Snippets

More Admin Staff To Lighten Teacher Workload In Hundreds Of NSW Public Schools

Addressing workload challenges is one of four focus areas of a new Statement of Intent agreed to by the NSW Teachers’ Federation, Public Service Association, and other key stakeholders.

From Term 3, another 284 public schools will be able to employ the equivalent of 400 full-time extra administration staff, or offer more hours to existing staff, to relieve the red tape burden on teachers. The new staff will join the 203 administration roles already in 128 schools as part of the School Administration Improvement Program since Term 3 last year. The expansion of the program to around 20% of all public schools, will help identify the best way to scale-up the program for implementation across all 2,200 schools in 2024.

Feedback from the initial trial showed a marked reduction in administrative workload on teachers.

The tasks the new administration staff can remove from teachers’ workload include but are not limited to:

Preparing excursions, liaising with bus companies and their drivers, and organising permission slips
Inputting student performance data into spreadsheets
Managing parental payments
Updating newsletters, social media, and school apps and texting parents about events
Filling out health plans for students
Lesson timetabling

$25,000 Bonus For Next Generation Planners

NSW councils will receive $25,000 to pay young planners tuition fees under a new strategy to help the NSW Government address skills shortages and tackle the housing crisis right across the state. The Strong Start Cadetship aims to cut down development application (DA) backlogs and speed up planning assessment times in about half of NSW’s local government areas.

Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully said planner shortages have led to a 28 per cent increase in council DA assessment delays - from 69 days in July 2021 to 116 days in March 2023. The $25,000 grant is available for 64 applicants in regional and rural councils to be used to fund one planning cadet’s tuition fees for an undergraduate certificate, graduate certificate, diploma, bachelors degree, or masters degree in planning at a NSW university.

Applications open from 19 May 2023 and close on 9 June 2023. For more information, visit www.planning.nsw.gov.au/strong-start

Gambling-Related Signage To Go In NSW By September

The NSW Government is taking action to deliver on a key election commitment to reduce problem gambling, by moving to ban external signage (e.g. VIP Lounge) from pubs and clubs across the state by 1 September 2023.

The Government’s action on VIP signage comes after introducing legislation in the first sitting week of the new Parliament to ban clubs with pokies from donating to NSW political parties.

Liquor & Gaming NSW (L&GNSW) has developed a position paper which outlines its enforcement approach and transition period. As part of this, venue operators have three months to remove all gaming related signage.

Where venues can demonstrate delays in removing their signage that are outside of their control, they will be afforded a further three months to comply. Following this period, a zero-tolerance approach will be adopted.

Lives Will Be Saved By Mechanical CPR Devices In All Ambulances

Lives will be saved as NSW becomes the first state in the country to install state-of-the-art mechanical cardio-pulmonary resuscitation devices in all frontline ambulance units.

Health Minister Ryan Park said more than 1,000 ‘LUCAS’ devices, which deliver automated, consistent compressions to a patient’s chest, have been installed in every NSW Ambulance Sprinter vehicle across the state. NSW Ambulance Chief Executive Dr Dominic Morgan said the devices will support paramedics to deliver lifesaving treatment until they reach hospital.