Scheduled review – Employer Responsibility Policy

During term 2, schools reviewed policies in the Employer Responsibility Policy section, focusing on policies and procedures about appointment and employment. Updates to these policies are shown below.

Independent schools, also see Release Notes - Independent Schools.

SchoolDocs appreciates the professional advice of the Anderson Lloyd legal team (Dunedin) in reviewing updates to policies within the Employer Responsibility Policy section.

Safety Checking

• Clarified why the board is responsible for determining core or non-core workers.
• Clarified information about safety checking volunteers, added direct link to MoE PDF safety checking resource, and added that schools must take MoE guidelines for risk assessment into account.
• Added information about when concerns are raised by a safety check, or within the three year review period.
• Clarified record keeping requirements.

Police Vetting

• Clarified why the board is responsible for determining core or non-core workers, and clarified that a police vet is required for non-teaching staff that meet the definition of a children's worker.
• Added information about addressing concerns raised in the police vet and risk assessment process.
• Clarified record keeping requirements.

Employment Policy

(previously Employer Responsibility Policy)

• Updated policy title to align with employment policy requirements under the Education and Training Act 2020 (s 597).
• Emphasised good employer and good faith requirements.
• Moved information about Kāhui Ako to School Staffing.
• Updated the board assurance in this policy and Equal Employment Opportunities.

Equal Employment Opportunities

• Strengthened and reorganised the content in this topic, including providing additional school-specific sample wording schools can choose to include.
• Removed any outdated forms linked from school sites as part of the EEO update.

Flexible Working Arrangements

• Added information about applying for flexible working arrangements, and considering these requests.
• Updated the content in the "grounds for refusal" drop-down.

Appointment Policy

(previously Appointment Procedure)

• Emphasised legislative and collective agreement requirements and moved information about board delegation and responsibilities for appointment that was previously in Appointment Committee.
• State-integrated schools have additional wording about special positions, acceptability of applicants, and board delegations.

Stages of Appointment

• This policy combined information previously in Appointment Procedure and its subtopics (see row below).
• Removed the sample referee check form. It is considered good practice for reference check questions to be tailored to each job description.
• State-integrated schools have additional wording about special character requirements for advertising, selection criteria, and offers of employment.

Appointment Committee

Advertise a Position

Application Package

Shortlist Applicants

Conduct Interviews

Eligibility for Appointment

Make an Appointment

Referee and Background Checks

Employee File

(retired)

• These topics were retired (removed from sites). Relevant policy information was moved to Appointment Policy and Stages of Appointment.
• Removed the New Employee Checklist forms topic and documents.

Staff Induction

• Updated this policy to emphasise induction requirements for all new staff, including health and safety induction, and requirements for beginning teachers.

School Staffing (new)

• New policy to introduce related information in this section about the appointment and employment of staff.

Staff Funding

• New policy to provide information about how the school receives and manages funding for staff, including requirements for roll returns, and conditions for employing staff through entitlement staffing and operational funding.

Employment Agreements

• Clarified the conditions of collective and individual employment agreements.
• This policy now links to relevant information about concerns and complaints, and special terms outside of an employment agreement (concurrence).
• Included information about school responsibilities for new staff members in terms of employment agreements and union membership.

Teaching Staff

• New topic that contains content previously in Provisionally Certificated Teachers (PCTs), Student Teachers, and Teacher Registration and Certification.
• Clarified requirements for beginning teachers and how the school supports teachers towards full certification.

Provisionally Certificated Teachers (PCTs)

Student Teachers

Teacher Registration and Certification

(retired)

• These topics were retired (removed from sites). Relevant policy information has moved to Teaching Staff.

Salary Units

(versions for primary, composite, area, secondary)

• Clarified requirements for schools according to the relevant collective agreement. There are now four versions of this policy.
• Included more information about staffing entitlement and how this determines the number of salary units and management allowances that a school may receive.
• Clarified requirements for allocation of any fixed-term units.

Classroom Release Time

• We have made minor updates to this policy to clarify collective agreement requirements.

Timetable

(versions for area, composite and secondary)

• Clarified collective agreement requirements for schools.
• Clarified that to fulfil collective agreement requirements, schools are required to develop further operational information.
• Information about non-contact time (for composite and secondary schools) and maximum teaching hours (for area schools) moved to Timetable.

Non-Contact Time

Maximum Teaching Hours

(retired)

• These topics were retired (removed from sites). Relevant policy information has moved to Timetable.

Teacher Relief Cover

• Strengthened and reorganised the content in this topic; there's sections to cover school and reliever responsibilities, and content about arranging cover.
• Updated our default wording under "Arranging relief cover".
• Added legislation to note the health and safety and good employer responsibilities when employing relievers.
• This policy was added to school sites that did not have the policy

Secondary Employment

• This policy has been updated to focus on consultation, mitigating risk, and creating clear expectations if an employee does take on secondary employment.
• We're referenced "good faith" as it would be reasonable to expect an employee to disclose to an employer that they have a second job.
• This policy was previously optional but from a health and safety perspective, all schools should have this policy – it has been added to all school sites.

Ending Employment

• Strengthened and reorganised the content in this topic using clear subheadings to note the different reasons for resignation.
• Information from Staff Exit Interviews/Surveys is now included as optional information within this topic.

Staff Exit Interviews/Surveys

(retired)

• This topic was retired (removed from sites). Relevant policy information has moved to Ending Employment.