Frequently asked questions: Investing in Educational Success

• General questions and answers
• Communities of LearningSchools
• New leadership and teaching roles and allowances
• Teacher-led Innovation Fund
• Putting the initiative into practice
  

General questions and answers

What is Investing in Education (IES)?IES?

The Government is investing an extra $359 million over the next 4next four years, and $155 million a year after that, to help raise student achievement. Under IES, Communities of Learningof Schools will work together to strengthen collaboration between principals, teachers and schools.

Each Community of Learningof Schools will identify achievement challenges and receive additional resources to address these challenges. A key focus will be supporting and strengthening high qualityhigh-quality teaching and school leadership as the key in schoolin-school factors to raise student achievement. This will allow all children to benefit from the skills and knowledge of teachers from across a whole Community of Learning.Schools.

The new roles for teachers and principals will help Communities of Learningof Schools work together to identify and address common achievement challenges.

The new roles will help:

• share expertise across schools and among teachers and principals
• create new opportunities for teachers and principals with proven track records in making positive changes to student outcomes
• give teachers a career option which allows them to stay in the classroom
• attract good graduates into teaching.

Inquiry Time will be provided for all teachers to benefit from the expertise of their colleagues within their own school and across their Community of Learning.Schools.

In addition to the new roles, a $10 million Teacher-led Innovation Fund has been established to foster collaboration between teachers in classroom -based research to identify new and effective teaching practices, which can be shared across the system.

There is also a Principal Recruitment Allowance to attract candidates with proven experience in effecting positive change to vacancies at schools that have the greatest challenges.

Working with the Education Sector

On 30 September 2014 the Ministry settled variations to the collective agreements with the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) and Secondary Principals’ Association of New Zealand (SPANZ) on IES. Those variations have now been ratified by union members. The New Zealand School Trustees Association was also involved in this process.

The Ministry of Education has also reached an agreement with the NZEI on joint working parties that will look at ways to further raise student achievement. The working parties will commence in February 2015 and report back by the end of May 2015, at the latest.

More information on these agreements can be found on the Working with the Education Sector page .

Local and international evidence shows that within schools providing high qualityhigh-quality teaching and leadership is one of the best ways to lift student achievement. IES is very clearly focused on improvements within the school system. It is designed to shift achievement for all students, and at the same time to lift the achievement of those groups of students that have traditionally been less successful.

How is the money being spent?

At least half of the investment will be spent on providing more time within schools so that teachers and principals have greater opportunity to work together on professional matters. This includes the Teacher-led Innovation Fund to enable teachers to develop and share innovative and effective practice.

Under agreements with the secondary principal and teacher unions, there will, in addition to allowances for the roles, be funding to support the collaborative activities of each school within a Community of Learning.Schools.

Can schools decide whether to participate?

Schools’ boards of trustees and parent/whānau communities can decide themselves whether to join a Community of Learningof Schools.

Funding for the new roles and for Inquiry Time is available only to Communities of Learning.Schools. The Principal Recruitment Allowance and Teacher-led Innovation Fund are available for any eligible school or group of teachers.

The first round of Communities of Learningof Schools have already been announced and are already working towards their achievement challenges. IES will be introduced gradually, and will be working throughout the country by 2017.

An Expression of Interest form and guidelines are now available for schools and kura interested in forming Communities of Learning.Schools. The Ministry will provide support and advice on the formation process, and on choosing Communities’ shared achievement challenges. The documents are available in Māori, English and several Pasifika languages.

Is IES responsive to the needs of different Communities?

IES is designed to respond to different schools’ needs as flexibly as possible. School boards of trustees themselves decide whether they will join Communities of Schools; they form their own Communities, choose their own educational goals based on the needs of their students, and share their own resources to meet those goals. The schools in each Community will select the type of information they consider relevant to their needs in order to identify challenges and measure progress. They will then be able to use the resources available to meet the specific requirements of their Communities.

What will this mean for my child?

As your child moves through their education, they will have high qualityhigh-quality teaching from teachers who are free to focus on their classroom practice. Currently, the career ladder for teachers mainly provides promotional opportunities into management.

This often significantly reduces the time some of our most effective teachers spend teaching. The best teaching occurs when teachers are able to work together, to learn from each other and to share their subject and practice expertise. During primary school, your child could benefit from the expertise of teachers from across a number of schools, while still maintaining a strong relationship with their classroom teacher. They should also benefit from smoother transitions from early childhood education to primary, intermediate, secondary school and beyond, by teachers and educators from those parts of the system working more closely together.

By engaging more closely in the development of achievement challenges, parents and communities will have more effective involvement in what is done across schools to raise the achievement of all students. Parents can find more information about IES on the parents websitefind more information at  http://parents.education.govt.nz/ .

