The Ministry will continue to provide funding to schools and kura to cover the increased costs associated with pay equity settlements. Estimated funding will be provided as part of your quarterly operational grant instalments. A wash-up adjustment will be calculated and paid the following year, based on confirmed payroll data. Schools and kura are required to use the additional settlement funding to apply the pay equity outcomes and new pay rates.

More information about pay equity funding can be found here:

Administration support staff and Kaiārahi i te reo pay equity settlement funding – Ministry of Education

Talk to a member of the team if you have any questions by calling 0800 114 117 or emailing ohumahi.support@education.govt.nz.

All current contracts for the attendance service and alternative education end in December 2022. Te Mahau takiwā (regional offices) have been working with the sector, iwi, communities and other interested parties to decide on how best to meet the needs of their communities. 

New contracts will be fully discussed with schools and providers before final agreements are put in place. This will be completed before the end of the year.  We know that the delay in finalising these will be causing some anxiety for some providers. We apologise for that. On the upside the new contracts will be for three years affording greater certainty to funded providers.

The School Caretakers’ Cleaners’ and Canteen Staff Collective Agreement 2022–2024 (SCCCA 2022–24) was signed by E tū union members on Monday 14 November and is effective from this date for two years.

Because of this agreement, the individual employment agreement (IEA) has been updated. This updated document will need to be offered to employees whose work is covered by this agreement and who are not members of E tū, to move them to the new conditions of employment.

You can find the IEA here:

Individual employment agreement – Ministry of Education

For employees on individual employment agreements, the newly agreed rates will take effect from the date they sign a new IEA and accept the new conditions of employment.

Education payroll will pay the new rates by the end of April 2023 (backdated to 14 November 2022 for union members, or the date when an updated IEA is signed). 

Ongoing funding will be provided to schools and kura to cover the increased costs of these settlements. This funding will be paid as part of your operational grant instalments, with the first instalment scheduled for April 2023.

The SCCCA is the first collective agreement in the education sector to be settled under the Public Sector Pay Adjustment (PSPA) arrangements established after discussions between Government and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (CTU).

The PSPA is designed to establish a uniform adjustment across the public sector focused on increasing remuneration during the current period of inflation. 

As a result, school caretakers, cleaners and canteen staff will receive a flat rate $4,000 wage increase in the first year of the agreement, followed by a further $2,000 in the second year.

Other inclusions are as follows: 

• clarification of hours of work, overtime and call backs
• change to supervisor caretaker scales
• access to disregarded sick leave for absences related to a notifiable infectious disease, including COVID-19.

Read more about the agreement on our website:

Circular 2022/10: SCCCA 2022–2024 – Ministry of Education

The deadline for submitting any retrospective banking staffing adjustments for the 2022 banking staffing year is 5pm Thursday 1 December. 

The deadline for staffing applications related to the 2022 banking staffing year, including beginning teachers, specialist classroom teachers and staffing transfers, and staffing roll increase applications is 5pm Friday 2 December. 

Applications should be sent to resourcing@education.govt.nz. Any applications received after these deadlines will not be processed.

If you have any questions, contact resourcing@education.govt.nz.
 

Following are the 2023 key dates for teacher’s aide resource payment. 

This includes ORS, high health, behaviour, communication and in-class support and when H07 tax invoices will be available to schools in the Secure Data Portal. 

For information about the Secure Data Portal go to our website:

Secure Data Portal – Ministry of Education

Pourato, our new online resourcing system, is now available for schools and kura to view their 2023 funding and staffing information. 

Education Sector Logon (ESL) users who had access to the Secure Data Portal (SDP) were automatically provided access to Pourato through their ESL username and password. 

Pourato: Online resourcing system – Ministry of Education

Pourato provides an online view of resourcing for schools and kura, making it easier to review changes and track resourcing information. 

On Friday 9 December, schools and kura will receive an email notification that their Q1, 2023, operational funding information is available to view in Pourato. 

Information for the 2022 school year will continue to be provided in the SDP. Because Pourato will be used alongside the existing Education Resourcing System (ERS), schools will continue to receive email notifications when payments have been made from both systems. 

Watch a four-minute walk-through video of Pourato at:

Applications and online systems – Ministry of Education

To step through the system in an online learning module, or to attend a Pourato webinar, go to the Education Learning Management System.

