Ko Tainui te waka Ko Ngāti Raukawa ki Wharepūhunga te iwi Whetu Cormick
National President, New Zealand Principals’ Federation
We hear a lot about relationships these days and how what your collective views are on different issues so that I can important they are at many levels. Recently I met with our NZPF then advocate for you from a position of strength. Gold Business Partners in Auckland. They were talking about Equally, I must give you as much information as possible, as relationships too. They know that to be successful in business frequently as possible, so that you can have conversations in your they must connect with people. Our business partners told us regions, with each other and with me. The NZPF Moot (see page that they seek opportunities to initiate 14 of this issue) is designed specifically conversations, to tell their stories. Similarly, as NZPF President, to bring your voice and views, through They want people to know where they your regional presidents, to our table have come from, what motivates them I know how important in Wellington to inform us and help us and how they can improve others’ ensure our work is about you and your it is to build strong lives through their business products issues. Without these connections, and services. relationships with all of you. conversations and relationships, I One of our partners was celebrating could not do my work successfully twenty-one years in business and had published a book telling the on your behalf. story of their journey. It was about their people, why they chose Beyond our schools, our Boards and ourselves, there is the to work for their company and how they, in turn, interact with Education System itself. The system cannot effectively support their clients. It was about continual conversations, asking their clients how they can improve their products and services and how they can better respond to their clients’ needs. It’s all about understanding their individual clients’ stories and contexts better. Our schools are no different. We know that for our young people to be successful learners, we must build strong and trusting relationships with them. We need continual conversations with our young people and with their whānau to ensure that we are creating the best school culture and learning environment, where our students feel safe and can flourish in their learning. As teachers and leaders, we recognise that our job is to introduce our students to the world around them and identify the talents within them. In this way we use the innate abilities of our students to build further knowledge and learning that is relevant and motivates them to strive for more. We can only do this well if we have put the time in to building those important relationships through conversations, school surveys and regular interactions. At another level, as school leaders, we know that to advance our school vision and culture, we need to develop strong and trusting relationships with our Boards of Trustees. That means regular conversations with our Board Chairs and providing open and transparent reporting to our Board members, so they have the maximum information to generate healthy discussions. The more our Boards understand what we are trying to achieve for our children and our communities, the more confident they are in supporting and helping us achieve our goals. We know that strong relationships with our Boards results in the best outcomes for our young people. Similarly, as NZPF President, I know how important it is to build strong relationships with all of you. To be a credible representative voice, I must understand as accurately as possible,
GIVE SOCIALLY us unless it too is connected to its own different departments and agencies and to us. That requires information sharing, open conversations, building common goals and growing our understanding of each other’s context. If we don’t have close working relationships with these organisations and agencies, we cannot be effective in our work. We feel dislocated and lack information and understanding. When relationships are severed we operate in isolation and this state becomes a breeding ground for distrust, paranoia, misunderstandings and ultimately dysfunction. We have all experienced these feelings and know how destructive they can be to progressing the aspirations of our schools and communities. I believe there has never been such a strong will to create powerful relationships throughout our education sector as we have right now. That desire is led from the top. It is led by our new Minister and Associate Ministers. It is also reflected in many of the agencies such as the Ministry, NZSTA and others. A recent example includes the positive way the Secretary for Education has responded to our call for building closer relationships between NZSTA, the Ministry and NZPF, as a means of reducing the number of statutory interventions in schools. In our view, if NZSTA can better realise its role in supporting principals as members of Boards, and the Ministry can provide appropriate and timely support to principals, we will have much better supported principals and better-informed Boards. The way we can achieve this outcome is through conversations, connections and stronger relationships. Relationships are central to all we do. We can achieve so much more together for our young people if we just get our relationships right.
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