Schools feel the strain as issues mount
Illnesses, curriculum changes and a labour shortage put teachers and students under pressure
Teachers and students are under mounting pressure as illnesses, curriculum changes and a labour shortage hit schools.
Students in the NCEA years were ‘‘staring down the barrel of needing to get NCEA credits in the bank’’, prompting the Secondary Principals’ Association to urge the Ministry of Education and NZQA to recognise the challenges students are facing.
Secondary Principals’ Association of New Zealand (Spanz) vice-president and principal of Waimea College Scott Haines said it ‘‘wasn’t business as usual’’ at schools around the country.
‘‘I’m acutely worried about what will the end of the year look like for students who are in their NCEA years, staring down the barrel of needing to get 80 credits in the bank by the end of the year, with the attendance percentages that we’re seeing.’’
Haines said options might include pushing NCEA exams back, reinstating learner recognition credits, issuing unexpected event grades, or reducing the number of credits required.
Spanz will be bringing these and other concerns to a meeting with Minister of Education Chris Hipkins and Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti in August.
Another issue ‘‘high on the list of priorities’’ was staffing shortages and immigration settings, Haines said.
‘‘We’ve got a welldocumented decades long staffing shortage and our immigration settings are prohibitively tight to allow teachers to get into the classroom to help alleviate the crisis.’’
Continuity was an issue for staff and students as absences significantly impacted on their ability to get through teaching and learning programmes.
‘‘Teachers have to determine whether to progress with this piece of work today with only two thirds of our class here.
‘‘We’ve got a seemingly rotating basis of about 25% of the student population away in any given week, and when those students are back in class, the teachers are out.’’
Additionally, schools were struggling with their relief pools, and with the extra costs of employing relievers.
Haines said he understood secondary teacher sick leave was running at 150% of what it was last year.
The Ministry of Education had reduced the number of days that a teacher needed to be ill for the MOEto cover it from seven days to four days, but that meant the school was still covering those first four days.
Haines said the school spent around $25,000 on day relief over a two-week period, and was ‘‘burning through’’ its relief budget.
Schools were also dealing with a curriculum refresh at the moment, which Haines described as ‘‘anything but a refresh, it’s a total overhaul’’.
‘‘That’s important work that needs and deserves our full attention, and we’re just not at a place where we come anywhere close to doing it justice right now.’’
Haines said ‘‘significant changes’’ were happening now, at a time when schools were least equipped to engage.
Nayland College principal Daniel Wilson said in the second half of the last term the school averaged about 15 to 20 staff away, peaking at 30.
‘‘A relief teacher usually does a really good job, but of course, it’s not the same as having the usual classroom teacher in front of the students, so it does interrupt learning programmes.’’
Nelson College headmaster Richard Dykes said around the country, about 20% of staff on average were away.
On Monday, four day relievers called in sick, leaving 14 classes uncovered, which meant that teachers ‘‘simply had to cover each other’’.
‘‘Everyone’s sort of expecting that this term is not going to be any better. We don’t expect the government like a fairy godmother to walk in and go, here you go, problem solved,’’ Dykes said.
Rather, it was about keeping ‘‘focus on what is most important’’ – getting students in the classrooms and keeping them there.
‘‘What we’ve been seeing, as early as term one, the students are going ‘my learning has been so disrupted, I don’t think I’m going to make it, I’ll just drop out now’.
‘‘We need something that is going to give students hope, and that is going to give staff hope, so that they stay engaged.’’
Dykes, as president of the Top of the South Secondary Principals’ Association, was one of 12 signatories to a letter sent to the ministry on July 21 calling for help for a sector that is ‘‘close to breaking point’’.
In the letter, chairs of regional principal associations warned that New Zealand’s most vulnerable students were ‘‘currently at great risk of disengagement from education completely’’.
‘‘I’m acutely worried about what will the end of the year look like for students who are in their NCEA years . . .’’
Scott Haines
Waimea College principal