Navigating schools’ needs after COVID-19

THE COVID-19 PERIOD OF PANDEMIC WILL BE TRAWLED OVER FOR MANY YEARS TO COME. I AM SURE THAT EVERYONE WHO READS THIS COLUMN WILL HAVE AT LEAST A FEW SUGGESTIONS TO BE APPLIED TO FUTURE -PROOF OUR SOCIETY OR AT LEAST PUT US IN A STRONGER POSITION TO WITHSTAND A MASSIVE DISRUPTION SUCH AS THE ONE WE HAVE ALL EXPERIENCED. APPA PRESIDENT MALCOLM ELLIOT WRITES.

EOne of the ironic outcomes that has been criticised is the Australian school education sectors’ garnered high praise as families realised just how skilled, adaptive, and dedicated our primary teachers and their leaders are. We must also “dip our lids” to our school administrative personnel who have been on their own frontline. They have helped incalculable numbers of parents and children navigate the confusing, ever-changing world of covid strategies. Australia’s primary school principals and school leaders are, at time of writing, again putting their shoulders to the wheel. Along with our teachers, education assistants, education facility attendants, school psychologists, speech and language pathologists, social workers, all our people in schools have been on the frontline of our society’s coping strategies dealing with anxiety, worry, illness, masks, ventilation, air purification, staffing uncertainty and, not to forget, their own lives. It has been great to get recognition through the media and mentions from our political representatives, but it would be marvellous to see this turned into more transformative action about workloads, workflow and resourcing that meant all primary schools could focus on the teaching and learning relationships which are currently negatively affected by too much other work.

Governments have devised and enacted covid management strategies dependent, as we all know, on the medical advice. A very important learning from this pandemic is that our school leaders must be just as actively and consistently engaged in policy development as our medical friends. Systems, education offices, departments and directorates must be given credit for efforts made in this direction. However, there is much work to be done in changing planning processes so that policy is not only devised in consultation with school personnel but implemented according to timelines that reflect the reality of school operations.

Almost every school in Australia operates

Malcolm Elliot has been a teacher for over 40 years. From 2015-2018 he was president of the Tasmanian Principals Association, representing government primary and secondary school principals. He is now president of the Australian Primary Principals Association (APPA).

Elliot says APPA’s aim now is to attract and retain people who have the motivation and capability to teach children.

on an annual grant calculated on a formula. This causes annual fluctuations in staffing and programming which, in contemporary times, just isn’t flexible enough to support the multi-year sustained effort that primary schools need to produce as they try to deliver the highest calibre education for children in an environment where there is ever fluctuating resourcing. It is certainly within the capacity of those who hold the purse strings to deliver multi-year resource guarantees that mean staffing does not decline. Staffing must be allowed to hold its ground in terms of numbers so that strategies and programmes can have a chance to work and develop over time and not be subject to annual change.

Much of this type of consideration must surely be part of risk mitigation strategies and considerations at government levels. The insurance industry spawned the risk management movement which really took effect in this country about 20 or so years ago. As the pandemic began to take hold there was talk about Australia’s preparedness for dealing with just such an eventuality. Pandemic risk mitigation strategies have been around for many years but have not been prominent. The risk of pandemic has long been known worldwide. But here we find ourselves short of teachers in rural, regional, and remote locales and even in urban settings. And this was the case before the pandemic.

We now face an immediate national challenge to attract and retain people who have the motivation and capability to teach our children, contribute to children’s happy and productive lives and who are committed to building our nation. We must ensure that teachers are trained expertly and that our school leaders and teachers are esteemed within our community.

Our principals must be enabled to focus on leading high performing schools. They must be recognised for their high levels of knowledge and capability. Our school leaders play a critically important role and consequently should be highly valued by all members of our society.

Funding must be prioritised and sustained for the early and primary years. Government funding We now face an immediate national challenge to attract and retain people who have the motivation and capability to teach our children, contribute to children’s happy and productive lives and who are committed to building our nation.

per student must be facilitative of the highest quality education for every student, in every locale and must be targeted to those who need it most.

The size and scope of the primary curriculum must be lessened in order to facilitate greater flexibility and adaptability for teachers in meeting the needs and interests of their students. Whole cohort testing should be replaced by a sample testing regime. NAPLAN results should be removed from the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority’s website.

Our pandemic experiences are a mandate to address fundamental questions about our education provision in Australia. EM

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