Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Teachers are struggling with extreme behavioural issues and a lack of specialist support and the last thing they need is to be dealing with curriculum changes, an Otago principal says.
Pembroke School principal Brent Godfery has written an open letter to Minister of Education Erica Stanford saying teachers are under too much pressure learning to teach two new curriculums in about four months.
He told Checkpoint they were already struggling with kids who are traumatised, and dealing with family dysfunction at home, and the extra pressure could see them leaving the profession.
Godfery said there was "just an overload".
"The maths curriculum came at us out of nowhere. It was already in place for us to start working on next year.
"They instituted a structured literacy programme where everybody in years one to three had to learn to teach structured literacy, but the amount of resourcing that they give you to do it isn't enough."
He said teachers got six months worth of professional development to get a micro-credential to teach structured literacy, but that was still ongoing.
"There's no extra resources that go into that. Teachers are actually having to make the resources themselves at home during the evenings just to deliver curriculum."
He added teachers were also dealing daily with students whose behaviours impact on what they can do, and he feared that they would no longer want to do the job.
"Our school has really good support in place within our school to support the teachers and these children, but as a principal I'm finding it really hard myself.
"I'm always out in classrooms taking children out, getting them sorted out so they can ring into the classroom and learn just so that the rest of the children can be focused on their learning with the teacher."
Godfery said he had not heard back from the letter sent to Minister Stanford.
