Filter Content
- President Update
- Our Affiliated Associations
- Professional Learning
- BTS Spark Leadership Booster
- Federal Election Commitments
- NAPLAN
- Australian Curriculum, Version 9.0 website now live
- Have your say!
- Links to other Professional Learning Opportunities, Publications, and Professional Reading:
- New Facebook page
Dear Colleagues
Welcome back to Term 2. I hope that you took time out for yourself over the holiday break. I know I sound like a broken record but we ALL need time to reenergise and recharge. Our thoughts are with those school leaders who have been or are being personally impacted by Covid. Again, take the time you need to recover and look after yourself. School leaders do an amazing job of supporting the wellbeing needs of their students, staff and communities. Make sure you prioritise your wellbeing first.
It is great to see the Covid-19 cases start to stabilise, allowing schools to recover and focus on what matters most. NTPA has continued to be consulted as we plan for the next steps. We provided feedback on the Covid-19 Grant Guidelines and have raised the issues of additional ERT and electricity costs from the longer running time for centralised air conditioning plants. You would have noted that the Covid 19 Grant must meet the requirement of ‘preventing the spread of covid-19’, therefore it has been recommended that any school suffering financial hardship from the additional ERT or electricity costs should contact SFIS Manager. If this presents as an issue for you, please let us know.
Since the beginning of the year, NTPA has raised concerns of the impact of covid-19 on final School Budgets. We are pleased that this advice was heard and that schools for 2022, were funded on either their Week 8 Term 1 enrolment numbers or their Preliminary Budget figures. This was a pleasing outcome to ensure no school would be worse off.
School Leader Wellbeing
NTPA is committed to ongoing work to ensure the School Leader Wellbeing Action Plan 2021-2025 is prioritised and actions are being put into place. Already, you would have seen that Policy and Advisory Library has been established to enhance the accessibility and searchability of policies.
https://education.nt.gov.au/policies
As a member of the Occupational Violence and Aggression in Northern Territory Government Schools Taskforce, I can share that a final report will be presented for endorsement by the Education Executive Board. Being consulted as a key stakeholder group for this work has been critical to our advocacy work.
We will continue to advocate for the fast tracking of Principal Workload Investigation to identify recommendations to address this. The attached document is a snapshot collated for ASPA (Australian Secondary Principals Association) which highlights this issue
Please stay well.
Warm regards,
ph. 0400 146 693
President Email: ntpa.admin@education.nt.gov.au or ntpa.president@education.nt.gov.au
As a member of NTPA you are automatically affiliated with one of our National Principal Associations.
The Australian Secondary Principals’ Association (ASPA) is a professional body that represents the interests of principals, deputy principals and assistant principals from government secondary schools across Australia. ASPA works with the profession to shape a paradigm of leadership and learning in order to create a better, preferred future for all students in Australia’s government secondary schools.
Click here to read the latest ASPA newsletter
The Australian Primary Principals Association (APPA) brings together government, independent and Catholic primary school leaders who work with the highest levels of collegiality in the best interests of Australian primary education.
Click here to read the latest APPA Newsletter
The International Confederation of Principals (ICP) is a global association of school leadership organisations. It has over 40 members, made up of school leadership associations. Each member is itself a major organisation that supports the professional development and work of school leaders. We have formed a purposeful network which develops and encourages opportunities in an inclusive, affiliated, democratic manner. The ICP represents over 200,000 school leaders across five continents and, as such, commands a unique global position as a major voice for school education. The ICP is non-political and non-sectarian. Please follow the link for their latest ICP Newsletter
The business side of running a school is complex and forever changing. Last week we offered a half day professional learning day to our top end members about the range of statutory requirements, department policies, and accountabilities required as school leader. This session was designed to allow sharing from school leaders and HR and Finance Consultants, as well as a session on balancing workload pressures whilst maintaining positive wellbeing. We hope to replicate this session in our other regions.
Good news the Leadership Booster special has been extended to include Term 2!
NTPA members can access a special NTPA Leadership Booster to help you recharge and reflect on how you want to lead your school through this school year. Take 30 minutes to review your leadership strengths and priorities for development using an online self-reflection tool, and then spend an hour getting one-to-one support from a professional leadership coach. Usually priced at $300, NTPA members can enrol in this experience for just $150. Check out the attached flier for more information.
