Robyn Brown: Birchville School Principal on primary principals rejecting the Government's latest pay offer

An Upper Hutt primary school principal says their workloads are comparable with secondary school principals, and they deserve a better pay offer. 

Principals who belong to the NZEI union have rejected the Government's latest collective agreement proposal. 

They say it fails to acknowledge their work. 

Birchville School Principal Robyn Brown told Heather du Plessis-Allan unlike secondary principals, they weren't offered a curriculum change allowance, and the pay rise amounts to a cut. 

She says primary school principals have far fewer people to implement curriculum change. 

LISTEN ABOVE  

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Just as we start to get some wins on the
board regarding education, unfortunately another education payoffer has been rejected.
This time it's the primary principles who've turned down the
four point six percent pay rise. Robin Brown is the
principle of Bertuville School and a member of the NZI
negotiating team and with us morning.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Robin, good morning, how are you going?

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Very well? Thank you? So is the sticking point here
the fifteen thousand dollars curriculum change allowance that the secondary
principles got, which you guys want as well.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Or yes particularly, I mean that is substantially more than
we were offered in our offer.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
How much were you offered?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
We weren't offered anything for curriculum, no correclum change at all.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Okay. Were you offered a professional learning and development fund
of ten thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
We were, Yes, but that was not something that had
actually been put forward in our teams.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Okay, and ask that cool? And were you offered an
increase in the literacy and numerousy salary component of up
to eleven thousand dollars a year?

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, but that will be removed after two years, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
And you will also offered four point six percent pay rise.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yep, which is still below the inflation rate, which has
time to mount to a cut in our in our
pay rise.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Okay, so you've been offered up to twenty one thousand
dollars plus four point six percent, but you still want
another fifteen on top of that.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
What we want is recognition for the unsustainable workload and
curriculum upheople that we're having to deal with at the moment.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yes, okay, So if they say to you, if they so,
if they say to you, we recognize all your work,
you will take the offer. Or if they say to you,
we give you fifteen thousand dollars for recognizing all your work,
you'll take the offer.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
We will take that offer out to our principles and
see whether they would be prepared to take that offer.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Robin. The reason I'm asking you this is that a
lot of money that you are asking. I mean, you
guys are basically asking for an increased payment of thirty
six thousand dollars plus four point six percent. No one
else gets that kind of money.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
And I think what we're looking at is what has
been offered to secondary principles, and if we were made
an offer similar to that. We would have taken that
out to our principles at the moment, our principles do
not feel that the offer we've been given is fair
and it doesn't recognize the workload that we are having
to sustain at the moment.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Robin, I mean, I don't want to belist all the
good work you guys are doing, but aren't the secondary
principles actually dealing with greater curriculum upheaval than you guys
at primary level are.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
That's a question that I've been asked hundreds of times,
and I'm sure any principles across the country will tell
you that the workloads for principles of Principles across the
country is huge. Whether you secondary or primary, the workload
is enormous. In primary, you have far few fewer people
in order to implement curriculum change. This is not a

(02:48):
competition between secondary and primary principles. This is a obligation
for our sector to be paid for the workload that
we're expected to be imployed.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Tell me what I am as say understanding here, because
for the secondary principles, I'm seeing that they are having
to overhaul the whole NCEEA system, which is massive across
a lot of subjects at quite a technical level at
the end of school, whereas for you guys, you're basically
introducing structured literacy and reading, structured literacy and maths, which
is basically simplifying what you're doing because it's very explicit

(03:19):
in what it tells you to do. You just have
to follow the manual plus an hour of reading, writing
and maths. Like if you compare those two things, the
fifteen thousand is much more warranted at secondary level than
at primary, don't you think at the.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Moment we're now until i've heard reiteration of that curriculum.
We were dropped that curriculum in October for implementation, and
it is significantly different to the previous two curriculum drops
that we've had. We're having to change. We've not seen
an assessment component of it. We're waiting daily for updates.

(03:58):
We're getting updates on the last days of term. The
workload is huge. Reading, writing, maths are foundational. They are
what established the rest of the curriculum for the rest
of schooling through children's lives. You can't compare the difference
in that application across the school because not only are

(04:19):
we implementing those three core areas, we're also having to
look at the rest of the curriculum, which is all
being implemented the following year. So the workload is just
unsustainable and that is verified by the fact that we
know we've had nearly a thousand principles leave in the
last three years.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Right, Robert, thank you for tom I probably have to
leave it there. You have a lovely day. That's Robin Brown,
the principle of Virtuville School and member of member of
n z at eis negotiating team.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.