8.0 Support education leaders
Education leaders are essential in establishing the culture and school effectiveness necessary to provide quality teaching and improved student outcomes. School leaders must be able to rely on support from DoE centrally and from their region to carry out their work. Unnecessary distractions and excessive administrative burdens need to be removed to enable them to carry out their important work (see page 16).
8.1 Review of the state school resourcing model
Queensland state schooling’s current allocative model does not meet the demands of 21st century learning. Principals are leading their school communities while managing changing expectations and external disruptions which are outside of their control. This is done while also continuing to deliver quality learning experiences for all students. Over the past 10 years, school leaders and teachers have had additional duties and responsibilities placed upon them that go above and beyond current role descriptions. Schools are not being sufficiently resourced to tackle these ongoing changes to education or the shifts in technological and social issues characteristic of the 21st Century.
The enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) reached in 2022 included an extensive review of the roles and duties of school leaders, heads of program and teachers. This review of the state school resourcing model will be completed before EB11. It is anticipated that the review will take the full two school calendar years of the agreement commencing in 2023. DoE will establish a governance and consultative committee structure for the review, with the QTU as a key stakeholder.
The review will:
- include a comprehensive review of school resourcing arrangements, including methodologies, procedures and systems (including school-based kindy programs).
- consider contemporary approaches to needs-based school resourcing across diverse systems, with an aim to ensure that arrangements into the future are simple, fair, transparent and predictable
- take account of the components of teachers, heads of program and school leaders’ duties (including bus and playground duty, delegations and administrative tasks); specialist teachers (music); and numbers of beginning teachers and early-career teachers
- consider the effects of changes to resourcing arrangements on associated processes, including the principal classification: total government resource thresholds.
This review is not limited to teacher, head of program and school leader resourcing, but all elements of the allocative model. This review is an opportunity to fundamentally reconsider the staffing and resourcing of the state school system, to ensure that Queensland’s students receive the best educational opportunities and that teachers and school leaders are supported with the appropriate resourcing to do so.
Due to the significance of this review, the QTU believes all recommendations need to be fully funded by Treasury.
8.2 School reviews
The Department of Education and the QTU are committed to working together to support continuous improvement in Queensland state schools.
To support quality education and improvement to student learning in Queensland, every state school undertakes a review at least once every four years. Reviews are tailored to the context of each school and aim to provide quality feedback and inform school planning processes. In collaboration with staff and the school community, principals use the findings from reviews to inform plans for the next stage of the school’s improvement journey.
Following the review, a written report provides schools with more information to support their continuous improvement. The school’s assistant regional director or principal supervisor will work closely with the school to respond to the review’s findings, including incorporating any recommendations into the school’s four-year strategic plan. In the case of priority support reviews, the assistant regional director or principal supervisor works with the school to develop and implement a detailed action plan in the response.
It is essential that the reviewing teams consider the industrial frameworks under which teacher and education leaders are employed when offering strategies for improvement. Currently, many schools are provided with reports that require school leaders to drive change in a pressured, workload-heavy manner and without any additional resources to assist. This is not sustainable and is contrary to the agreements reached between DoE and the QTU on managing workload.
The QTU believes that recommendations from any full school, priority support or self-determined review should be centrally funded and should not be out of current school budgets.
8.3 School leader mobility
An outcome of the 2022 EBA was a comprehensive review of the teacher transfer system and the relocation process for heads of program and school leaders. A vital aspect of any statewide system of employment is to ensure that school leaders and heads of program can return to their preferred location after working in remote, regional, rural or difficult-to-staff areas, or if they have approved compassionate circumstances. The current relocation model is not meeting the needs of school leaders and heads of program, who are often unable to return to their preferred geographic location in Queensland. This ultimately impacts on children attending schools in remote, regional, or difficult-to-staff locations, as education leaders are not prepared to risk moving to these locations, as they believe they will not be able to return to their preferred geographic area through the current relocation process.
This review of the relocation process will need to consider new and innovative ways to ensure an effective and supportive relocation model is established. Overallocation of education leaders (in some instances), increases in relocation expenses, relocation applicants filling temporary vacancies, and support and capability development when moving between different school contexts must be considered in any new model.
All recommendations from the review of the relocation system, including additional costs to support the development of a more effective and supportive relocation model, must be fully funded.
8.4 Development of consistent aspirant and early career development models that support school leaders
Currently there are no consistent aspirant and early-career development models that support school leaders across the state. To support aspirant leaders and early career leaders the Department of Education should:
- establish and invest in deputy principal and principal induction programs that incorporate face-to-face meetings with other new deputy principals and principals and opportunities to develop networks
- ensure that regional aspiring leader programs are accessible to all aspiring leaders and are consistent between regions to encourage borderless recruitment for leadership positions
- establish a process for filling temporary leadership positions that is accessible for both intra-regional and inter-regional applicants.
Development of any programs to support consistent aspirant and early career development models that support school leaders must be fully funded.
RECOMMENDATIONS
47. Fully fund the recommendations of the review of the state school resourcing model.
48. Develop the recommendations of school reviews with workload considerations in mind, and ensure they are centrally funded and do not require use of current school budget allocations.
49. Fully fund all recommendations from the review of the relocation system, including additional costs to support the development of a more effective and supportive relocation model.
50. Invest in development of statewide deputy principal and principal induction programs that incorporate face-to-face meetings with other new deputy principals and principals and opportunities to develop networks.
QTU State Budget Submission 2023-24