NSW Department of Education and Communities

How do I go about selling equipment?

• Always talk to the Principal for direction.
• Small items can be advertised through newsletters to parents.
• Otherwise tenders etc are used.
• The Principal will let you know the protocols.

How do I manage and maintain equipment?

• Do a safety check at the beginning of each lesson.
• Ensure tool cupboards etc are fully stocked.
• Put in place subject/room managers who supervise the rooms/programs.
• Close the rooms down at the end of each term (3 to 5 days) to allow maintenance to be completed. Get the students involved in repairing equipment etc. Sand benches down and coat in a finish – tung oil is very good.  Reward them for this, radio on, BBQ.
• Set up a system where equipment to be repaired or replaced is listed on a whiteboard or similar.
• Do a safety/room check at the end of each lesson.

How do I introduce change without upsetting the staff?

• Don’t rush in.
• Listen to staff to see what they want.
• Entice staff that are keen for change to come on board.
• Model the change if possible.
• Put time limits on requirements, i.e. programs.
• Survey kids about what they like in the classes.
• Establish routines for faculty meetings etc.

Can you give me ideas on how to understand/streamline assessment and reporting?

Reporting

Methods of reporting vary among schools. Most systems are computer-based to some extent and some are available online. Talk with the teacher who ‘looks after’ this area in your school.

Although some may not agree, I think that reporting systems that allow teachers to work away from the school are the best. Personally, I work best when I can get into a ‘zone’ and put a block of time into writing meaningful comments.

I am not a fan of comment databases generally but they may be useful as long as they are used to report on student learning outcomes only. The list below may be helpful as a starting point for discussion with staff.

• Write a list of the outcomes you are reporting on.
• Base comment on how fully students are achieving these outcomes. Try to start with something positive.
• Make suggestions about how an improvement could be made.
• Optionally, include a socially oriented comment, but never criticise the student directly. Making a suggestion about how to improve a behaviour is fine. For example, ‘Alfred is rude and disruptive’ is poor. ‘Sometimes Alfred’s lack of focus in class has disrupted other students’ is longer, but communicates more subtly. Probably it is best reserved for an interview either on the phone or in person. Parents/caregivers are almost always pleased that you are concerned enough to call and will be helpful. Phone calls are mostly best coming from Head Teachers as they are ‘at arm’s length’.
• Set up a system for report checking. Apart from spell and grammar checking, adherence to the above criteria is important. This job usually falls to the Head Teacher. Painful as it may be, it is best to send the report back to the teacher for revision than to ‘fix’ it yourself. The ensuing discussion could be valuable.

Assessment

• Use a template for any assessment task. Negotiate the format with staff but include the essentials such as title, outcomes addressed, weighting, due date, description of the style of the task, items to submit and their weightings. Some kind of explicit description of what a ‘very satisfactory’ assessment looks like may also be included, whether or not it looks like a rubric. You may need a template for Stages 4, 5 and 6.
• Assessment should include planned and rapid feedback, or it’s not useful to the student.
• Keep a register of who has received a notification of assessment tasks. This can be part of a roll. Often SASS are happy to produce class rolls to make it easy for you to do this. Make it a requirement for teachers you supervise to do this. Use the same register to record when the task was handed in.
• Implement a clear policy for late or incomplete work.
• Always print assessment task notifications on coloured paper. Don’t use that colour for anything else. It is helpful if this is a school-wide policy.

How do I set up a budget and what software do you use?

Set aside an hour to meet with your school administration manager (SAM) in order to understand how money is allocated to your faculty, how much there is, what your responsibilities are and the procedures you need to go through to spend money. Negotiate with the SAM and the Principal what record-keeping you are responsible for. Usually a spreadsheet will be enough, or the SAM may be prepared to set up and/or run a system for you. Meet with staff that you supervise to negotiate procedures for allocating money from a budget as well as preparing submissions to the finance committee for allocation of money.
Be prepared to take a stand on expenditure that you think is inappropriate.

Some schools have a ‘use it or lose it’ policy. Negotiate with your Principal a system of putting excess money aside for a future big expense.

How do I implement ICT, literacy and numeracy into programs?

These priority areas, along with others (for example Aboriginal education or school to work planning) are often already part of a school’s strategic plan. Good teachers already integrate these into their teaching.

A plan like the one below might be useful.

• Ask teachers to identify one thing they did in a specific lesson that addressed, say, literacy and take a note of it. Discuss at the next faculty meeting. This at least brings these priorities to teachers’ minds.
• Write a short statement addressing these issues for insertion into the preamble of a teaching and learning program.
• Write a key that allows you to abbreviate each priority area, also for the front of the program.
• Add a column to the program in which it can be indicated that a particular activity addresses one of the priorities.
• Require that this be done in a reasonable timeframe for, say, one program per teacher.

These steps should then be discussed to see whether they have been effective in stimulating awareness of the priorities as well as whether this awareness has resulted in any new activities being added, or any old ones abandoned. It may be useful to point out that the school’s strategic plan is an important document and it is expected that teachers work towards helping the school to achieve its aims.