BTS Sparks Soft leadership Skills for New Principals
School leaders tell us they find the soft leadership skills hard – engaging their team, having difficult conversations, leading change and staying resilient. The Soft Leadership Skills for New Principals is 1-1 virtual coaching of 5 sessions x 60 min sessions with a professional coach and is tailored to each individual’s needs. This costs $1,495 per person. We encourage all new school leaders to invest in themselves. Coaching is a great way to identify what you want to focus on most in your leadership journey. The hexagons identified in the Card Sort will identify the coaching sessions to follow. The second picture below gives you a snapshot of the content. Please contact Gail Smith on Gail.Smith@bts.com
With the upcoming election it is always interesting to read what the major parties are offering for education.
Here are a couple of quick links for your information.
https://www.alp.org.au/policies/your-education
https://www.liberal.org.au/our-plan-raising-school-standards
NAPLAN starts this week and your focus on getting students back to school has been greatly appreciated by the Department. Good luck to all your Year 3, 5 7 and 9 students. Just a reminder of the changes that will take place in 2023. Please provide any feedback or concerns regarding the impact of these NAPLAN changes for 2023 to your Chapter Reps.
Education ministers have agreed that:
- NAPLAN will move to Term One from 2023 with all results except for writing returned to jurisdictions within weeks
- in addition to the triennial program of sample assessments in science, civics and citizenship, and digital literacy, new assessments in these domains for Year 6 and Year 10 students will be available as opt-in assessments for all schools, starting with science in 2024
- results of opt-in assessments will be available to participating schools in order to support their teaching and learning programs, but will not be reported publicly
- from 2023, the existing NAP sample program will move from October to Term Two and will be undertaken at the same time as the opt-in assessments, allowing results from the opt-in tests to be compared against the national scale and results from the NAP Sample program.
NAPLAN will be held in mid-March from 2023. Moving the test forward means this valuable data set will be available earlier in the year to inform teaching and learning programs and to give parents information about their child's performance earlier in the year.
For more information, visit our website or read the EMM media release
The Australian Curriculum, Version 9.0 is now available on an improved, specially built website designed with teachers for teachers
https://v9.australiancurriculum.edu.au/.
The new Australian Curriculum sets high expectations and standards for what all students should know and be able to do, and was endorsed by education ministers on 1 April 2022.
The new website hosting the digital curriculum has a range of features to help teachers view, explore and plan.
The website has been designed so teachers can clearly see and explore the connections between the 3 dimensions of the curriculum – the learning areas, general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities.
Teachers can view multiple learning areas side by side and see the alignment of achievement standards to content descriptions. There is also an inline glossary showing definitions for key terms as pop-ups if needed.
As well as easy access to all areas of the curriculum through a selector tool, the website includes advice about planning and implementation, exploring the different dimensions, and how to access various resources.
Updates to the website, including further teacher resources, will be rolled out in subsequent releases as they are developed to support teaching the new curriculum.
ACARA will maintain the existing Australian Curriculum website with the Version 8.4 curriculum and all support resources while Version 9.0 is now available on the new website. Both websites will remain live until all states and territories have transitioned fully to the Australian Curriculum, Version 9.0.
Click this link to see the media release that was sent out this week. To keep up to date with ACARA’s work and any developments on the new Australian Curriculum website, please subscribe to the ACARA Upadate- thier e newsletter.
Grattan Institute, an Australian public policy think tank, is running a short survey on curriculum resources and teachers’ workloads, and we wanted you to have an opportunity to contribute. The purpose of the survey is to investigate how high-quality curriculum resources can help free up time for teachers to focus on teaching and learning. The survey is anonymous and will take around 10 minutes. Your responses will help Grattan develop their understanding of issues affecting Australian teachers' time, and will inform their recommendations to government on education policy.
If you are a teacher or a school leader and would like to take part in the survey, please click on the link below:
Teacher and school leader curriculum survey
We are seeking interested Principals who have up to 90 minutes available for a confidential and anonymised conversation in May, June or July. This will be a structured conversation about you and your experience, and the practical supports that have helped you in your role.
If this sounds like you, we ask that you complete this SURVEY to help us meet the selection criteria. The survey is short and asks:
- Where are you located? (We are looking for multiple representatives from each State and Territory)
- What type of School you have experience with (Government, Catholic, Independent)
- How long you've been a Primary School Principal
Your participation in the survey itself will also provide the research with valuable quantitative data.
