Congratulations to those newly appointed to the principal role and those who won positions in a different school.  The start of the year is always exciting with new beginnings, new hopes, new staff and new children.

Please take the time to welcome and congratulate your new colleagues to their roles.

DARWIN Region

Top End Region

Arnhem Region

Big Rivers Region                    

Barkly Region

Central Region

NTPA are hosting a professional development workshop on Friday 17th February 2023.  There are still spaces available.

It is a half day work shop facilitated by BTS sparks on Difficult Conversations and will be held at Nightcliff Middle school.   The cost is free for members and just $100 for non-members. 

If you have anyone in your team including senior teachers that could benefit from this PD please contact Jo on ntpa.admin@education.nt.gov.au for a place.

Course overview:

NTPA is committed to developing our aspiring and new Principals by offering a half day workshop on Difficult Conversations. This will give you the chance to develop your skills and confidence to hold the difficult conversations you need to have with both rigor and sensitivity.

On Friday 24^th February in Alice Springs, also with BTS Spark, NTPA are offering an Aspiring Leadership program. This course ‘Developing your Personal Leadership’ allows participants to reflect on their personal leadership and identify key leadership shift(s) for themselves. Outcomes include:

• To learn some practical tools to build rapport with others and influence people more effectively,
• To gain a deeper level of self-awareness and understand how to manage your state and stay resilient.

This full day workshop is followed up with 2 x 90 min Group Coaching sessions for groups of up to 6 people.

Please contact ntpa.admin@edcuation.nt.gov.au if you would like to reserve places for your staff. Cost is $375 per participant which has been subsidised by NTPA.

NTPA in partnership with the Casuarina Education Precinct ran the Aspiring Leadership Program with BTS Sparks this week. Participants thoroughly enjoyed the program and said:

‘I don’t feel so alone with my leadership challenges, that other people are in similar situations and I have others that I can relate to.”

“I feel really confident now. The strategies taught today are really useful and I can use them straight away.”

We are looking forward to offering further leadership professional development opportunities for our other regions. Please register your expression of interest through this link.

 EC Premium Partnership

All members receive free access to the EC Premium PL platform until the end of 2023.

Access to world-class professional learning for educators. Anytime, anywhere

We are very proud to be working in partnership with EC by Go 1 to provide access to quality, world class professional learning content online via a platform which can be tailored to meet the needs of your school and staff. NTPA have trialled this platform and excited about the potential it has to meet the professional learning needs of our educators and leaders across the NT. EC Premium has offered personalised, curated access to world-class professional learning for all financial NTPA members. 

Please out to ntpa.admin@education.nt.gov.au with any queries regarding access.

Last year NTPA advocated for targeted support to attract and retain quality teachers to the NT. This work complemented the feedback that was provided to the National Teacher Workforce Strategy and the Federal Governments response to the teacher shortage crisis.

Further information can be found here or please see a full copy of the report below.

Reduction of HELP debts for teachers in very remote areas

Teachers who have completed four years working in very remote Australia can apply to receive a reduction to their HELP debt - amounts for eligible teachers may be up to $35,000.

There are two types of assistance, waivers of indexation on accumulated HELP debt and reduction of accumulated HELP debt.

The initiative is available to teachers who are/were teaching in a very remote area of Australia, based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Remoteness Structure, at any school providing primary or secondary education or a centre-based day care service or preschool.

Visit the Australian Government Department of Education website for criteria and applications.

NTG Attract and Retain Talent - Survey 

Help us improve the way we attract and recruit talent to our schools and the Northern Territory Public Sector.

The Northern Territory Government has commissioned a social research agency to conduct independent market research with NTG employees to improve their talent and attraction campaign.

Educators and school staff who have worked in the NTG for at least 3 months, are invited to participate.

If you are interested, please email EWu@instinctandreason.com with a copy to Letchimi.Wright@nt.gov.au

With the announcement of recent changes to NAPLAN and new proficiency standards, we have raised concern in regards to the communication to parents of the ‘needs additional support’ category. The risk is an over expectation for providing support beyond the schools resourcing capability. We will continue to work with the Department on a clear communication strategy and of course ensuing schools are well resourced to meet needs.

NTPA have, and will continue to advocate for, a more equitable approach to funding NT students through the National School Reform Agreement (NSRA).  This underpins the bilateral funding agreement between the federal and state governments and territories.

Please see the announcement from the Federal Education Minster, that the next NSRA would be postponed for a further 12 months. This means funding for students in public education will still remain below the Gonski recommended Student Resourcing Standard (SRS) until a new agreement can be reached.  

NTPA have been working with significant reviews: Effective Enrolment, Students with Disability Funding and the Secondary and Preschool Reviews which will assist the department with preparation for funding negotiation with the Australian Government.  

Preschool Review Update

The Preschool Review aims to provide equitable access to quality services. The department has partnered with Nous group to deliver the review.

After building an understanding of current delivery, Nous will be developing options for future reform to improve preschool outcomes and experience for students, parents, schools and communities.

As part of the Review, the project team will be doing site visits to consult with identified schools across all regions of the NT.

There will be further opportunities for schools more broadly to have their say about the future direction of preschool.

Secondary Review Update

This review aims to improve engagement and outcomes for all secondary students in the NT by strengthening secondary education delivery in NTG secondary education settings through strategic policy reform.

In November 2022, Deloitte Access Economics and the Northern Institute, Charles Darwin commenced the project. Deloitte and CDU are currently developing an interim report which will outline initial findings on the current state of secondary delivery in the NT.

Consultation with schools will occur over the next few weeks.

AFP urges parents and carers to be vigilant about online gaming

The AFP is encouraging parents and carers to be involved in their children’s online activities, specifically online gaming, warning that predators use chat functions in gaming platforms to contact children. Acting Assistant Commissioner Hilda Sirec said many adults might not realise that offenders could use the chat functions to initiate conversations with their children through online games. These offenders may pretend to be young themselves or use details from the child’s profile to portray themselves as a ‘friend of their friends’, acting Assistant Commissioner Sirec said. In some cases, an offender will suggest they start conversing on a different platform or app that allows sharing of images and videos. This might be typically where an offender will start engaging in sexualised chat.

The Policy and advisory library is the one-stop-shop for operational policy.

 The purpose-built library consists of two parts:

• all public facing policies are published on the department’s internet page:  https://education.nt.gov.au/policies
• all school and corporate policy and supporting documents are published on eLearn: https://elearn.ntschools.net/policy-and-advisory-library

What’s happening now:

• each division is reviewing all policies; updating roles and responsibilities to align to the new department structure and making sure policies are on current NTG templates
• the updated policies will replace existing published policies on the public facing library
• the newly constructed eLearn library is being populated with updated policies and supporting documents for schools
• as the eLearn library is being populated, the old versions on the Document Centre are being removed.

This work will be ongoing over the next few months. Check in to the library to find the most up to date versions.

Remember memebrships are for a calendar year so now is is the time to renew or join for 2023. Click on this link to complete the form.

Since, our original Northern Territory Principals’ Association Facebook site was hacked by a video creator group we have been rebuilding.

We recommend you block this site: Old facebook site

Then follow this one: New NTPA facebook page

Thank you!