The role of Principal has increased in complexity and workload, in line with similar experiences of Teaching staff.
Only one third of Tasmanian high school principals said they had a “reasonable amount of time on leading teaching and learning” at their school.
One of the factors drawing principals away from their core work of mentoring teachers and improving the quality of education students receive is the requirement to “be on class” teaching students.
When the Department of Education (DoE) is formulating teacher allocations to schools, the Principal is counted as a teaching resource. In a few of our smallest schools where the Principal is likely to be teaching for a significant part of the week, the DoE adds a fractional allocation of extra staffing to allow the Principal some time for administration and mentoring teachers.
We know how important it is that Principals can focus on leading teaching and learning and schools must have appropriate staffing to give the principal the flexibility needed to dedicate a significant part of their time to activities that benefit student achievement.
