Absence calls, label-making, web management: Teachers’ growing list of jobs handed over to 600+ admin angels

Extra administrative support staff for NSW public schools and their overburdened teachers have been funded for a further two years. Here’s why schools and principals say the trial has been a “game-changer”.

Extra administrative support staff for NSW public schools and their overburdened teachers have been funded for a further two years as the Minns government rolls out the successful program to another 700 schools.

The paperwork reduction trial, which saw 400 School Administrative and Support Staff (SASS) newly hired or given expanded hours in 419 schools this year, will have covered almost half the schools in the state by 2026.

Approximately 600 more full-time equivalent staff will be available to schools in the $47 million expansion of the scheme.

It comes after the Department of Education’s line-by-line audit of administrative tasks found some 100 of the 344 tasks teachers perform daily are causing “high or very high bureaucratic workload”.

Schools that participated in the trial were able to hand over tasks like co-ordinating excursions and after-school programs, writing school procedures and digitising records to their new administrative staff, allowing teachers to spend more time with students and focusing on what they do in the classroom.

Medowie Public School is one of the more than 400 schools who benefited from the first round of SASS funding.

In Sydney’s west The Ponds special education school’s new SASS organised a NDIS help desk for parents to come in and discuss their child’s plan and needs, while James Fallon High School in Albury near the Victorian border used the additional staff to digitise historical records and improve their systems for managing student healthcare plans and risk assessments.

West of the Blue Mountains, Wallerawang Public School had their SASS put together a new work health and safety, first aid and evacuation handbook, and Medowie Public School in the Hunter Region replaced after-school hours meetings with a group chat.

In northern Sydney Beecroft Public School principal Tanya Rose said the additional funding has been “a bit of a game-changer”, allowing her to hire two more SASS for a total of eight part-time staff.

“One of the team is really good with Excel, so she’s really good at helping me manage enrolment numbers and how that affects staffing … previously she just wouldn’t have had the time,” Mrs Rose said.

“We knew that this (funding) was not going to continue forever, but it really has created sustainable systems and processes that will remain.”

Beecroft Public School principal Tanya Rose (right) and School Administrative Manager Deirdre Familton. Picture: Supplied

Her school administrative manager Deirdre Familton said the range of tedious tasks taken off teachers range from label-making for Kindergarten orientations to managing the school website, photocopying and binding worksheets to providing medical care at sports carnivals.

“We were able to review our student awards program, so we now maintain the databases for all our awards and that’s something teachers don’t have to do,” Mrs Familton said.

“There’s someone on the front desk all the time now – there’s someone there to greet students, to greet parents … in the past, a lot of our office staff have had to multi-task.”

The SASS team have also taken over management of student absences, which previously saw teachers stay back before and after classes to communicate with parents, and their system improvements have seen the school’s rate of unexplained absences reduced.

(File image) Time poor teachers have been snowed under with admin tasks and bureaucratic paperwork. Picture: Brett Hartwig

“(Teachers) are very happy not to have to do all those phone calls,” Mrs Rose said.

“We’ve got a better work-life balance.”

Education Minister Prue Car said the government will look closely at the program’s results to make improvements more broadly, amid an ongoing effort to reduce teachers’ workload.

“We need our teachers focusing on what matters most – providing high quality teaching for our students in the classroom,” she said.