Major NSW backflip as DP’s, AP’s and head teachers set for classroom return

By EducationHQ News Team
Published August 20, 2024

Hundreds of deputy principals, assistant principals and head teachers in New South Wales will be back delivering curriculum in classrooms next year, following a review by the state’s education department.

“We have a lot of work to do to improve the declining educational outcomes left by the Liberals and Nationals, and we can’t afford to have our teachers with the greatest expertise off class,” Education Minister Prue Car says. PHOTO: AAP

NSW public school students will have more time learning from expert teachers, with those in additional deputy principal positions in all but the state’s most complex settings expected to teach between two and two-and-a-half days a week.

Additional head teachers and assistant principals are expected to be in the classroom three-and-a-half to four days a week.

The move will amount to an estimated extra 237,000 hours taught each year in the state’s public schools.

An audit is to be undertaken on the non-teaching tasks schools have been performing, to determine which of the tasks can be transferred back to the department, scrapped or reduced to free up more teaching hours, while recruitment of teachers to non-teaching executive roles will also be put on hold.

The moves are designed to correct what the NSW Government says is an inequity in teaching time of executive teachers created on an ad hoc basis under the Liberals and Nationals’ Local Schools, Local Decisions policy.

Introduced in 2012, the policy was aimed at giving schools greater autonomy to make their own decisions and led to billions of dollars being shifted away from the Department of Education to schools.

A review last year however, found that it instead led to a dramatic increase in non-teaching executive roles, as teachers were pulled out of classrooms to perform ever growing lists of new admin tasks.

Executive staff numbers grew as they tackled support learning, HR, finance and other administrative duties outside of the classroom, while deputy principal positions grew by 85 per cent and assistant principal positions by 62 per cent.

At the same time the number of classroom teachers flatlined and education outcomes went backwards.

Deputy Premier and Minister for Education and Early Learning Prue Car said the former Liberal government took some of the state’s most experienced teachers off class at a time of chronic teacher shortage.

“We are correcting that by bringing them back into the classroom where their experience and knowledge is needed the most,” Car said in a statement.

“The historic pay rise delivered to teachers last year as well as our decision to make thousands of teachers permanent members of staff is helping to turn the system around, but our students have been missing out on being taught by some of our expert teachers.”

The Government said the changes will correct a “proliferation” of executive teachers under the former Coalition government, despite thousands of classes being merged or cancelled daily as a result of a shortage of teachers.

A review into executive teachers last year found 1500 executive teachers were not teaching timetabled classes at all, while a further 2400 were teaching fewer hours than required.

Since coming to office, the current NSW Government has undertaken a range of measures to tackle the teacher shortage crisis.

At the beginning of this year teacher vacancies fell by 20 per cent as the State Government’s record pay rise for teachers - delivered last year - plus a range of effective recruitment measures deliver some progress.

The Department of Education said it will continue to work with the NSW Teachers Federation to ensure teaching time, wherever possible for executive teachers across the system, is in line with their industrial agreements.

Earlier this year, Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph revealed that the teachers would be required to return to the classroom as part of an unwinding of Local Schools, Local Decisions by the Minns Government in bid to fix the state’s teacher shortage.

David Olsen is deputy principal of Alexandria Park Community School in South Sydney and said he’s been juggling that role with face-to-face teaching since last year.

Formerly a high school art teacher who retrained to teach primary school, he said the two positions complemented each other.

“It keeps you connected to the kids while also helping me in my role as deputy where I oversee learning and support,” he told the Daily Telegraph this week.

“It is a bit of a juggle but I enjoy it. I think other teachers like to see the deputy teaching as well.”