ABOUT THE RESEARCH
Most school principals would agree that they came to the position having been trained, gained experience and been rewarded for their education delivery. Yet once they assume the position of Principal (and Deputy on the way there) the role surpasses simply implementing a vision for pedagogy, guided by an ‘instructional leadership’ model and a Principal Standard. Traditionally, this career evolution is seen as a movement from education to additional administration or leadership capabilities. However, in a contemporary setting, where the school facility and its staff are seen as a service delivery hub, the model of being a Principal needs to evolve to include key service elements in order to be leader, manager, bureaucrat, community connector, and innovator.
This Research Project is utilising the discipline of service design, and builds on a number of years of collaboration between education and service design specialists to explore the question:
“What is a contemporary understanding of what it means to be a Primary School Principal; and can acknowledging the Principal as an Education Leader through a Service Delivery lens/mindset be key to what a Principal Service Leadership Model, based on education service leadership, means for the sector?”
We will be looking at some artefacts that have been used with a view to evolving these as potential tools to support Principals.
- A School Strategic Frameworkthat connects the School and its philosophy – why we exist and what our intent is.
- A School Operating Ecosystemwithin a set operating context
- who is involved in the different elements of a school. - A School Service Offering and Value Proposition Frameworkencompassing Management Services, Education Services, Administration Services and Campus Services - how we operationalise service delivery.
WHAT NEXT?
- If you're interested - please complete the SURVEY by Sunday 15 May.
- We'll be in touch with you directly with a time for the conversation.
- If you're not interviewed, the Project reports monthly to AGPPA and you can find out how it's progressing through the Principals’ Association within your jurisdiction. A final report will be submitted to PARF by December 2022.
Their work is very extensive. For an outline for your information please see the link below
At High Resolves, we’ve spent the past 15 years focussing on how we can help schools to develop not just better students, but better humans.
As a member of NTPA, we’re thrilled to offer you the opportunity to be among the first schools in Australia to supercharge their students’ skill-building through two brand new, world-class learning platforms.
Important:
- Limited to 100 schools per offer on a first-come, first-served basis
- 100% subsidised through Federal Government funding
- Take advantage of one or both offers
- Registration available until 31 May 2022 only
To register your school’s interest, all you need to do is click on the links below and provide us with a few details. We’ll then follow up with you to get the ball rolling.
If you have any questions at all, please email: info@highresolves.org.
We can’t wait to work with your school to bring these transformative learning experiences to your students in 2022.
Launched in mid-2017, the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (the Teacher Standards) webpage now receives more than 1 million views per year. As it is our most visited page, AITSL has recently undertaken an optimisation project to provide a more complete experience for those who visit this page.
We’re pleased to let you know the new Teacher Standards section of our website has launched.
There have not been any changes to the Teacher Standards themselves and you can still access this part of our website using www.aitsl.edu.au/standards. We encourage you to save it to you favourites if you haven’t already.
What we’ve improved
The design and features of the new Teacher Standards pages have been guided by feedback we received from hundreds of pre-service teachers, teachers at all career stages and leaders. Some of the new features are listed below.
- Different formats to download the Teacher Standards – a customisable PDF export tool as well as editable word documents
- Multiple URLs enabling you to link directly to a particular career stage
- All Career Stages | https://www.aitsl.edu.au/standards
- Graduate | https://www.aitsl.edu.au/standards/graduate
- Proficient | https://www.aitsl.edu.au/standards/proficient
- Highly Accomplished
- | https://www.aitsl.edu.au/standards/highly-accomplished
- Lead | https://www.aitsl.edu.au/standards/lead
- AITSL provides a broad range of evidence-based guides and tools to help teachers and leaders progress through each career stage of the Teacher Standards. Many of these are now featured on the Teacher Standards pages:
- ‘I want to’ statements link to relevant content for each career stage
- Promotional cards highlight information including new resources and campaigns
- More information (the ‘i’ icon) to explore resources by focus area and career stage. Currently we are displaying Illustrations of Practice videos, but this will be expanded over time.
- Compare’ functionality to easily identify how to move from one career stage to the next
There is a pop-up window on the new Teacher Standards page for visitors to share their feedback; however, if you would like to share your thoughts with us directly, please reply to this email.
We are planning to promote the new Teacher Standards page more broadly from May, after all schools have commenced term 2. We hope the new features we’ve introduced will provide a lot of value for pre-service teachers, teachers and leaders.
For more information visit their website.
Frustratingly, our Northern Territory Principals’ Association Facebook site was hacked by a video creator group! And we have not been able to find a resolution.
We recommend you block this site: Old facebook site
Then follow this one: New NTPA facebook page
Thank you!