What are the new teaching roles?

Currently, it is expected that people in the within schoolwithin-school teacher role, won’t be leaving their classrooms. There would be approximately one of these positions allocated for about every 10 FTTE in every Community of Learning.Schools. These teachers would open their classrooms to colleagues, and work with them in a mentoring and advisory role to share good practice within their schools.

People in the across communityacross-community teacher role will work across a Community of Learning,Schools, coaching and mentoring others including by leading sessions with other teachers, or moving from class to class to observe teaching practice and give feedback. There would be approximately one of these positions allocated for about every 50 FTTE in a Community of Learning.Schools.

As a proportion of the total teaching force, they would be around 2% and may come from primary or secondary backgrounds. Their schools will receive additional funding to enable them to have time to work across other schools, and with teachers in their own schools.

It is up to the schools themselves, as to how they allocate this time to balance their own needs and those of the other schools in the Community.

For example it could be a month at the beginning and end of a term, or mornings/afternoons when their students are receiving specialist instruction (such as music or science) from another teacher.

What consultation has there been with the education sector?

The education sector has been involved since early in the development of IES. A Working Group chaired by the Secretary for Education worked on details of the proposal during the Budget process, and provided its advice in a report published in June (read the  Working Group Report ).

The Working Group comprised unions, secondary and primary principals’ associations, school governance associations, Māori and Pasifika education representatives, and early childhood sector representatives.

The Government welcomed the report, and the Ministry of Education is working with the education sector on the design of IES.

A new Advisory Group was formed with Working Group members and education academics, and meets regularly with the Ministry to continue developing the proposal. You can see the Advisory Group members .

A Sector Reference Group was formed to allow teachers and principals to give practical feedback on how aspects of IES will work in schools. Focus groups of teachers and principals also looked at specific aspects of IES.

Why is IES needed?

New Zealand has an achievement challenge.

• Our top students are doing as well as students anywhere in the world but there is a big gap between our top performing students and those who aren’t doing so well.
• Too many Māori and Pasifika students, students from low socio-economic families and those with special education needs, continue to be under-served by the system.
• International studies tell us that we are not keeping pace with other high-performing countries and jurisdictions, and are falling short of our own previous results.

IES aims to respond to the achievement challenge.

How do we know this will work?

Considerable research went into developing IES, including looking at what is working best in other countries and jurisdictions. However, IES is a unique approach being developed to fit the education system in New Zealand, not a replica of existing models. You can read a summary of the evidence used to develop IES from page 30 onwards in the Working Group Report.

Schools will be able to choose from a range of evidence when identifying their achievement challenges, and measuring the progress they’ve made in reaching them. A basket of evidence has been determined including NCEA reporting, school attendance records, National Standards reporting, Education Review Office reports, schools’ annual reports, data from existing school-based tests (such as asTTle), progress towards IEP goals for students with special education needs, data on attendance, stand-downs, suspensions and exclusions, and student well-being surveys. Schools decide for themselves what evidence to use.

What happens next?

The first Communities of Learningof Schools were announced on 8 December 2014 and involve over 80 schools which cover primary, intermediate, secondary and area schools, and include all decile groups.

In early 2015 each of the Communities will work together, and with parents/whanau to identify their achievement challenges. The critical thing is that the challenges will be specific to the Community and will reflect the particular needs of the students. The Communities will also need to draw up a plan to meet those challenges.

Once this is done, funding will be released for new teacher and principal roles, and for paid time for teachers to learn from each other.

The Ministry of Education has also reached agreement with the NZEI on joint working parties that will look at ways to further raise student achievement. The working parties will commence in February 2015 and report back by the end of May 2015, at the latest.

The first group of Communities of Schools has already started planning their achievement challenges and IES will be fully rolled out throughout the country by 2017.

Communities of LearningSchools

What is a ‘Community of Learning’?Schools’?

Communities of Learningof Schools are intended as a way of strengthening collaboration between principals, teachers and schools in order to raise student achievement.

Communities of LearningSchools will self-identify and are likely to be based on geographic groupings, with an average of around ten schools. It is intended that pre existingpre-existing communities and networks will be supported to form Communities of Learningof Schools where this makes sense. Schools’ participation in IES is voluntary, and no school will be forced to participate.

Communities will work together to identify, develop and meet their own specific achievement objectives, supported by the Ministry as required.

The Communities’ plans may also include working with local early childhood education services and tertiary providers to improve transitions through the education system, and with local communities to engage parents, family and whānau more productively in their children’s education. Individual schools will continue to address their own school goals in parallel with their work with the Community of Learning,Schools, and they may also continue to work with other schools in arrangements they have already developed previously.

