E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e nga hāu e wha. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Good evening everyone.

I am delighted to be here tonight.

I would like to begin by stating the obvious: that I am under no illusions about how critical the education portfolio is to this John Key-led  Government’s vision and ambition for the country, and how essential it is in determining our country’s position in the OECD.

You are hearing a great deal about the economy in the news. Strengthening our economy requires a productive labour market underpinned by skilled workers.

The first step in ensuring our great country is made up of people with a wide range of complementary skills that are designed to boost productivity, is a sound education system. This begins with the work you are all doing in your own schools.

It is all the more important in an economic recession to learn from the mistakes of the past – we must focus on ensuring we have a skilled workforce to drive the economy forward as we come out of the recession.

I think it has become very clear that this Government is action-oriented. The Finance Minister Bill English has made it patently clear that he expects value-for-money, and effective delivery of services. I and my Cabinet colleagues do not need any convincing of this.

To achieve this, we must focus on priorities and put our effort into areas that clearly require the most assistance and direction.  In other words, more targeted assistance rather than the ‘one size fits all’ regime.

This Government’s focus is on delivering better educational outcomes for all children and young people - you are all a vital part of that and I want to begin by thanking you sincerely for your passion, dedication and expertise.

I would like to acknowledge that we all realise that traditional study is not necessarily relevant to  all students. This is an issue our policies on  trades training and the Youth Guarantee are designed to address.

National’s Youth Guarantee will deliver a range of alternative educational pathways for 16 and 17 year olds, including tertiary alternatives. These initiatives will give these teenagers a free programme of educational study towards school-level qualifications.  

On the Trades Academies, I am pleased to report that expressions of interest will be called for next month, and that a set of criteria must be met.

Those expressions of interest will then be investigated thoroughly before asking for any business plans to be put together.

 We are looking for a wide geographical spread, good community support, experienced transition management, and most importantly, excellent interfaces between secondary school, tertiary, and the work place.

I want to repeat though, that none of these plans include keeping students at school until they are18 years old, nor are we abolishing early leaving exemptions. We are committed to ensuring that more students leave the wider education system with useful qualifications.

For those young people wanting to remain in secondary school, we want the fine tuning of the NCEA Standards Review to continue to build confidence that our education system delivers a robust and worthwhile qualification.

Fine-tuning includes:

• ensuring the NCEA standards align with the outcomes expressed in the New Zealand Curriculum;


• ensuring better parity between standards so that they fairly reflect achievement; and


• ensuring moderation of internal and external assessments is effective and fair.

The update here is that I have extended the timeline for the alignment of standards so that implementation of Level 1 begins in 2011 and finishes in 2013 with Level 3.

I decided to extend the timeline for the alignment of standards after taking on board your concerns – thank you for your feedback.

I am also determined to ensure that your voices are heard in the discussions to make sure we get those standards right. Your experience and knowledge as educational leaders is critical – so please don’t hold back.

Now to standards closer to home. Secondary school principal sector groups are driving the revision of the professional standards your boards measure you against. You will know that draft standards are being circulated now for you to discuss.

I am particularly pleased that the draft standards have drawn on the research that tells us which leadership practices are effective in improving student outcomes.

These draft standards reflect both your professionalism and the changes within your profession since the last time the standards were reviewed. A lot has happened over the last decade.

You lead large, complex organisations, and your role as principal is more complex. You essentially need to be change managers.

I recognise that your student population is becoming increasingly diverse and you face big challenges in developing effective ways to improve educational outcomes for specific groups including Maori and, Pasifika, students with special needs and those with behavioural issues.

I also acknowledge that there is no silver bullet. You have my full support in your endeavours.

The substantial evidence about decades of differential treatment of Māori learners is of great concern to this Government.

The most recent data shows that around 56% of Maori leave school before achieving NCEA Level 2, compared with 34% of all students and that nearly 40% of Maori leave school before turning 17, compared with the national average of 30%.

Some progress has been made, but it’s small, it’s not consistent, and frankly, it’s unacceptable.

As principals, you all face big challenges in boosting Maori educational participation and outcomes. Inequitable education outcomes for Maori have persisted for too many years.

Raising Maori education achievement will help lift the overall performance of our education system, national productivity and the economy.

