12 March 2021

Newsletter Articles

Principals supporting Principals… Principals supporting Principles!

Kia Ora,

Registrations for the Retreat are now closed. If you are coming along make sure you check out the agenda in this Monday Mailing.

Don’t forget if there is anything you would like to see in these Monday Mailings just get in touch with me.

Looking forward to catching up with those of you who are attending the retreat.

Nga Mihi
Chrissy Wakeman
Orini Combined School

A message from Marcus

Kia Ora Kotou

Term 1 is flying by. I am aware that many of our staff and colleagues have hit the wall a bit in the last week. I think moving in and out of Level 2 doesn’t help and adds to the anxiety and stress we all seem to have these days. The Kaupapa for the WPA is ‘principals supporting principals’ so I encourage to reach out to a mate or a neighbouring school and see how they’re going. Sometimes just having a chat can help reduce stress levels.

It will be no surprise to most of you that we find the same things cause us the most a concern. Human resource management, Principal well-being, priority learners and student achievement are ‘on top’ for many of us. Knowing these are pressure points for principals is useful because allows the WPA plan and see what support we can offer to address these challenges.

We had an interesting meeting with Evaluation Associates on the 2nd of March. Questions were asked about Principal Appraisal and Professional Growth Cycles for principals. The Teachers Council have not consulted with the sector on performance review and professional growth cycles for principals so the advice Evaluation Associates gave us was stick with your current processes for performance review. It was also noted that the Waikato had the highest number of Specific Support for principals in the country, I see this as a positive. We have some great people in our region who can offer support on all things to do with school leadership. Evaluation Associates support is not limit to Beginning Principals so if there are things you want help with give them a call.

The Annual WPA Retreat is coming up fast. At this stage we have approximately 50 of us traveling to Rotorua to hear Mark Osborne’s new thinking. It is great way to address the ‘well-being’ challenge that we all seem to face.

Thank you to those who have already paid their memberships. Your support is an indicator that association is meeting your needs.

It is great to see NZEI are looking to achieve pay equity for ECE members, or is it? Once again it shows how little effort they seemed to put into our agreement. I get a sense our (principals) needs are secondary to teachers, TAs and now ECE teachers. NZEI seem to be aware there is some dissatisfaction with their representation of principals but putting an extra support person on the 0800 number isn’t the answer. I think we both individually and collectively need to be putting pressure in NZEI ‘up their game’ for principals. (These are Marcus’s views and do not reflect the position of the WPA).

Marcus Freke
President WPA

WPA Dates

Learning Lab

Have you read ‘Quiet Leadership’ by David Rock? I highly recommend it as a must read – below is a summary you will (hopefully) find interesting!

Laugh:

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