Welcome to our last TSAA Bulletin for 2020!

The end of the year is such a busy time in our schools, with assemblies, presentation evenings, excursions, picnics and the like; a time for reflection, celebration, farewells and planning for the year ahead. What a year it has been we can definately say this year has been a year like no other. As we head towards the last few days of term I would like to thank you all for your hardwork and commitment to your school community throughout 2020. 

We wish everyone a safe and happy festive season, take the opportunity to relax, enjoy time with family and friends ready to come back feeling refreshed and fabulous for 2021.

Merry Christmas & a Happy Holiday from the TSAA

Cynthia Pearce

Chairperson 

Introducing our new TSAA 2021 Committee

Chairperson - Cynthia Pearce

Vice chariperson - Sharon Sutczak

Secretary - Lea-Anne Breganti

Vice Secretary - Sharon Lacey

Treasurer - Missy Thompson

Vice Treasurer - Jill Budgeon

Committee Members;

Carol Bellchambers

Ali Dennison

Gail Mclaren

Brenda McLarin

Andrea Miller

Tania Oates

Lucy Robbins

Shelley Spong

Chairperson Report – November 2020

The Tasmanian Schools Administrators’ Association is a professional organisation which aims to support, mentor and promote professional learning and advice and encourage excellence; to liaise with the Department of Education and forward updated information to all school administrators.

Whilst this year has been like no other, challenging us all in many ways, testing our resilience both personally and professionally I am however proud of how we have all embraced these challenges, grown our skills, supported each other as agile leaders and in most instances turned this into positive learning opportunities. Through these times our Association has been proactive, continuing to work with our school and corporate colleagues to support each other to be skilled professional administrators in Tasmanian Government Schools.

Department Meetings

The TSAA have continued to meet with departmental Corporate Managers regularly. These meetings provide us with an effective podium for discussion and communication to enable us to connect, maintain and strengthen relationships with all DoE cohorts. Covid restrictions meant that our once face to face meetings became TEAMS meetings. This however still provided us with strong connections and collaboration and has continued to be very productive; giving us an opportunity to represent our colleagues, provide feedback, share initiatives and develop excellence in administrative practices across our schools. This year TSAA have met with:

Robert Williams – Deputy Secretary
Finance Team

Business Operations Advisor Team Human Resources and Industrial Relations Teams
Educational Performance Review Team
Information Technology Team

Workforce Strategy - Contemporary School Leadership Role Project
Relief Absence Management Stakeholder Group

School Business Operations Resourcing Project Team

SAAF – School Administration Advisory Forum 

Permissions and Consent Form

Alex Tay and his EPR Team have collaborated closely with a wide range of stakeholders throughout 2020  including representatives from Early Childhood, Primary, Secondary and College SBM’s and Principals, Legal Team and Corporate and Policy Groups to ensure the usability of permission and consent forms are significantly improved for parents and school administration staff whilst also exploring other ways of capturing permission data that could materially reduce the amount of school resourcing required to capture permissions.

Relief Absence Management Project

The concept of the Relief Absence Management Project was first introduced to staff at the TSAA Conference held in September 2017 and rolled out to all schools this year. The system has been developed in line with the HRMB Business Plan – strategic outputs System Improvements and Administrative Efficiencies which directly supports the Departments 2018 – 2021 Strategic Plan with improving Department Systems. TSAA Representatives met with DoE HR personnel to provide further input and assist with the establishment of a working party group and piloting in schools.

Workforce Strategy - Contemporary School Leadership Role Project – Role Clarity workshops

The goal of the Contemporary School Leadership Roles Project was to clarify the roles of our school leaders to focus on improving student learning and lead quality teaching. In 2019, consultation was undertaken with school leaders to map and better understand the roles and functions of school leadership teams across different school contexts. Recently TSAA Executive were involved in follow up workshops to explore and seek to understand how the Workforce Strategy Team will develop and update material or processes to align with the vision of contemporary school leadership.

AAGSA - Australian Association of Government School Administrators now known as ASBLA – Australian School Business Leaders Association

Our national association provides support for all Business Managers and Administrators to provide opportunities to share information from colleagues, interstate and internationally.  ASBLA supports and represents State School Administrators in all state schools – Colleges, High Schools, Primary Schools and Special Education. The AGM was held last month via ZOOM; 2020 / 2021 executive positions are;

Julie Heddle – President (SA)
Rozanne Patane – Vice President (NSW)
Sharon Sutczak – Secretary (TAS)
Hayden Weeks – Treasurer (ACT)

Whilst this year has looked a little different regular Zoom Meetings have taken place to ensure the work of ASBLA has continued during 2020. The impact of the pandemic on ASBLA saw the cancelling of our 2020 conference and face to face meetings. Continuing business operations has been challenging and from March our core business has been taking care of administrative activities involving the rearrangement of conference arrangements and maintaining business operations wherever possible and ensuring we support each other through these difficult times. Like most States we have missed our face to face networking and ability to attend interstate conferences. Committee members have continued to collaborate and work closely on formalising our new strategic plan along with in-depth discussions on Business Manager National and Professional Standards and our 2020 – 2021 Operational Plan.