An Expression of Interest form and guidelines are now available for schools and kura interested in forming Communities of Learning. TheSchools. The Ministry will provide support as needed, including advice on meeting the criteria for forming a Community of Learningof Schools and information and assistance to help develop shared achievement goals. The documents are available in Māori, English and Pasifika languages.

Can a school join more than one Community of Learning?Schools?

A school can receive funding for participation in only one Community of Learning.Schools. However it is possible for schools to collaborate successfully in several different networks, as they do now.

New leadership and teaching roles and allowances

Investing in Educational Success introduces new roles for some of the most skilled teachers and principals to share their expertise with colleagues.

The Ministry has agreements with the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA), Secondary Principals’ Association of New Zealand (SPANZ), and New Zealand School Trustees Association.

They set out details of how new teacher and leadership roles will work together within Communities of Learningof Schools to raise student achievement.

The Ministry of Education has reached agreement with the NZEI on joint working parties that will look at ways to further raise student achievement. The working parties have already started and are to report back by the end of May 2015, at the latest.

What will the Community of Learningof Schools Leadership role do?

It is proposed that those principals in Community of Learningof Schools Leadership role will:

• be highly-capable senior leaders with proven track records, who will use their skills collaboratively across a Community of LearningSchools
• work with the principals, boards of trustees and others in their Community of Learningof Schools to agree shared student achievement objectives and a plan to meet those objectives
• co-ordinate the support provided by the new roles and other resources to deliver the plan 
• perform a guiding role in implementing projects in the plan including offering pedagogical leadership
• be assessed against new professional standards to be established for the role
• remain the principals of their own schools, employed solely by the schools’ boards of trustees.

Under  the agreement with the Post-Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) and the Secondary Principals’ Association of New Zealand (SPANZ), the allowance is set at $30,000 a year, and Communities of Schools will be given funding for administration and travel costs associated with working together. The appointment will be for a fixed term of up to two years, and one further fixed term of up to two years may be agreed.

Principals in the Community of Learningof Schools Leadership role would be freed from some existing duties, to work with other schools in their community. To enable this, ten hours per week of additional staffing will be given to the employing school, to be used throughout the year in ways that best suit the employing school and the needs of the Community of Learning.Schools. The transfer of duties will allow other senior teachers to gain experience in a senior management role.

There will be around 250 of these roles when implementation is complete.

What will the across communityacross-community teacher role do?

It is proposed that teachers in the across communityacross-community teacher role will:

• work collaboratively across schools with teachers and others to improve teaching practice and student achievement
• work with the Community of Schools Leader role to meet the shared achievement objectives of the Community of LearningSchools
• be assessed against new professional standards to be established for the role.

Under the agreement with the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) the allowance is set at $16,000 a year. The appointment will be for a fixed term of up to 2to two years, and one further fixed term of up to 2to two years may be agreed. Teachers appointed to the role will be allocated the equivalent of ten hours non-teaching time per week to work with the other schools in their Community. This time could be organised through the year in a range of ways, reflecting the needs of both the employing school and of the Community of Learning.Schools.

The funding package to the employing school will include additional support, such as funding for teachers to work outside their school and other resourcing such as release time and travel grants. There would be around 1,000 of these roles when implementation is complete.

What will the within schoolwithin-school teacher role do?

It is proposed that teachers in the within schoolwithin-school teacher role will:

• be highly capablehighly-capable classroom teachers
• be assessed against new professional standards to be established for the role
• work within their own schools with other teachers from across the Community of LearningSchools
• promote best teaching practice within schools
• strengthen the use of the teaching as inquiry approach to teaching and learning.

Under the agreement with the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) the allowance is set at $8,000 a year. The within-school teacher role will be a mix of permanent and fixed term positions, subject, when permanent, to the incumbent continuing to meet new professional standards.

Teachers appointed to the role would be released for 2for two hours a week and there would be around 5,000 within-school teacherWithin-School Teacher roles when IES is fully running.

How will the new roles work in relation to Communities of Learning?Schools?

It has been proposed that each Community of Learningof Schools will have a Community of Learningof Schools Leadership role and an allocation of across communityacross-community roles. Each school within the Community will then have an allocation of within schoolwithin-school teacher roles.

The Community’s achievement plan could describe how these roles would work together to meet shared objectives. The intent is that these new roles will raise the level of collaboration between schools and teachers, and to help raise the quality of teaching practice and accelerate student achievement.

What is the Principal Recruitment Allowance?

This is an allowance to help schools with significant challenges to attract a wider pool of highly experiencedhighly-experienced principals with a track record of effecting positive improvements in schools. If schools with a principal vacancy meet the criteria set, boards of trustees could pay their newly appointednewly-appointed principal an additional allowance on top of the salary the school normally generates. This would broaden the pool of candidates the board of trustees is able to draw from. The appointment would be to a permanent position.

