NSW Department of Education - 'Making School Time Count' initiative CASE STUDY

CASE STUDY

NSW Department of Education
‘Making School Time Count’ initiative

Context of the initiative

In 2017, the NSW Department of Education (DoE) commissioned Deloitte to
conduct a research study into school principal workload and time use. 1 That
study found that while the scope of the principal’s role hasn’t changed over
time, the way components are required to be executed has changed. This
change has been partially driven by the ‘Local Schools, Local Decisions’ (LSLD)
education reform. While greater authority has been given to principals, the level
of compliance required for their professional duties has contributed to their
administrative workload. From 2017, DoE implemented the School Leadership
Strategy, 2 a long-term and ongoing strategic priority for public education in
NSW. Its aim was to significantly enhance the department’s support for school
leaders so they can focus on leading teaching and learning in their schools.

                               Intent of the initiative

A key aspect of the School Leadership Strategy is the delivery of better services
and support for school leaders, including:

     • working with principals to improve the timing, coordination and
       presentation of communications to schools.

     • adopting a user-centred approach to initiative design, implementation
       and change management that considers the ability of principals to
       absorb the change.

1
 The study can be found at https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/gef/media/documents/Principal-
workload-and-time-use-study-Nov-2017.pdf
2
 https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/gef/media/documents/Principal-workload-and-time-use-
study-Nov-2017.pdf

To deliver on the principle of ‘making school time count’, the DoE focused the
recently created Delivery Unit on removing administrative burden and reducing
duplication of information requests to schools. A school-centric approach has
been adopted through structured principal interviews and discussions. The
Delivery Unit’s work elevated the focus on reducing school workload throughout
DoE and was embraced and committed to by teams across DoE.

Concerns were expressed by principals that there was limited consultation
before major changes were released to schools, that some of the changes
(particularly to Information Technology (IT) systems) were released
prematurely, and that there were a significant number of uncoordinated
changes. In response, a disciplined approach has been adopted in
communication with schools and in the setting of requirements and dates for
completion. A calendar of requirements (Master Schedule) for new change
initiatives and significant updates to ‘business as usual’ and information and
compliance data requests have been established with a 12-month horizon, so
that all requests for inclusion can be scrutinised, duplication identified and
redundancies eliminated.

           Steps taken and challenges faced

In 2019, DoE embedded a school-centric delivery approach for all changes to
its operations, incorporating four stages. This approach and its four stages are
summarised in the table below.

Four-Stage School-Centric Delivery Approach

                       Plan and prioritise
   • Consult with schools
   • Define outcomes and how schools will benefit
   • Estimate time impact
   • Coordinate and prioritise within and across divisions using the Master
     Schedule

                    Design, pilot and iterate
   • Design change with and for schools
   • Pilot change
   • Iterate based on feedback and take the time to get it right
   • Verify time impact

                      Train and implement
   • Clearly communicate change to schools
   • Ensure appropriate training and support to embed change
   • Deliver change

Embed and monitor
   • Establish monitoring and evaluation
   • Determine if outcomes are being delivered and refine as needed
   • Ensure change is embedded in DoE and with schools

The school-centric delivery approach also encompasses a set of principles
coupled with supporting mechanisms, listed in the table below.

School-Centric Principles and Supporting Mechanisms

                              Principles
   • School time counts                    • Take the time to get it right
   • With schools, not to schools          • Coordinate and prioritise as
                                             one

                   Supporting Mechanisms
   • Master Schedule                       • Change caps
   • Change-free periods                   • Delivery meetings

As noted, the Master Schedule was introduced to improve planning and
coordination of changes across DoE and provides a view of all changes rolling

out to schools over a 12-month period. The Master Schedule is updated
quarterly and reviewed every Term. Project teams must submit Master
Schedule entries to division coordinators for review and prioritisation prior to
being included on the Schedule. In addition, in 2019 DoE introduced change-
free periods (totalling 17 weeks in the 41-week school year) to the schedule, to
accommodate busy periods in schools, during which times DoE will avoid
introducing new changes.

To assist prioritisation and limit change fatigue that might occur as a result of
focussing 41 weeks of change into the remaining 24 weeks of the Schedule,
‘change caps’ have been developed for each Term. These change caps have
been developed based on the expected number of hours required for schools to
embed mandatory changes. Further, ‘Delivery Meetings’ are held within DoE to
review proposals for major changes. These fortnightly meetings allow changes
(solutions, policies, and procedures) to be prioritised and ensure that changes
are delivered strategically, with impact, and at the right time.

                 Evaluations of the initiative

DoE has set targets for the hours that it intends to ‘save’ from the workloads of
principals: namely, a target of 190 hours reduction in administrative burden,
approximately 20% of their administrative time. DoE tracks hours saved and
estimates its impact across the State in terms of averages. As at early April
2021, DoE estimates to have saved 105 hours per principal, 25 hours per
administrative staff member, and 10 hours per teacher. To date the largest
savings have been identified through better delivery of IT changes such as
automating reporting requirements, reducing compliance requirements, and
streamlining inefficient processes such as daily checking of cancelled or
adjusted receipts. However we note that these time estimates only take into
account solutions that have delivered time saving for schools and not the net
impact of changes or admin across this period.

Other than time savings through changes and enhancements to IT and
streamlining of processes, time savings have been made for principals and
administrative staff by recentralising some activities (such as payments for utility
bills for small schools) and by also implementing changes to simplify school
budget and other cash management processes.

Future developments

In 2020, further improvements on the Master Schedule were delivered and are
listed in the table below.

Master Schedule 2020 Improvements

  Improvements

   • Providing single sign on               • Making it easier to approve
     integration between our                  and manage system access
     operating systems                        (through the ‘Access
                                              Management’ app)

   • Streamlining and improving             • Streamlining the access
     purchasing process (smart                requests process for vision
     purchasing)                              and hearing support

   • Discouraging duplicative data          • Digitising the enrolment
     entry on the pupil record                process into ‘online
     cards                                    enrolment’

   • Making the English as an               • Digitising the application
     Additional Language/Dialect              processes for the School
     advice document easier to                Spectacular
     use

   • Automating 60% of the                  • Reducing the number of
     annual school report                     steps to complete recruitment

In 2021, there will be a strengthened focus on reducing administrative burden
for schools as highlighted within the recently announced School Success
Model. Ambitious targets will be in place to reduce the red tape for principals
and teachers by 20 per cent (the target for principals continues the focus to
achieve a 190 hrs reduction in administrative burden for principals).

This is part of a series of better practice examples to share how education
systems and sectors across Australia are reducing the burden of compliance
and administrative tasks on school leaders and teachers.

 Browse all practice examples and reducing red tape report