I am confident you are all aware it is time to step out and focus on what works for Maori students and I look forward to hearing your success stories.

The challenge for New Zealand educational policy is to develop a system-wide response to our history of high variation in student outcomes with our persistent achievement ‘tail’ being a particular issue. 

Our schools have consistently underserved Maori students and Pasifika students.

Research tells us that to overcome this variation, school leadership must be shared or distributed across senior and other teachers in the school so that teaching teams focus their practice on those factors most likely to improve learning for every individual student in the school.

School Support Services has Māori student achievement as a contract priority for 2009. Use the support available and use your resources efficiently. Ownership of work builds efficiencies so that issues are prioritised.

A priority area for secondary schools is dealing effectively with behaviour issues. I do not underestimate the range and seriousness of the issues you, as school leaders, are presented with. We all know that managing behaviour impacts positively on student achievement.

Disruptive behaviour is a barrier to our students’ achievement. It impacts on other students and affects teacher job satisfaction and school morale.

There is also a cost to society as a whole when young people do not leave school able to fulfil their potential to contribute to society. Ultimately, problems with individuals become problems for schools and communities.

These are serious consequences.

If a student is going to make the most of their education, they have to be interested in learning, be in a positive learning environment, and, they have to attend school. 

As leaders, you have a critical role in promoting positive environments that support effective behaviour management. Whole-school approaches to behaviour management and strong relationships between schools, families and whānau are a significant part of addressing the issues.

I know some of you were disappointed in the Taumata Whanonga – the Behaviour Summit held in Wellington earlier this month -  especially the way some media focussed on the narrow issue of bullying.

The update here is that the cross-sector group working on the issues from the Taumata will be reporting to me by the end of May. I want them to deliver effective coordination of cross-sector support to schools. I want concrete and workable solutions to improve support to schools dealing with behaviour issues.

National places high trust in leaders such as yourselves at the front line, and we know that strong, forward-thinking educational leadership in every school is critical to achieving our priorities for young New Zealanders.

Research demonstrates that after quality teaching, school leadership is the next biggest system influence on student learning in schools.  When school leaders focus their work on educational leadership, and distribute leadership effectively, there is a significant and positive effect on student achievement and well-being.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report emphasises the importance of strengthening investment in leadership development.

Research in the highest performing international education systems shows that effective instructional leaders are important in effecting fast and substantial changes in teaching practice.

It also indicates that developing such leaders requires getting the right teachers to become principals, developing instructional leadership skills, and focusing each principal’s time on instructional leadership.

Professor Viviane Robinson, one of the authors of the Best Evidence Synthesis on Educational Leadership, has also identified the specific leadership practices that make the biggest difference for student learning outcomes in schools. These are:

•          establishing and communicating goals and expectations;


•          strategic resourcing to meet priority teaching goals;


•          planning, co-ordinating and evaluating teaching and the curriculum;


•          promoting and participating in teacher learning and development; and


•          ensuring an orderly and supportive environment.

Many of you will also be aware that research has found that principals who share effective leadership skills with other teachers in their school are not only more effective as leaders, but also more likely to improve learning outcomes for every student in the school.

It is  clear that developing leadership skills amongst all teachers, encourages ownership of work and builds efficiencies so that issues are prioritised.

Many New Zealand principals and other school leaders are successful educational leaders.  At present, however, not every school has either the breadth or depth of leadership capability to sustain success.

About 5% of all schools require Ministry intervention in any year to support school management performance.  The quality of leadership and teaching in a significant number of kura Maori is marginal or poor.

School leaders need an increasingly broad range of skills and attributes to succeed, as their role becomes increasingly complex.

Today’s diverse student population, coupled with complex and evolving school environments, call for school leaders to be effective change managers.  International comparisons reveal that New Zealand principals spend on average a larger proportion of their time on administration than their international colleagues and much less on educational leadership.

To sustain momentum we must replace existing leaders as they step down from their role.  Increasing numbers of school leaders like yourselves are likely to retire in the next five years – more than 35% of school leaders and senior teachers are aged 55 or over. 