The allowance would encourage principals to apply for positions at select schools based on the size of the challenge rather than the size of the school. Under the agreement with the Secondary Principals’ Association of New Zealand (SPANZ), the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) and the New Zealand School Trustees Association the allowance will be $50,000 a year. It would be paid be for an initial fixed term of three years, and for a maximum of two further fixed terms of up to two years if the principal meets agreed criteria.

Principals in this role would have the normal senior leader responsibilities for managing the school and would focus on lifting student achievement and improving school capability in a sustainable way. It is anticipated that about 20 of these allowances may be allocated each year.

The Principals Recruitment Allowance would be in addition to any other support or intervention being received by the school.

What is Inquiry Time?

This is time during the school day for teachers to be released from their classrooms to learn from other colleagues and/or work in their new roles within their Communities of Schools. Investing in Educational Success includes funding for schools to release teachers for Inquiry Time and to assist Communities of Learningof Schools to meet their achievement challenges.

The proposal is for an annual amount of hours of Inquiry Time to be available around the country, with funding to be based upon the number of hours for each full-time equivalent teacher (FTTE). There will be a minimum entitlement of hours per year for very small schools. The allocation of this time will be the school’s decision but will broadly reflect the aims of the Community.

Following advice from the Working Group, work is continuing with the sector on how Inquiry Time will operate, including balancing the amount of Inquiry Time available against the allowances paid for the new roles.

Teacher-led Innovation Fund

What is the Teacher-led Innovation Fund and what is it intended to do?

The Teacher-led Innovation Fund is intended to enable teachers to develop and share innovative and effective practice. The Government is investing $10 million in this fund over 3over three years from 2015-2018.beginning in 2015. There an application-based funding process.

Projects supported by the fund will increase the pool of evidence about best practice in New Zealand classrooms. This will help raise achievement, especially for priority learners.

The fund will enable tea -based,team-based, teacher-led research and development at a practical level, working within schools or across groups of schools. Funding is available to teachers in any state or state integrated school (not only to schools which are part of a Community of Learning).Schools).

Putting the initiative into practice

Will IES create more teaching positions?

The intention of IES is to recognise existing expertise and encourage it to be shared.

However, it is likely that existing part timepart-time and relief teachers will be working more hours and potentially some new teacher positions will be created as new roles are backfilled. There could also be additional opportunities for trained teachers who are not currently in the workforce. Until the details of how the new roles will work are further developed, numbers will not be known.

In schools with a Community of LearningSchools Leadership role, teachers in senior leadership roles are likely to have additional opportunities to act at a higher level , while the principal in the Community of Learningof Schools Leadership role is employed in that role.

What is the basis of the payment for these roles?

The new roles would provide new career options for teachers and principals with particular expertise relevant to the aims of IES. As with the current career pathways in schools, the responsibilities which are associated with those new roles will generate additional remuneration and a time allocation to perform new duties. The individual’s annual remuneration would not be dependent on meeting performance outcomes. The Working Group was clear that IES roles were not to be performance pay positions.

What areas will the across communityacross-community teacher role specialise in?

It is expected that the selection of teachers for across-community teacher role will be in response to the shared achievement objectives identified by their Communities of Learning.Schools. This means their area of expertise is likely to vary between Communities of Learningof Schools (for example expertise in a specific subject, assessment, or teaching methods) and also to vary within each Community over time as its self identifiedself-identified needs and objectives change.

What is in the Working Group’s report?

The Working Group’s report supports:

• establishing Communities of Schools to work together to raise student achievement, and to encourage greater collaboration between schools on shared achievement objectives
• introducing new teaching and principal roles to support collaboration and effective practice and to provide clearer pathways for teachers and principals
• involving external and independent expertise in appointments to the new Community of LearningacrossSchools across community teacher and leadership roles
• establishing professional standards for these roles and for the Within School Teacher roles.
• providing additional Inquiry Time to all schools in Communities of Schools to allow teachers to access the expertise that the new roles would make available
• funding teachers to work on innovative projects and practices that will raise student achievement within, and across, schools
• introducing an allowance to help the boards of trustees of some of our most high-need schools to broaden their recruitment pool and assist them to recruit a principal with proven effectiveness in schools with similar challenges.

The Working Group’s report suggests:

• changing the names of the roles to make clearer the collaborative aspects of the initiative
• rebalancing the allocation of existing funding between allowances for the new roles and the provision of Inquiry Time
• allocating the Teacher–led Innovation Fund over three years, rather than two years
• linking the number of new roles and amount of Inquiry Time to demographic changes.

These recommendations were incorporated into the final design of IES

What was the Government’s response to the report?

The Government welcomed the report. It carefully considered the advice in the report and the Minister tasked the Ministry of Education with continuing to work with the sector to finalise the details.