A message from the Principal
Welcome back to Term 3. I hope all of our students, families and staff enjoyed the recent holiday break and had the opportunity to spend some quality time together, recharge and enjoy a change of pace before another busy school term.
Our term began on Monday with a staff Curriculum Day focused on the introduction of the School-Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) framework, an evidence-based approach used in schools across Australia to create safe, calm and inclusive learning environments. Over the coming years, SWPBS will provide a shared framework for how we explicitly teach behavioural expectations, recognise positive behaviour and respond consistently when students need support. Just as we have worked together over recent years to strengthen our approach to teaching and learning through evidence-informed practices, SWPBS will help us build equally strong, consistent practices that support every student's wellbeing, engagement and success.
It was then wonderful to welcome our students back to school on Tuesday morning. There is always something special about the start of a new term. Classrooms quickly filled with stories of holiday adventures, students returned with refreshed energy and enthusiasm, and it wasn't long before everyone had settled back into familiar routines. With our school disco, parent teacher interviews, exciting learning opportunities and plenty of special events still to come, Term 3 is already shaping up to be another busy and rewarding term for our school community.
Many families may have seen media coverage over the past few days regarding the Australian Education Union's announcement of a statewide stop work action next Thursday 23 July as part of the ongoing negotiations with the Victorian Government around funding and conditions for public education.
At this stage, we do not yet know exactly how many staff members at St Kilda Park Primary School will be participating in the industrial action. However, based on the previous action held in March this year, we anticipate that the strike is likely to have a significant impact on school operations, with the vast majority of our teaching and education support staff expected to participate.
We will communicate with families as soon as possible once we have a clearer understanding of the number of staff participating and what this will mean for individual classes.
As always, the school will ensure that, as a minimum, supervision is available for the children of critical services workers.
Back in March, our school's AEU sub-branch asked that the following message be shared with our community to explain why many staff had made the difficult decision to participate in industrial action.
As the same issues remain at the centre of the current negotiations, we felt it would be helpful to share this message again to provide families with the context behind the upcoming action.
You may have noticed that many of our staff members have been wearing red AEU t-shirts each Friday. We wanted to take this opportunity, on behalf of the staff and AEU sub-branch at our school, to explain why.
First and foremost, we are deeply committed to the idea of free, high quality public education. We have chosen to work in government schools because we believe public education is the key driver of social equality. It is where we can make the greatest difference and where we can work alongside families and children who rely on a strong, well resourced system.
Over recent years, the broader funding situation for Victorian government schools has become increasingly challenging. Public reporting from the Australian Education Union and Parents Victoria has highlighted that Victoria remains the lowest funded public school system in the country and that government schools are not yet funded to 100 percent of the Schooling Resource Standard, the benchmark agreed by governments as the minimum level required for students to achieve their best.
For schools like ours, these funding delays and decisions have very real impacts. Each year our budgets become tighter. Programs that once allowed us to provide small group and individual catch up intervention for students with barriers or gaps in their learning have been significantly reduced or, in some cases, disappeared altogether. This has a direct impact on our ability to support the students who need extra help the most.
We are aware that, as funding pressures increase, we are asking more of families through voluntary contributions and fundraising to help bridge these gaps. We know that this is difficult for many families, particularly in the current economic climate. At the same time, our staff continue to contribute hours of unpaid work each week and often use their own money to purchase resources for their classrooms in an effort to minimise the impact on students.
We wear red because we want to see fair funding for government schools. We want a funding agreement that brings our school, and all Victorian public schools, to 100 percent of the Schooling Resource Standard so that every child has access to the support and opportunities they deserve.
There is also a workforce dimension to this campaign. Under the last industrial agreement, teacher pay in Victoria fell behind that of teachers in other states. Pay increases that did not keep pace with inflation have meant that many educators have effectively taken a pay cut over the past four years.
An experienced teacher in Victoria is paid more than $15,000 less than their NSW counterparts. At the same time, workloads have increased significantly, with research indicating that Victorian teachers perform thousands of dollars' worth of unpaid overtime each year.
This situation affects our own households and families. It is also contributing to a statewide teacher shortage. Since the last agreement, thousands of teachers have left the profession. Fair pay and improved conditions are essential not only to value the expertise and commitment of current staff, but also to attract and retain high quality teachers for every classroom.
You may have read that union members will be taking part in a stop work action. Many teachers and education support staff at our school will participate. This will likely mean that normal classes won't run on that day and families may need to keep their children at home. We understand the impact that this has on children's learning and on family routines. Nobody takes this step lightly.
However, many of us feel that the situation has reached a point where strong action is necessary in order to secure the funding and pay arrangements that our students and our profession deserve. We firmly believe that the long term benefits of achieving fair funding and sustainable conditions will outweigh the short term disruption.
There may be further stop work actions or other protected actions later in the year. Should this occur, we will continue to communicate clearly and respectfully with families so that you can plan accordingly.
We hope this message helps explain why we wear red each Friday. It is not about politics. It is about our shared belief in the value of public education and our desire to have the tools, resources and staffing required to help every child at our school thrive.
We thank you for your understanding and, we hope, your support as we stand up for the future of public education in Victoria.
St Kilda Park AEU sub-branch
Regardless of next week's arrangements, I want to thank our families for your patience and understanding. We recognise that industrial action creates uncertainty and can be disruptive for families.
As always, our priority will be to communicate clearly, provide as much notice as possible and ensure that every child is safe and well supported. We will be in touch as soon as staffing arrangements have been confirmed.
Neil Scott
Principal