Teachers plan ‘activities day’   

Teachers and staff from Tauranga schools are planning an activities day on August 3.    

Teachers around the district are planning an ‘activities day' today, to raise awareness about the ongoing teacher shortage.

Schools around the district and around the country will be participating at different times throughout the day, with some doing it before school and some are doing afterwards.

'It's about informing our parents, whanau and community as to why teachers are taking action that they plan to take and why we need their support,” says spokesperson and assistant principal at Tauranga Special School, Andrea Andresen.

'It's getting the information out to the families from the communities around things like the teacher shortage, around the need for more support for students with learning support needs.

'Some of our experienced teachers are saying ‘I'm giving up a full time permanent job and I'm going to do day to day relieving or part time class room relief because the share demand of the paperwork and things that have accumulated means that's not what they signed up to be, they signed up to be teachers not administrators,” says Andrea.

'People will be standing on the streets with little signs but it's not a protest,” says Tauranga Special School's principal Barrie Wickens.

'It's supposed to be a passive activity of teachers and principals and anyone else from the schools to support us out on the streets, to indicate to the public that there is this huge concern.”

'Staff from other schools are letting me know what they are planning to do on Friday. Most schools are handing out information to parents to help them understand why,” says Andrea.

Brookfield School are planning a picket line from 3pm till 3.20pm on the corner of Millers Road and Bellevue Road by the lights.

Welcome Bay Schools spreading out along Welcome Bay Road at various points, with banners and signs as well as hand out leaflets.

Greerton Village School are doing a haka powhiri for the parents and is giving out notices.

The cluster of schools that run onto Fraser Street, are aiming to line up along Fraser Street, from Fraser Cover along to 15th Ave.

'We are trying to pick fairly high profile places to kind of share the messages to what we are about,” says Andrea.

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