If you would like to request access to Pourato, contact the ESL delegated authoriser in your school or kura.

To ask a question or to get help with Pourato, contact us at 04 463 8383 or email pourato@education.govt.nz.

You can schedule your 2022 end-of-year batch withdrawals in ENROL now. We encourage you to do so by the end of December because it’s difficult for other schools to enrol students for the next year if they are not withdrawn from the previous school.

Your school will receive an email shortly from the ENROL team with instructions on the batch withdrawal process.

The information in ENROL is being shared with Stats NZ for the purposes of the schooling Equity Index (EQI), which enables us to better target school funding and resources.

The ENROL privacy statement has been updated for parents and whānau and outlines how ENROL collects and uses student information.

It is important that parents are made aware of how enrolment information is collected, stored and used. You can provide them with this knowledge by sending parents with a copy of the privacy statement at enrolment or a link to the information held on our website:

ENROL privacy statement – Ministry of Education

For information on enrolling students:

Enrolling students – Ministry of Education

And for further information for parents and whānau on enrolling their child/children at school:

For parents and whānau – Ministry of Education

From January 2023 the updated Isolation Index will mean a change in travel grant funding for some Kāhui Ako.

The employing board of an Across School Teacher (AST) or a Kahui Ako leader is entitled to a weighted travel grant to support collaboration across the Kāhui Ako. The travel grant funding depends on the overall Isolation Index of the Kāhui Ako. Any change to the Isolation Index of a school, that is a member of a Kāhui Ako, could influence the overall Isolation Index of the Kāhui Ako and can affect the travel grant funding.

The Isolation Index Group rating and travel grant funding can be found on the employing schools operational funding entitlement in Pourato. 

More information about the updated Isolation Index can be found on our website:

The Isolation Index – Ministry of Education

How the Isolation Index works – Ministry of Education

For further clarification, please contact your regional Kāhui Ako advisor or email resourcing@education.govt.nz.

In December 2021, we identified a need for ongoing access to learning for ākonga who are immunocompromised and likely to get seriously ill from COVID-19 or live with someone who is immunocompromised.

As previously advised, this special gateway will end planned at the close of Term 4 2022.

Local Te Mahau teams are contacting enrolling schools and providing advice and information to support schools and whānau to plan for Term 1 2023. 

To help minimise the exposure of students, staff and visitors to construction-related hazard and associated risks, we have developed the Construction Works Isolation Guidelines for contractors working on school construction sites. 

Construction Works Isolation Guidelines

This new guidance document outlines our expectation when it comes to providing assurance that the interface and ongoing interaction between construction works and school activities are sufficiently managed. Please share this with contractors you engage for school-led project construction works.

Visit our website to read more about schools’ health and safety responsibilities when engaging contractors working on school property projects.

Managing contractor health and safety – Ministry of Education

The school-led construction works contract templates have been updated and are available to download from our website. These updated contract templates should be used for new contracts starting from 14 November.

Contracts for Ministry-led property projects – Ministry of Education

We have updated the contract templates in accordance with the P3910 Review Committee’s recommended special conditions published on Standards New Zealand’s website. This ensures that contracts are in line with the changes in the construction sector, and that they remain fair and risk balanced.

The key changes we’ve made to these contracts are based on the review committee’s recommendations, and include:

• amendments to reflect the requirements of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015
• amendments to 5.11 to clarify contractor entitlement to a variation due to changes in legislation
• amendments to 5.21 to foster collaboration
• removing references to repealed legislation
• amendments to our existing contractor liability cap.

Te Rito was established to enable student information to travel with ākonga as they progress through education. This programme was paused in 2021 due to cyber security concerns with the student management system (SMS) products Te Rito was connecting to. These technical barriers have now been addressed.

On 26 October, Te Rito working groups – Ngā Rau Whakatupu Māori and Auraki – met to begin planning the Te Rito reset. The reset will focus on enabling data to follow learners by connecting kura and schools to the Edsby platform. This will give educators and learners access to the collaboration space on Edsby, making it easy to collaborate. Ngā Rau Whakatupu members strongly support restarting Te Rito and are committed to working with the Ministry to lead the implementation.

We are working with Ngā Rau Whakatupu to establish an independent Data Kaitiakitanga Group to act as data stewards. The group will oversee the use and access of data held in Te Rito. 

