New School Staffing Ratios:

Recently our Minister for Education announced changes to the staffing ratio formula for students in years four to eight.

The reduction from one teacher to 29 students down to one teacher to 28.5 students in 2024 and then one teacher to 28 students in 2025 is the first movement to reduce ratios in this year grouping in more than a generation.

The one-to-29 ratio has been in place since 1996. In 2000, a ministerial review recommended moving ratios for years four to eight to 1 teacher to 25 students, but this was never implemented.

There are 2167 primary-level schools in New Zealand. This new staffing ratio will generate 320 additional teachers across those schools - or in other terms, one extra teacher for every 6.75 primary schools. Clearly, this is a small change. It’s positive, and I’m grateful, but much more is needed.

Smaller class sizes will definitely make a difference in teaching and learning programmes and outcomes.

Professor John Hattie identified the most powerful determinant factor in student learning success as the RELATIONSHIP between the child and their teacher. This is the research basis behind the way we structure and organise our school and the philosophy that underpins it. We go to great lengths to find the most loving, nurturing and dedicated teachers possible; then we do all we can to support them, upskill them and keep them. We also try to make compliance as minimal as possible so that teachers have the energy to give their full attention and care to each child in their care - a very demanding exercise.

So, per Professor Hattie, the deeper and closer the relationship, the more successful the outcomes.

This is why in Finland, most children stay with the same teacher for the first six years of their education.

In our own school situation, currently we keep most year three children with the same teacher for their year four year. Year three - the transition from junior to middle school - is quite a jump. Hence, an extra year with the same teacher solidifies the relationship and allows children to confidently build on the foundations they began in year three.

Obviously, smaller class sizes allow for closer and deeper relationships. If you have 30 or 32 children in a classroom, your relationship with each individual will be more superficial than if you have 24 or 25 children.

Having been a principal for 31 years, I have seen lots of change. One of the most concerning changes is the rapid increase in the number of neuro-diverse children we now have in our schools. This greatly increases the demands, stresses and strains on teachers - making a reduction in class sizes even more crucial.

I liken our current education situation to that of a frog in a pot of slowly heating water. The change is incremental, meaning we constantly accept more challenges, more stress and more pressures.

While much appreciated, these minor staffing ratio changes are insufficient to allow us to cope with the new realities the profession faces. If they were the 1 to 25 ratio, we were promised in 2000, great. But also - thank goodness we are going down this path with Minister Tineti and not the path Hekia Parata proposed as the National Party's Education Minister, where she wanted to increase class sizes.

In my case, with a school of 700 students and 312 students in years 4 to 6, the ratio change equates to almost one day a week of extra staffing. I can’t use that to meaningfully change class sizes. I can put it towards release time for my two Team Leaders in that part of the school.

Senior classes are currently staffed at a ratio of one teacher to 29 children. The classroom reality is higher than this - perhaps one to 32, for example - because we are drastically understaffed in terms of management release. The ratios give us nothing for Team Leader release, and don't even allow for full Deputy Principal release in a school of our size.

I have four Team Leader teachers - each responsible for up to 230 children and up to ten teachers in their team. Expecting a Team Leader to manage and support such large teams with NO management release is ridiculous and impossible. At Western Heights, we value and respect our Team Leaders by giving them one day of release a week. This is completely unfunded by the Ministry and has to be covered by us adjusting class size numbers and funding teaching time out of our operational budget.

Team Leaders use this time to:

Plan collaboratively as a Leadership Team.
To observe members of their Teaching Team
Provide counselling
Undertake specific and complex testing and assessment for students with high and complex needs
Undertake research and professional learning that supports them to lead their team forward positively.

That release and a day-a-week release for our Bush School teacher equals one whole teacher - thus, the higher classroom sizes.

This new ratio means instead of paying $80,000 a year out of my operations budget to fund this release, I will be paying $65,000 - a savings of $15,000.

That’s the reality. It helps; a good start and much appreciated, but not enough to make a great deal of a difference at this point.