The long hours and workload of leaders may deter some teachers from aspiring to leadership roles.  There is a particular difficulty in recruiting and retaining quality school leaders for small or rural schools, and in schools serving low decile or mainly Maori communities. The Government’s recently-introduced voluntary bonding scheme that aims to boost teacher numbers in hard-to-staff areas will go some way towards addressing this issue.

The Government’s commitment to encouraging a high-trust, flexible teaching environment, coupled with our devolved system of decision-making, mean strong professional leadership in every school is critical to bringing about the sustained changes required in school and classroom practices.

To achieve the Government’s education priorities, and the goal of strong professional leadership in every school, we must address both the quality and supply challenges that I have already outlined.   In particular we need to:

•          ensure all leadership programmes are directed to developing educational leaders who are able to focus their efforts on specific practices that evidence shows make the biggest difference to student learning;


•          improve leadership preparation and recruitment processes to make the step-up to a leadership role more attractive to capable young teachers;


•          improve human resource management processes across the system so that leadership capacity is systematically developed within schools, as well as by national programmes; and


•          encourage greater sharing of leadership between schools so that leaders have support as they work to improve teaching and learning. 

The Ministry of Education has developed a proposed Professional Leadership Plan to be released later this month.

This plan sets out the results we aim to achieve over the next two years to attract, develop and support talented leaders who will lead the changes necessary to realise government goals.

 The plan focuses on middle and senior leaders, aspiring principals, first-time principals, and experienced principals. 

My Government wants principals to be able to be the ‘true leaders of learning’ in their schools, for schools to be able to get on with the core work of teaching and learning; we do not want teachers to be pre-occupied with getting through mountains of bureaucracy.

On that note, I would like to thank all of you have who taken the time to share with me, via Hightrust@parliament.govt.nz, your personal experiences with the paper war, and would like to convey my shared frustration and my commitment to addressing this. National is committed to eliminating unnecessary administrative requirements.

I want to be made aware, personally, of what you think should be changed to make your leadership role easier – please keep the emails coming. It is important for us to make your work more effective. Along with quality teaching, you, as leaders, make the biggest difference to student learning.

In conclusion, this National-led Government is focussed on delivering better educational outcomes for our young people. We know that compared to principals in other countries, New Zealand principals spend more of their time on administration and less on educational leadership. This must change.

National has high expectations of you as school principals This is not misplaced.

The vast majority of you are successful educational leaders who effectively promote and participate in your teachers’ learning and development. 

There is always more to learn. I encourage you to use the Kiwi Leadership for Principals, and, when it is available, the Kaupapa Māori leadership document in your quest.

Both have a sound base. The model for the Kiwi Leadership grew from the Ministry’s work with school sector groups and academics and matches the research findings about what’s needed to be an effective school leader. 

Underway now is the Kaupapa Māori leadership document for leaders in Māori medium schools. This is being developed with Māori-medium sector representatives.

I understand some of you will have participated in planning for support for experienced principals.

What’s happening currently is that the Ministry is seeking proposals for a trial programme for 300 experienced principals. I think I have made it pretty clear that am looking for evidence-based innovative methods of delivery.

Developing capability cannot happen without professional development and support.

The skills you need today are ones that respond to what is new in your role as leaders, and what is new in the school environment; what is required is support and development relevant to  the challenges you face today.

I do not, and this Government does not, underestimate your critical role in the education system or the country’s development as a whole.

We want to make sure that you, our school leaders, get the appropriate support and tools to enhance your professional development, as well as ensuring the next generation of school leaders is equally well-equipped.

National is committed to ensuring that school principals are able to focus on their educational leadership, not unnecessary administration, to enable the best outcomes for their students.

Our commitment recognises the fact that you are, unquestionably, an integral link in the chain of student success.

Finally, I cannot, in all honesty, leave tonight without dispelling any illusions about bucket-loads of extra money.

A casual glance at the daily papers won’t tell you the worst. We must reduce overall Government costs, urgently.

That inevitably means we have to work smarter, make sure our spending is effective, and we have to prioritise. We as a Government must do that. I have to say to you that we expect the same discipline from you.

If we want to do something new, we have to stop doing something else. In conclusion, John Key’s Government is focused on ensuring every child leaves school with the qualifications they need to make their way in an increasingly global world.

Thank you for inviting me to speak with you tonight. It has been a pleasure.