Dee Why Public School in pioneering program to give backroom bureaucrats insights into teachers’ work
A Sydney school saw Education Department bosses packing their lunch boxes and sent back to the classroom in a program to better support frontline public school teachers.
Manly
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The state’s top education bureaucrats are being taught a lesson.
As part of the “School Experience Program” senior Education Department executives — and all new office staff — must spend a week working at a local primary or high school.
And Dee Why Public School is one of the first schools to take part in the pioneering scheme to give backroom workers an insight into what it’s like to work as a teacher in a state public school.
Last week the school welcomed a head office business analyst, Nick Leverett, and an officer in the department’s Early Childhood team, Samara Lake, for five days working alongside teachers.
They sat in on classroom lessons, took part in administrative tasks and helped out with playground duty and excursions.
The work experience program comes amid ongoing negotiations over teachers’ pay and conditions.
The NSW Teachers Federation has repeatedly complained that head office is out of touch with what was actually happening in schools and pointed out the amount of bureaucratic paperwork teachers must complete, aside from their normal classroom duties.
In May, Education Minister Prue Car announced that another 284 public schools would be able to employ more administration staff. The program will be expanded across all 2200 public schools next year.
The Education Department secretary, Murat Dizdar, said he wanted senior executives, including himself, as well as new office staff, to go “back to school”.
Mr Dizdar, a former high school principal and social science teacher, said he wanted officials to “have their finger on the pulse” when making decisions about public education.
He recently spent a day at Toongabbie East Public School as part of his week in schools.
“For every new employee that comes on board we want to welcome them and have them undertake that week-long immersion inside the school,” Mr Dizdar said.
“You might be writing a finance policy and have vast expertise in that, but you may not be acutely aware of how that can impact on the administrative staff in a school, or the leadership of a school.
“What I know having been a teacher and a principal in this system, if you visit for an hour, of course, you’re going to get a glamourised version. But if you spend a day, let alone an entire week, there is no glamourised version.”
Mr Leverett said he was amazed at the variety of tasks required by school staff and seeing the “inner workings” of the school.
“Every day is different.
“You’re doing something at head office and then you can remember the kids, the staff members, the schools being the beneficiaries and you can actually see the context that you’re working for.
“It’s no longer detached from your work.”
Dee Why Public School principal, Mark Chaffer, said there were a number of initiatives for schools, from different departments in head office, but “none would know what (the other) was doing or how they may impact the school.”
Mr Chaffer said having head office staff spend time in schools would help “programs and initiatives talk to each other and intermesh a whole lot better”.
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