CLOSED: Changes to appraisal for principals, tumuaki and ECE professional leaders

Elements

Notes

Element a

Principals and professional leaders will facilitate a collective understanding of the Standards | Ngā Paerewa in their context and what meeting and using them in their practice looks like (revisiting from time to time and with new teachers in their setting).

Principals, tumuaki and ECE professional leaders will already have completed this process with the teachers, kaiako in their settings – refer Professional Growth Cycle for Teachers.

Element b

Principals and professional leaders will work with their board chair or ECE employer to plan their professional growth cycle and how they will be supported in it.

The professional growth cycle should be enabling for the principal and ECE professional leader and focus on growth to support them to effectively undertake the complexity of their role in their unique context.

Resources or frameworks such as the Educational Leadership Capability Framework or Tū Rangatira may be useful aides in the design and focus of a professional growth cycle.

Name any colleague or colleagues from your existing professional network or identify someone from another setting who will support learning within your cycle.

A risk assessment could be completed if a potential conflict of interest many arise.

Element c

Principals and professional leaders will engage in professional learning using the Standards | Ngā Paerewa within a professional learning network of colleagues to develop their professional practice.

The principal or ECE professional leader is strongly encouraged to engage in their professional growth cycle within a professional learning network of colleagues (locally or using distance technologies). These networks may already exist or could be created specifically for the professional growth cycle in the interests of improved professional practices and enhanced outcomes for learners. Within such a group, participants could:

·       test ideas and offer valuable critique

·       collaborate in thinking, learning, generating new understandings as part of using the Standards | Ngā Paerewa

·       support innovation

·       reciprocate support.

Other people outside the professional network (e.g. consultants) may be brought in to support an area of growth or to supply mentoring or coaching as part of the cycle. (This is not a requirement.)

Element d

Principals and professional leaders will look for and engage in opportunities to receive feedback on their practice from a range of sources, including the board chair or ECE employer or their delegate.

It is envisaged that peers within the principal or ECE professional leader’s learning network would supply feedback as part of their on-going interactions. Similarly, feedback could come from other professionals with specific expertise. The range of feedback/feedforward sources that are ‘naturally’ available to the leader should be used in the professional growth cycle; from ERO, parents, whānau or the board of trustees or ECE employer.

Element e

A professional learning network colleague who holds a Tūturu | Full (Category One) practising certificate will confirm annually that the principal or ECE professional leader has participated in the professional growth cycle and will also provide a statement to them about whether they meet (Tūturu | Full (Category One) Practising Certificate) or are likely to meet (Pumau | Full (Category Two, previously subject to confirmation) practising certificate), the Standards | Ngā Paerewa (but with no requirement to create evidential documents for the purposes of practising certificate renewal).

Additional endorsement statements for the renewal of the practising certificate are:

·       completion of satisfactory professional development in the past three years

·       progress in te reo me ngā tikanga Māori as required by the Standards | Ngā Paerewa[1]

The board chair or the ECE employer with the principal or ECE professional leader will decide who will be the endorser.

The endorsement is not intended to be a summative assessment of the principal or ECE professional leader’s practice in relation to the Standards | Ngā Paerewa. It will be a professional judgment based on their participation in the learning network. The endorser will report to the principal or ECE professional leader and the board chair or the ECE employer, to ensure they are aware of the endorsement decision in relation to the Standards I Ngā Paerewa.

The board chair or ECE employer with the principal or ECE professional leader will decide on the degree to which the professional growth cycle can address other aspects of performance management or employment processes of the context.

If endorsement by a professional learning network colleague is not suitable in any year, the following options may be selected:

·       the board chair or ECE employer, or

·       an external person with a Tūturu | Full (Category One) Practising Certificate.

Element f

If in the endorser’s judgment the principal or ECE professional leader does not currently meet the Standards | Ngā Paerewa, they will discuss with the principal or ECE professional leader.

Note that in these situations the Council’s registration and certification policy will set out the expectations for the endorsement of a practising certificate renewal.

The endorser will report the endorsement decision to the principal or ECE professional leader and the board chair or the ECE employer. If the endorser has any concerns, then they would be expected to raise these with both the board chair or the ECE employer and the principal or ECE professional leader prior to any endorsement decision.