A warm welcome to Term 2 and to the second edition of Principal Matters for 2024.

Please note the Principal Task Checklist included in this update which we hope is helpful you work through your Term 2 meetings and work programme.

We have a series of upcoming professional learning and development events, which you can register for now using the link below.
 
Also included are key updates relating to Teaching Council Code and Standards and safety checking.

Wishing you the very best for the term.

Your mahi for Term 2 2024  

Download our Principal Task Checklist, which covers the tasks you’ll need to undertake this term.

Workshops and webinars

• Encourage your board to enrol in The Board’s Role as a Good Employer. They’ll explore what it means to be a good employer, their responsibilities, and the working relationship between you and them.
  This topic was heavily requested – make sure they don’t miss out when the workshops start rolling out nationwide on 1 The webinar is locked in for 29 May.
• Keep the focus on the student with The Board’s Role in Student Suspension Meetings. These sessions explore how your board can respond with integrity, fairness, and care when it’s most needed. Get your board to secure their spots for the workshops that start on 22 May and the webinar booked for 26 June.
• Did your board miss out on an event?
  The slide decks and videos of Leading an Effective Board and Board Monitoring and Reporting are now in the Learning Library.

Use of Teaching Council “Our code, our standards”

The Teaching Council Code and Standards cannot be referenced by schools when raising and addressing matters of conduct with a teaching employee.  Only the Teaching Council can determine if a teacher has breached or not met these requirements. 

The points of reference to use when raising conduct concerns are the professional standards as per the relevant teacher collective agreement, your schools’ own policies, the school’s code of conduct (if your school has one) or the school’s mission statement or values. More information can be found here.

Safety checking

We all have the same goal – care and protection of children to enable them to achieve to their fullest potential. Proper safety checking is integral to this.

Safety checking is more than just obtaining a police vet. There is concern across the sector around the number of instances where minimum safety checking requirements have not been met and the inevitable impact and issues this causes schools.

With changes to immigration settings to address supply issues, you may be safety checking someone who is living, or has recently lived, overseas. It is important that you obtain police certificates from any country that person lived in for 12 months or more within the last ten years to supplement the New Zealand police vet you obtain as part of a safety check.

For more information, see our article on safety checking and police vetting here.