EDITOR
I travel north, at the invitation of the Tai Tokerau Principals’ Association Council. My papers tell me the Council is to meet in Tutukaka. ‘How far is Tutukaka from Whangarei?’ I ask a local. ‘Just up the road – out on the coast’, I am reliably informed. It turns out ‘just up the road’ is a thirty-minute journey. Locals accept it’s a long trip to anywhere on the slow, tightly coiled, Northland roads. We head north out of town, veering right towards the coast. The Ngunguru road snakes through spectacular bush and pastoral scenes, culminating in the sheltered waters of the Tutukaka harbour. The harbour is bordered by a shore of boutique shops, bars and classy cafes and is home to a marina of impressive yachts, basking in the sun. It is easy to overlook the vast distances between Northland townships. Mesmerised by the unmitigated beauty of the landscape, you overlook the isolation of the settlements and how very challenging it is to establish meaningful communication with the different groups.
Pat Newman, President of the Tai Tokerau Principals’ Association (TTPA) knows this well. He says there are many Principals’ Associations scattered throughout the north, yet in the 1980s the Ministry of Education – not the associations – decided which principal would represent the province. ‘There was no mechanism to pull the principals together to elect their own representative,’ he said. An overarching TTPA had long before been established to facilitate the coordination of sports competitions for the scattered youngsters, but a stronger representational structure was required if principals of the north wanted a voice in regional and political education issues. Thus, the Tai Tokerau Principals’ Association Council was established. The Council comprises the Presidents of all Principals’ Associations of the north. The Catholic Schools, The New Zealand Principals’ Federation (NZPF) and the New Zealand Education Institute (NZEI) also have representatives alongside the local Leadership Advisory Service. The Regional
NZPF President, Whetu Cormick (centre) shares a cup of tea with Tai Tokerau Council members
The Tai Tokerau Council members take a break from deliberations
Director of the Ministry of Education is invited and from time to time the lead Resource Teachers of Learning Behaviour (RTLB), Learning Support representatives or other experts join the meetings. The Council meets once a term. It is almost a full complement of members the day I visit. The untrammelled opulence of the marina, exposed via the glass wall of our meeting room, is difficult to reconcile with the agenda items in front of us. The opening discussion seeks ways for the TTPA to raise funds so that all Northland schools can be financed to install CABU software. CABU is a digital information portal. It is an online communication ‘hub’ between students, teachers and parents of a school. Such digital platforms are quite common and are generally funded by schools themselves. What quickly becomes apparent is that most Northland school communities do not reflect the wealth floating outside our meeting room window. Inside, the Council members are deciding which local Trusts will be approached, to raise the necessary funds for schools to install this communication software. School fundraising is challenging in the north and the schools’ operations grants do not stretch to ‘luxuries’ like communication platforms. Each representative has prepared a feedback report, highlighting points of interest or calls for action. Repeated themes infuse the reports. Prominent is the appointment of suitable principals to Tai Tokerau schools. It is not easy to attract experienced principals to the north given many schools are quite small. For Deputy and Assistant Principals in larger city schools, there is neither financial incentive nor career prospects to taking over leadership of isolated Northland schools with minimal rolls, particularly in
the western side of the region. Consequently, there is a growing number of less experienced principals moving into the area. Identifying suitable, available relievers is another common problem for schools in the north. Many reported that if they can identify relievers at all, they are likely to be older retired teachers who are not so familiar with today’s pedagogies. Recruiting teachers is another issue. Despite the Ministry’s drive to support schools through their campaign to recruit overseas teachers, members of the Tai Tokerau Council reported frustrations that ‘ . . . overseas teachers do not have the connections to support our Māori and Pasifika tail.’ On a positive note it was reported that some fine graduates are now emerging from Whangarei-based teacher training programmes, allowing locals to begin their teaching careers in their home areas. Excessive workloads and burn out are commonplace amongst both teachers and principals throughout the Tai Tokerau region, although this is a phenomenon found in many regions of the country, according to recent wellbeing research. But if there is one absolute stand out issue for Tai Tokerau it is learning support. Specialist teachers are impossible to replace because there are no training programmes for specialist positions. The difficulties in recruiting new teachers also means many specialist teachers are returning to classrooms. It is an impossible conundrum. Every school has a story of learning support failure, but none can match the spectacular melt down of learning support services in Tai Tokerau. The inability of schools to access diagnostic and specialist learning support creates desperation, frustration and in the end low morale. No principals I meet choose to expel or suspend students, but for the sake of students, teachers and para-professionals’ safety and
