities of schools. It’s about issues that schools bring, not about individual schools.’ The Minister was also asked about the lack of consultation on the policy and secrecy around the working party. She replied, ‘We have all the sector heads in the Cross-Sector Forum [engaged in] many work streams. I made a judgement that the Cross-Sector Forum and the Asian delegation are the consultation groups.’ ‘It’s Government that makes the policy decisions,’ she said, ‘but we have looked at what the work streams have told us.’ In answer to another question about what would happen to existing clusters that are working well, the Minister said ‘We will not just land an executive principal on your group. We are not Shanghai.’ Peter Hughes told the audience that the IES working group had been meeting for a month and a half and everyone [in the group] was contributing. ‘I had a request to rule out national standards last week but I didn’t agree,’ he said. ‘Everything else I have agreed on.’ He went on to say that so long as Government agrees with the changes the working group has suggested, principals would be very surprised at how vastly improved the policy is in a number of aspects. ‘Many of your concerns and views are already in the working group report,’ he said. He acknowledged that there would have to be negotiated changes to the collective agreements to implement the policy but that there would be no changes to the Education Act. He also acknowledged that you can’t make people collaborate through top down use of authority so the process would have to be bottom up, be owned and be permissive. He expected to see three or four clusters up and running before Christmas.
of their education policies. All MPs took questions from the floor. What did become clear in this debate was that there was considerable synergy across the Labour, Greens and NZ First parties on a number of issues such as charter schools, which sat comfortably with the NZPF position.
‘On the Couch’ Session with Political Leaders Retiring principal of Lytton Street School, Geoff Lovegrove accepted the responsibility of chairing the session with education spokespersons from each of the four major parties, Labour (Chris Hipkins), National (Paul Foster-Bell), Greens (Metiria Turei) and New Zealand First (Tracey Martin). Each was given the opportunity to present their party’s policies on education, although because it is election year and early in the campaign cycle, most were not in a position to divulge all aspects
The principals’ Debate The central theme of the afternoon debate was how to use the IES to make a significant and positive difference to children’s learning. Participants agreed that collaboration could assist in achieving this goal and set out to produce a list of key conditions necessary for true collaboration to occur and thus for the IES policy to be successful. The provisions included: That this policy development process must be evidence based and supported and informed by the advice and input of recognised academic experts as it is developed and then implemented ■■ That the policy is explicit in its detail that a wide range of success indicators may be used by ‘Communities of Schools’ to set and evaluate achievement statements, and not be reliant upon National Standards and NCEA results as the only indicators of teacher and school performance ■■ That principals, teachers, parents and boards be properly consulted on the full detail of this policy, which is made clear and transparent to them ■■ That this policy development must be allocated the time and process it needs to be wisely crafted, jointly owned, and successfully implemented ■■ That this policy is sufficiently flexible to allow true collaboration within a wide variety of different contexts and settings ■■
The day concluded with a Karakia led by NZPF Kaumatua Tauri Morgan. The NZPF President Philip Harding summarised the day saying that the speakers had provoked and challenged them to consider a broad range of issues, many of which fed into the afternoon debate on the IES. He acknowledged the diverse views that had circulated since the announcement of the IES policy, and thanked the participants for their considered input to the day’s debate. Finally he congratulated everyone for their work and for recommending a set of conditions that would guide him in his own deliberations within the IES working group.
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