The below next steps have been agreed with Ngā Rau Whakatupu:

• Develop a plan to restart Te Rito from early 2023, which includes identifying an initial tranche of kura and schools to connect to Te Rito, and working with the 70 kura, schools and early learning services currently connected to Te Rito.
• A second hui with Ngā Rau Whakatupu to finalise plans to restart Te Rito and agree on how to ensure the restart is led by the sector.
• An agreed plan to communicate Te Rito restart with all kura and schools.

If your staff would like to respond consistently to behaviour at school using evidence-based practices that are clear, then Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L) school-wide training will be of use in strengthening this skillset.

If you would like to know more, contact us to discuss what funded PB4L school-wide training could look like for your school.

We are now receiving applications for training in 2023 and look forward to hearing from you at PB4L@education.govt.nz.

Over the next few weeks, you may notice changes to the web pages on education.govt.nz that cover health and safety requirements for school leaders. 

The guidance itself is not changing, instead we are reviewing the content to make it simpler and easier to navigate and implement.

Health and safety requirements for school leaders – Ministry of Education 

Contact your local Te Mahau office if you need additional health and safety support: 

Local Te Mahau offices – Ministry of Education 

The Ministry funds the production of complex curriculum materials such as music, math and science texts into braille and other formats for blind, deafblind and low vision students. 

Joining the Marrakesh Treaty meant the Government needed to relook at the way accessible format materials (AFM) are produced. The treaty aims to help people who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise print disabled have access to books and other literacy works in accessible formats. Also, over time and with new technologies, the way students interact with the curriculum has changed. 

On 30 June, our contract with Blind Low Vision NZ for the production of AFM expired. We have now entered into an agreement with Blind Low Vision Education Network (BLENNZ) to provide AFM and to operate the Youth Library. AFM services and the library are available and requests continue to be made as usual through Resource Teachers Vision.

AFM for NCEA exams are not affected by the change. NZQA has a different and ongoing contract for the production of AFM for NCEA.

As outlined in the September Curriculum Newsletter, we’re seeking your feedback on the draft of Te Mātaiaho | The refreshed Curriculum Framework, and the draft English and Mathematics & Statistics learning areas, and draft implementation supports.

Te Poutāhū curriculum centre update – 28 September

You have until 2 December to register for webinars, fill out our feedback surveys, and get involved.

Visit the new curriculum refresh website below to have your say and join the over 1000 educators across the country who have taken part in the feedback period so far.

Get involved – Curriculum Refresh

Junior Journal 64 and the November issues of the School Journal are now being distributed to schools and are available online this week:

Instructional series School Journal: Literacy Online –TKI

Throughout levels 2, 3 and 4 of the School Journals there is a theme of kaitiakitanga in some of the content. The content in Junior Journal 64 is themed around the topic of trees. 

The journals contain a variety of themed stories, articles, plays and poems that will engage students and support their reading development. The content is aligned to The New Zealand Curriculum and designed to reflect the lives of students in Aotearoa. The teacher support materials and audio support are also available online alongside the journals.

Gold Star is a free online wellbeing programme where you can access e-learning modules and webinars with topic specialists designed for the education workforce. The programme provides you with an opportunity to self-test and monitor your own wellbeing. Over 4,000 staff in school and early learning settings have already signed up and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

The latest module in the online wellbeing programme Gold Star has been released. The module focuses on relationships and provides strategies to create more meaningful relationships at work, at home and in your wider community. 

The live webinars for the relationship module will be held on:

• Friday 2 December: 10–11.30am
• Tuesday 6 December: 7–8.30pm
• Thursday 8 December: 7–8pm

To register, visit:

Gold Star programme

Ko te kaupapa matua o Kia Manawaroa, he whakapāho pānui mo ngā whānau Māori me ā rātou tamariki e noho ana ki raro i te tawharau o Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga.

Kia Manawaroa is the Ministry of Education’s pānui for whānau Māori with children in education.

Kua tuhituhia e te Māori mō ngai Māori epaana ki ngā kowhiringa me ngā pae tawhiti ki roto i te mātauranga, ngā tutukitanga o ngāi Māori hei Māori me te whakahoutia o te kōwheori mō ngā whānau.

It is written by Māori for Māori, with information about opportunities and milestones in education, Māori success as Māori, Te Reo Māori, and COVID-19 updates relevant to whānau as and when appropriate.

