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DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE 2006 No 2 May

Even though the press releases from the Council and the Ministry of Education emphasised the good news, the media generally seem determined to headline the negative.

Here are some alternative headlines the media might just as easily have constructed:
"Most teachers love their job with passion"
"Teachers held in high regard by their students and by employers"
"Early childhood teachers, teachers in low decile schools most satisfied"
"Teachers attracted by the chance to make a difference for young people - job status has no effect on recruitment and retention"
"Support and effective leadership critical for teachers' commitment to their career"

Below the 'alarming' headlines, lots of positive messages were conveyed, particularly in some in-depth radio interviews. Here we heard from teachers and teacher educators speaking very positively about teaching. It was heartening to have the media focus on the complexities, joys and issues for the teaching profession.

These research reports have produced rich insights, from teachers, professional leaders, employer groups, students and parents, into perceptions of teaching as a career, factors that encourage and factors that inhibit teachers' ability to do the best job possible, and how the profession might approach some of these issues. The Council has begun the task of analysing implications for our own work with the profession and indeed, has already built some of these into our strategic plan and statement of intent for the next three years.

These reports will soon be available on our website at www.teacherscouncil.govt.nz/communication/publications

In this message:

Linking Minds - funded study tour to the U.K.

The Teachers Council is delighted to be involved with this joint initiative to enable four teachers to travel to the UK in the September vacation to investigate some initiatives in professional leadership. Open to teachers in the schools sector, they need to be in their first five years as a registered teacher and under 35 years of age. They will be hosted by a Local Education Authority (LEA) in the UK who will provide an appropriate programme of visits for the chosen theme which in 2006 is professional leadership. The successful applicants will have some obligations to report on their experiences at appropriate workshops or conferences back in New Zealand.

This venture is jointly sponsored and administered by the Link Foundation (UK), the British Council (NZ), the Ministry of Education and the New Zealand Teachers Council. There will be an advertisement in the June 5 Gazette and applications will close on Friday 30th June.

Please draw this to the attention of any suitable candidates on your staff. This is an excellent opportunity to encourage young talent in the teaching profession and grow leadership potential that your school could also benefit from.

Changes to language requirements policy

Amendments to the Language Requirements policy (and consequent changes to the LAT policy) were notified in April via the Gazette and our website. The two main changes were:

Details of the changes can be viewed on the website and in the boxed section at the end of this message.

Teachers and professional leaders are finding the amended policy much fairer. In particular, this has helped those teachers, who have done their teacher education in English, in a country where English is an official language, but their country of origin was not on the previous approved list. Prior to this change, these teachers would have had to sit a language test. .

Survey of professional leaders in schools re LAT policy

There was an excellent response to our survey of professional leaders in the schools sector. Issues clearly identified and needing to be addressed in our policy review , include the special case of guidance counsellors and itinerant music teachers. We were heartened, however, to get positive feedback from professional leaders that they were receiving timely and helpful advice when they sought it from staff when applying to the Council for LATs. Professional leaders clearly spelled out some frustrations with the current policy from their point of view. We will provide a summary of the research report to those who participated in the survey in due course. In the meantime, our review of the policy is well underway and will be considered by Council in the next two months.

My thanks to all who responded to the questionnaire.

Delays with police vets causing backlog in processing applications

Some teachers will have been frustrated by long delays caused by the the Licensing and Vetting Unit of NZ Police. As of 24th May 2006, we are waiting at least 35 working days for all police vets. As you know, we cannot approve applications without a satisfactory police vet and, like you; we have found these delays extremely frustrating.

Our usual processing time is 4-6 weeks. We expect to process 70% of applications in six weeks. For the last 15 months, we have surpassed this benchmark. Evidence of this is provided in our last quarterly report, January 2006 to March 2006. Our processing time for renewals (TC3), was 96% in 6 weeks, applications for full (TC2) was 69% in 4 weeks, and for registration applications (TC1), 94% in 6 weeks.

There are signs, however, that this backlog in the New Zealand Police vetting service is beginning to clear. Council staff met with senior Police staff to explain the difficulties the situation is creating for our own service delivery. We expect that the problem will soon improve.