Mentoring Program

This year we are very happy to have twelve newly trained Mentors to assist School Business Managers across the state. In August the Mentors completed a training program facilitated by Claudia Butler from Frameworks for change. The primary purpose of the mentoring program is to offer support to newly appointed SBM’s or those who are returning to the role following an extended absence. This is an important transition time in people’s careers and the availability of advice and support from a mentor can make a huge difference to a mentee’s confidence and effectiveness in the early days of her / his role. This program will supplement, but not replace, other support programs such as support from the Department Business Operational Advisors, normal school induction and information days.

Conference
Due to the pandemic our 2020 conference has been postponed to 20 & 21 May 2021, to be held at Wrest Point Casino, Hobart. Whilst conference arrangements were well underway it quickly became evident that this would not go ahead for this year. We are hoping we can soon progress arrangements for next year and move forward confidently to secure bookings and program planning.

Constitution Changes

Thank you to Sharon Lacey and past and present Executive members for their relentless time, consultation and work on updating our constitution. The current constitution was written many yeas ago and contained some elements that no longer reflected or encompass our current operating procedures. We have sought advice from the Department of Justice, Consumer, Building and Occupational Services section on how to update the document to meet our needs. We were directed to the ‘Model Rules’ which is a standardised document which organisations can adapt to suit their needs. We believe the new constitution covers our current operating procedures and allows us to be fully compliant with all relevant legislation that applies to the TSAA.

TSAA Executive

Despite the challenging year we have all had I have been fortunate to have a supportive, dedicated and passionate committee who are committed to continuing to grow and evolve our association supporting each other and our colleagues to be skilled professional administrators in Tasmanian Government Schools. A big  thank you to the TSAA Executive for their unrelenting support to all School Business Managers – Vice Chairperson – Sharon Sutczak; Secretary – Lea-Anne Breganti; Assistant Secretary – Gail McLaren; Treasurer – Missy Thompson; Assistant Treasurer – Andrea Miller and Committee Members – Gail Reeves, Tania Oates, Sharon Lacey, Sandra Quinn, Jill Budgeon, Lucy Robbins and Ali Dennison.  – Please accept my sincere gratitude to each and every one of you for your continuous support and dedication that strengthens the success, growth and future of our association.

Thank you

Cynthia Pearce
Chairperson
Tasmanian School Administrators’ Association

5 November 2020

In early 2021 the below three registers will all be available in Employee Self Service (ESS):

• Additional 2 Weeks
• 43^rd Week
• Additional Week of Hours

This will now give SBM’s direct access to the registers to view, at any time, who is currently listed on each of them as well as the ability to add and delete employees directly to each register.  The ability to track hours worked by employees on each register is also available.

The payment process for each register will remain the same i.e. bulk payments for Additional 2 Weeks and 43^rd Week and SBM’s will pay hours as they are worked for Additional Week of Hours which will be processed in ESS rather than SAWM.

Further communications will be provided closer to the date of the registers becoming available.

New intranet resource for School Administrators

A new School Business Operations (SBO) space on the DoE intranet  launched on Wednesday 25 November 2020. This space provides a single location to access supporting information for school Business Manager and Administration roles.

All the useful links to resources previously found on the School Admin site on the old intranet have been moved across. There are also some handy new features including:

• an online news feed with SASP updates and other information for school administration staff
• a new monthly checklist planner to assist with planning and actioning key School Administrator tasks each month
• a curated list of quick links to regularly accessed information.

Find the new SBO space

This useful space can be accessed from the DoE intranet home page by clicking on the School Business Operations tile. You can also enter ‘SBO’ in search.

Update your Bookmarks

If you have bookmarks to the old site, please update them to the new SBO space.

More information and feedback

If you have suggestions about content for the School Business Operations intranet space, or have noticed something important is missing, please contact the School Business Operations team in Learning Services ls.businessops@education.tas.gov.au.

White Chocolate Cranberry & Pistachio Xmas Fudge

Ingredients:                                                     

• 12oz white chocolate coarsely chopped
• ¾ cup sweetened condensed milk
• ¼ cup dried cranberries/craisins
• 1 cup shelled pistachios
• 1 tbsp Vanilla extract

Method

1. Place white chocolate in large microwavable bowl. Add sweetened condensed milk and mix well. Microwave on high for 2 to 3 minutes or until chocolate is almost melted, stirring after every minute.
2. Stir in pistachios, cranberries and vanilla
3. Pour mixture into foil lined 20cm square tin
4. Refrigerate 2 hours or until fudge is set
5. Use foil to lift out onto cutting board and slice into bite size pieces