Ānei te pānui hou | Read the latest issue of: Kia Manawaroa 18 November 2022

Kua puta mai te perehitanga me ngā mohiotanga mō | In this issue:

• The story of Georgia Latu and Pōtiki Poi
• This māra kai: growing more than just veges
• Learn how to support kids’ reading with Te Pānui Ngātahi Reading Together
• Have your say on current issues in education
• Whānau wellbeing and support.

Whakahoki kōrero mai | Send us your feedback

He kōrero ano mō Kia Manawaroa | Find out more about Kia Manawaroa

Ohauru mai kia whiwhi i ngā pārongo hou | Subscribe to get the latest issue straight to your inbox

We are inviting kura using Te Marautanga o Aotearoa to be a part of a 12-month Marau ā-kura project beginning March 2023.

Providers with in depth and innovative knowledge of marautanga will work with you to capture your marau ā-kura story. They will offer guided support to design, develop, strengthen or review your marau ā-kura in a way that reflects you and your kura hapori educational aspirations.

In preparation for the redesign of Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, this project will also test Te Tamaiti Hei Raukura as a foundation for designing marau ā-kura. It will unpack the Tīrewa structure and identify the essential elements and supports you (and other kura) need to successfully develop your marau ā-kura.

We want to work with you to determine what works and we want to reflect this in the redesigned Te Marautanga o Aotearoa so that all kura and ākonga have access to the guidance they need.

Register or express your interest here:

Te reo Māori Expression of Interest Form

English Expression of Interest Form

Once you have submitted your expression of interest, we will send a letter to your tumuaki to complete to confirm your participation as a kura. Note, we have a limited capacity of up to 120 kura so we urge you to register before the holiday break.

Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi!

If you have further contact us at Whakahou.Marautanga@education.govt.nz.

For more information about the redesign of Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, visit our website:

Te Whakahou i Te Marautanga o Aotearoa – Kauwhata Reo

Reading Together® Te Pānui Ngātahi is a strengths-based series of workshops for parents and whānau to learn strategies to positively support their children’s reading at home. 

Research has found that when used well, Reading Together® increases meaningful access to books, supports whānau bonding, and raises children’s reading levels. 

Many parents and whānau have spoken about the positive impact Reading Together® had on their children’s learning and achievement, and their relationships as a family. It also found that the programme has contributed to building high-trust relationships between schools, parents and whānau, librarians, communities and iwi. 

Applications for funding are still open until 31 March 2023.

A summary of evaluations is available on the Education Counts website:

Reading Together® Te Pānui Ngātahi Exemplars – Education Counts

These resources also include insights and learnings from schools that have implemented Reading Together® and the benefits to their learners and communities. Schools may wish to use them as a ‘starter for 10’ to support conversations with communities and planning to run Reading Together® in 2023.

Email reading.together@education.govt.nz to apply. Schools can select the term they plan to deliver the programme (up to Term 2 2023, weeks one to five only).

The ‘Student wellbeing tool: Conceptual design competition’ has now closed. We were astounded with the amount of talent and skill that went in to all the entries we received. Thanks to the hard work of our panel of industry judges, we congratulate our six finalist teams:

• Team Vivita – Vivita Design School, Wellington
• Udaily – Wellington East Girls College         
• Wellbeing Warriors – Fernside School, Christchurch
• The Tree Team – Kadimah School, Auckland
• Fire breathing Jamals (Spicy Cheetahs) – Burnside High School, Christchurch
• The Furious Fives – St Cuthbert’s College, Auckland         

The grand prize-winning team will be announced at an award ceremony in December. 

Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand launched its Protect Your Breath, a youth vaping reduction campaign on Tuesday 15 November. The campaign will be shared through social and digital media environments where young people interact, for example, TikTok, Snapchat, Spotify and YouTube.

Rangatahi need supportive environments to navigate their paths and live healthy lives; this includes having supportive adults and parents around them. We want to support whānau and parents to have conversations with the young people in their lives that support critical thinking and decision making about vaping.

The campaign website provides information for parents and caregivers about this mahi:

Protect Your Breath campaign – Health New Zealand

You can find more information about vaping with the following online websites and resources:

Regulation of vaping and smokeless tobacco products – Manatū Hauora

Vaping Facts – Ministry of Health

Resource toolkit – Tūturu