United leadership in action at the QTU Education Leaders Conference
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 129 No 3, 3 May 2024, page 18.
One of the QTU’s greatest strengths is that it supports the membership of both education leaders and teachers.
This strength was on show at the recent QTU United Leadership Conference in Brisbane, at which more than 200 delegates gathered to discuss the issues that impact on school leaders and the teams that work with them to make our state schools the great schools that they are today.
The QTU’s Education Leaders Committee, which comprises 15 principals and associate administrators, designed the conference to be a responsive, contemporary look at the challenges and highlights of being a leader in the current climate.
A pre-conference event led by facilitator and public speaker Ruhee Meghani focussed on reclaiming wellbeing and overcoming burnout, outlining the dimensions of wellbeing.
Aboriginal Elder, Songwoman Maroochy Barambah of the Turrbal people, welcomed all delegates to Country. Opening the conference, QTU President Cresta Richardson noted that, while there are many achievements worth celebrating in our 135th year as a trade union, we are at a critical turning point.
The profession is facing a range of complex issues. We continue to campaign for 100 per cent of the school resourcing standard in the For Every Child campaign, and are holding the department accountable at every level to ensure the working conditions of teachers and school leaders are constantly improved.
This is particularly true as we face a critical turning point in the nationwide teacher shortage – the state government must commit to salaries that will not only attract new entrants to teach in Queensland but will also retain the existing workforce.
By standing united, we can tackle issues such as the teacher shortage, fair funding, resourcing, and fair working conditions with tangible solutions that see the great teaching profession thrive.
Adam Voigt, author, leader, and educator, gave a keynote address entitled “The Grown-ups in the Room”, during which he shared a three phase (P3, P3, F3) restorative model that gives students the autonomy to reflect, for 3 minutes respectively, on past problems, present feelings, but more importantly, future solutions, to resolve an issue of conflict. He encouraged us to choose our language carefully, monitor our conduct and select our mindset. His work through Real Schools offers interactive training for principals. He and his team are currently working with 250 schools nationally, including Rockhampton SHS.
Cindy Freier, QTU Project Officer, and Chris Capra, school supervisor, provided an overview of the work they are doing on the Comprehensive Review of School Resourcing, which is reaching a critical stage with the development of a new model. Additional funding at the state and federal level will be crucial for any new approach to school resourcing, if it is to provide a sufficient base amount of funding, with additional loadings for priority cohort characteristics, school level characteristics and strategic initiatives. School leaders are keenly interested in the new model and how their school will be affected.
Deputy General Secretaries Brendan Crotty and Leah Mertens led a session on enterprise bargaining claim development, which explained interest-based bargaining and the process for submitting ideas for the next log of claims, via branch meetings or the Education Leaders Committee. Once the claim has been developed, it will be endorsed at August State Council and negotiations will commence next year for a replacement certified agreement.
Participants could choose from a series of interesting and informative workshops covering legal and HR issues, recruitment, and selection, and responding to evolving human behaviours, to name a few.
General Secretary Kate Ruttiman discussed the ongoing challenges facing school leaders, and what the QTU was doing about them, with Megan Barry, the Deputy Director-General, People, Information and Communication Services at the Department of Education. School leaders had the opportunity to ask the panel probing questions, which led to frank and honest answers.
Feedback from attendees at the United Leadership Conference has been very positive. The QTU Education Leaders Committee will review and analyse the feedback to ensure continuous improvement in future conferences.