Non Teacher Police Vetting Update

Delays with Police processing times has also affected the Non Teacher Police Vetting Unit at the Council. There has been an upsurge in enquiries concerning the time taken to complete vets and return them to the requestors.

The Council's Unit has consistently maintained its high level of service with a 100% turnaround in 5 days (this includes receiving and processing vet requests and processing once returned from NZ Police) and has a 92% turnaround in 5 days for the first three quarters of the financial year.

As at 30 April,13,699 vet applications had been processed (in this financial year since 01 July 2005) by the Non Teacher Police Vetting Unit at the Council.

We are disappointed that delays at the Licensing and Vetting Unit of NZ Police are impacting on our usually very prompt turnaround of applications.

Please ensure all applications are complete

Although current delays are beyond our control, the NTPV Unit would ask that requestors ensure all applications are completed in full before submitting them to the Council. Any applications not completed in full or with incorrect payment will be returned to the designated vet requestor. Listed below are common reasons for having to return applications;

Keeping your own records

The New Zealand Teachers Council's role for non teaching staff is to act solely as a conduit between vet requestors and NZ Police. The only record the New Zealand Teachers Council keeps is that the vet has occurred and on which date. It is the responsibility of the school or centre submitting the vet to have a process in place to record applicants' renewal dates and to ensure strict confidentiality is observed with information received as the result of a vet.

For further information regarding the Non Teacher Police Vetting process and application forms please visit www.teacherscouncil.govt.nz/ntpv

Teachers to Report Convictions

Did you know that since 1 September 2004, teachers* have had to report to the New Zealand Teachers Council, within 7 days of being convicted, if they are convicted of an offence which has a maximum penalty of 3 months or more imprisonment,? (Section 139AP of the Education Act 1989)

This includes the reporting of traffic convictions. Examples of offences that have a maximum penalty of 3 months or more imprisonment, include, driving with excess blood alcohol, dangerous driving, careless driving causing injury and driving whilst disqualified.

A teacher can report to the Council either in writing or by completing an electronic form on the Council's website which is at

http://www.teacherscouncil.govt.nz/cnc/complaints/mailformconvictiont.stm

We encourage any teachers, who are unsure whether an offence they have been convicted of carries such a penalty, to check with a lawyer, or a union representative or the legal adviser at the Council.

• Those who should report their convictions include registered teachers, formerly registered teachers, holders of a Limited Authority to Teach and those who have formerly held a Limited Authority to Teach.

Publications on the website

The publication of recently completed research reports has prompted the Council to extend its pages on the website in order to make these reports available on-line. The Status of Teachers reports and the Initial Teacher Education Research reports will be able to be downloaded at www.teacherscouncil.govt.nz/communication/publications/research.stm

The resource Towards Full Registration, our handbook for advice and guidance programmes for provisionally registered teachers, is also now available online. Keep an eye on this area of the website for future publications from the Teachers Council. This is also where you can view current and past issues of our newsletter ForTeachers Mō Ngā Kaiwhakaako and of this electronic Director's Message. We welcome feedback on our communications. Please email comms@teacherscouncil.govt.nz

Upgrade to the Council database

On 3 April, the New Zealand Teachers Council went live on a major IT database upgrade. We have attempted to minimise any inconvenience for teachers as we did this changeover. It is a major undertaking to change a system with almost 90,000 teachers on the database.

Our new system will enable us to access more efficiently teachers' records and to store more comprehensive details. It will also mean better and more useful reporting. Staff have worked hard to familiarise themselves with the system and we have appreciated teachers' patience, especially on the phones, if conversations have taken a little longer than usual.

We have not entered data from applications approved prior to the end of March 2006, except for the financial history, personal details and brief processing notes of applicants.. So there may still be a requirement for teachers to supply some past information that could not be stored on the old database.

Teachers should note that the TRB did not view authorised copies of qualifications, prior to 1991. Therefore, teachers registered prior to 1991, who have subsequently had time away from teaching, and need to re-apply on a TC1, they will need to send certified copies of their qualifications with the application for registration.

In Conclusion

I welcome comment and feedback from you on any of these matters or other issues you may wish to raise with me. You may contact me at peter.lind@teacherscouncil.govt.nz.

Dr Peter Lind
Director

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