Kate Gainsford: Secondary Principals' Council Chair on the number of principals quitting within their first year

There's a belief support for first-time principals is falling short. 

Newstalk ZB analysis has found 970 principals quit in the past three years – one in five within their first year. 

Retirements jumped 26% over the same period. 

Secondary Principals' Council Chair Kate Gainsford told Mike Hosking other countries have solid systems to prepare principals, but we don't. 

She says part of the role teachers can get used to while they're middle and senior leaders, but part can't be learnt until you're actually in the role. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Trouble and principle, and nine hundred and sixty seven principles
have quit in the past three years twenty percent in
the first year. We've got three hundred and fifty roles
being advertised each year since twenty twenty two. So Kate
Gainsville is the chair of the Secondary Principal's Council and
is with's Kate, morning to you, good morning. Make just
for reference's sake, the nine sixty seven quitting will some

(00:20):
of those include people quitting from one job to go
to another or not.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, you'll have to ask the ministry that I'm not
sure we've got the figures from, but that it is possible,
and some principles do move from smaller schools or rural
schools to city schools or legal schools. That's part of
the kind of pipeline for.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Careers because it sort of materially changes the number, doesn't it.
I mean, if you're simply quitting as a principle to
move to be a principal somewhere else, it sort of
doesn't count, doesn't it. If you're quitting to walk away
from the profession, sure, yes.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
But I think one of the other figures that the
ministry has been able to people as the number of
people who are new principles and that's higher than ever before.
So that's a figure that tells us that that six
seven is probably you know, it is much more about
people who are stepping into the role.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
You why would you quit within a year? Did you
not know what you were getting into?

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, I didn't do that, So I can only go
on the research, and the research tells us that there's
not a great deal of good, solid, reliable preparation for
principleship in New Zealand. In our system, we have a
system that relies very heavily on short term contracts with
private providers, and they have sometimes those contracts have disappeared altogether.

(01:35):
So there used to be a program called aspiring Principles
where people in middle or senior management could hook into
the scheme and there would be, you know, a process
you could go through to kind of figure out whether
it was for you or not and to kind of
prepare you. And other countries certainly have really solid systems
of preparation for principleship. In New Zealand doesn't have that.

(01:59):
And if you you know, there's a part of the
role that you can get used to when you're a
teacher and a middle leader and a senior leader, and
there's a part of the role that you can only
learn when you are in the job because you're the
only person in the school in that role. So the
support around it has in New Zealand not been great
in preparation and that's part of the recent Team.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Good insight Kat Apprisure Kate Gainswood, who's the chair of
the Secondary Principals Association. For more from the My Asking Breakfast,
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