Tai Tokerau Council members share some networking time overlooking the Tutukaka Marina
wellbeing, some are forced to take this extreme decision. A survey has been constructed to distribute to all Tai Tokerau schools. It is seeking hard evidence on the extent of behavioural issues schools are experiencing, which they hope will strengthen the lobby to get more specialist support and more teacher aides. The rates of unemployment in far north communities is well known. Equally well known is the high incidence of drug use. According to a ‘Stuff ’ media report, March 16, 2018, ‘Northland communities have experienced an increasing presence of P, now the drug is second to alcohol as the primary reason for admission to the DHB’s detox unit.’ The children of methamphetamine (‘P’) users, affected by the drug before birth, are now in Northland schools and numbers are expected to climb. These youngsters can present severe behavioural issues and without specialist support, teachers and principals are experiencing insurmountable challenges. Couple this problem with the struggles that Tai Tokerau schools already face with the high levels of societal poverty in the north, it is no wonder that frustrations are running high. Most can take no more and are desperately seeking immediate solutions. The Council, we learn, also plays a role in providing PLD opportunities for Tai Tokerau principals and teachers and had recently been successful in obtaining a NZPF association grant to help subsidise PLD in curriculum development. PLD is critically important to the ongoing development of teachers and few Northland schools can afford to provide enough opportunities to keep their teachers updated with the latest in learning and teaching. They rely on the Council to apply for grants to subsidise them. Politically, the Council aimed its collective guns on the newly
released report on Tomorrow’s Schools. The report’s intent to achieve equity of learning outcomes was roundly shot down by the group. It’s not that the group doesn’t aspire to equity. It’s that the major drivers of inequity sit outside the school gate, and the Tomorrow’s Schools Task Force report is light on acknowledging this. Children’s education is not disconnected from their everyday lives. Yet the report makes no mention of the fact that hungry kids, kids in over-crowded homes, kids with chronic health and mental health problems, kids subjected to physical and sexual abuse struggle with learning. Schools reflect society, not the other way around. That said, there were positives expressed, particularly that the report acknowledges education is currently poorly funded. There was also strong support for the equity index whereby funds would be directed to the school’s operations grant allowing it to cover the learning and social needs of the children. Flexible guidelines for teacher appraisal, acknowledging the status of paraprofessionals in schools and a system wide structure for curriculum advisers and leadership advisers and recommendations on teacher training were all roundly welcomed. Perhaps the most contentious aspect of the report for the Tai Tokerau Council was the section on ‘hubs’. Whilst it was acknowledged that support, curriculum and leadership advisory services, business advice and support for Boards were all appreciated, it was the fear that hubs would become a dangerous new layer of bureaucracy that occupied the attention of members. This fear was exacerbated by the proposal that principals would be employed on five-year contracts by the hubs,
Pat Newman, Chair of the Tai Tokerau Council
appraised by the hubs, and thus controlled by them. The powers that principals and Boards currently exercise would be snuffed out and at worst, Boards’ responsibilities reduced to no more than those of a conscientious PTA. The fact that hubs would be Crown Entities as Boards are now, did not wash with the most concerned members of the Council. One Board employing one principal was one thing. One hub employing 125 principals was quite another matter. Overall, I would venture that most Council members view the proposed changes as a new attempt to lift the achievement of those students lagging behind their peers. These students include Māori, Pasifika, students with learning challenges and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Tai Tokerau schools have an abundance of students covering all these categories, and insufficient resources to address the growing needs. If the choice was theirs, they would eschew the Tomorrow’s Schools reforms and elect to spend the money on a big funding boost to school operations grants, to teacher salaries and for learning support specialists. None saw the connection between administration and governance reforms and improvements to children’s learning outcomes. The only hope of making a positive difference to the learning outcomes of young people in Tai Tokerau, was to first address the shameful social inequities. I take a final glance at the high rise of steel masts stabbing aimlessly at the passing, puffed-up clouds, and wonder just how many Tai Tokerau families could be spared another generation of poverty by the redistribution of wealth floating in this one marina . . .
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