NSW Teachers Federation deputy president criticises Premier’s school times plan

A senior figure in the NSW teachers union has called out Dominic Perrottet, demanding the Premier gets his education priorities straight.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet’s intention to shake up school times has been labelled a distraction by one of the NSW Teachers Federation’s senior figures.

The union’s deputy president, Henry Rajendra, said there are a myriad of other issues in the education system which need urgent attention.

“This announcement is simply a distraction,” Mr Rajendra told The Illawarra Star.

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“Schools already have varying start and finish times based on local context.

“The Premier is attempting to draw attention away from his government’s failure to address the long suffering and worsening teacher shortage plaguing schools across the state.

“The staffing crisis is the most pressing issue for schools and the government needs to turn its attention to its causes, namely, uncompetitive salaries and unsustainable workloads of teachers.

“Further, if the Premier was genuine about supporting parents, they would be funding before and after school care and public preschooling for every public primary school.”

Mr Perrottet’s comments come days after students and teachers across the state have returned to classrooms.

Both are required to undertake rapid antigen testing in an effort to guard against a significant number of schools becoming ‘non-operational’ due to Covid infections exacerbating the teacher shortage.

West Wollongong’s Catholic all-boys school Edmund Rice College starts classes at 8am and finished at 2.05pm.

The school’s principal, Stephen Gough, told news.com.au the earlier start, which was implemented in 2013, came after an extensive community consultation process.

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“Every educator knows some of your best learning happens earlier in the day,” he said.

“For those students who want to get extra help and support we have a formalised homework club and many boys access that, not only to get access to their teachers, but also the senior students.

“It adds to our learning culture and the boys don’t necessarily have to stay up late at night if they are getting their homework done from 2.30pm.

“It turns our school into more of a learning community rather than you come here for your classes and then you go home.”

The debate comes weeks after a News Corp survey of more than 1100 students in Years 10, 11 and 12 nearly half wanted school to start at either 9.30 or 10am.

The survey found nearly six in 10 have problems getting a good night’s sleep, with screen time (66 per cent), education stress (63 per cent) and anxiety (49 per cent) the top three things keeping them awake.