Bayswater Primary Principal: Serving life term in the job he loves

By MICHELE HEWITSON

Put most of us, blindfolded, in this empty corridor, spin us around a couple of times and we'd get our bearings quickly enough.

It's the smells of childhood that provide the clues: banana and muddy socks; poster paint and glue.

Even without the stomping of little feet and the chatter of little voices, we'd know we couldn't be anywhere other than in a New Zealand primary school.

It may be the school holidays but in this echoing corridor with its rows of empty coat-hooks, the kids of Bayswater School are still making their presence felt.

The hall is lined with their artwork: "Monet" flower paintings, artistic interpretations of how the zebra got its stripes. And illustrated personal wish lists that haven't changed much since I was at school.

"I wish," writes one reacher for the stars, "that I could do maths better than everyone else and get more pocket money."

The wish lists of primary school principals have been presented in a different forum this week: in a survey at the New Zealand Educational Institute conference. It found that nearly half of the country's primary school principals felt overburdened with work - an average 61 hours a week - and would quit if they could.

On this clear, sunny morning, the sort of day made for wagging school if ever there was one, the principal of Bayswater is at his desk by 9 am. Trevor Snookes' only concession to the calender date is that he's wearing mufti: blue jeans, checked shirt and mirrored sunglasses on the top of his head.

Mr Snookes is, by his conservative reckoning, a 60-hour-a-week principal. During term he arrives by 7 am and tries to leave by 5.30 pm, except on the nights when there are those ubiquitous meetings that are the lot of the principal. At Bayswater there are board meetings, of course, and then there are the committee meetings: finance, personnel, planning, curriculum, property. On meeting nights, and there's at least one every week, Mr Snookes will get away around 11 pm.

He'll come in most days of the two-week holiday period but he won't be working 10-hour days, not "if the sun's looking good."

Today he'll spend working on a staff review for next year. "I've got staffing for next year and it's not enough. Because of the stupid bloody Privacy Act I can't go down to the kindergarten and ask them for a list of children who are coming to Bayswater School.

"So I've put out a letter to all the parents asking them for the information. I've got to have all the new entrants listed with birth dates before the end of the year so I can prepare a written statement of why I need more staffing for next year."

He can perform such administrative tasks more quickly outside term time when the phone's not ringing, the children aren't popping in to say hi, and when teachers don't need to see him.

It is this ever-growing mountain of paper work, and less of an involvement in curriculum and teaching, that many principals find blighting their enjoyment of the job.

Mr Snookes has been a principal for 16 years "on and off" and at Bayswater for the past decade. He implemented the prison education system at Paremoremo maximum security prison 24 years ago and the Otahuhu College old boy has done, by way of contrast, a stint at King's School.

You might expect that if you went looking for a jaded primary principal, Mr Snookes, 30 years into his career in education, would be your man.

In his office, though, he warns, "you're not going to get a person who's sad and unhappy about being a principal and over-worked, okay?"

You do rather get that impression the moment you walk through the door, which is adorned with a sign: How to create a rotten image for yourself and your school. Advice includes: "Pass the blame when you can. Blame the previous principal, the ministry, your teachers, other schools or the parents."

There is not a lot of paper about. Mr Snookes says he makes good use of "file 13" - the rubbish bin. "I'll never accept," he says emphatically, "that I'm a manager over and above an educational leader in a school." He suggests that perhaps principals unhappy about being turned into desk slaves might think about delegating.

"It's their world and they're happy to be in there - or unhappy to be in there - 60 hours a week. But they burden themselves with all sorts of things I suggest they could get other people to do."

He is somewhat bemused by the numbers who say they'd leave if they had anywhere else to go. "How can you do a good job," he begins, then starts that one again. "No. That's a judgment call. How can you be as effective as you could be if you're moaning and groaning about your workload?

"I would suggest that people who are moaning and groaning should get out. If it's that bad, you could always go and dig holes in the road."

It's the double-bind of the money - he earns around $80,000 - which now keeps people in the job, he reckons.

"This'll go down well," he grimaces, "but I think a classroom teacher, with his or her 30 kids, can be working just as hard as me - if not harder at times. I can sit here and my great escape is the telephone. I can ring whoever and talk rubbish. A teacher's got no escape."

There are principals, too, who feel there is no escape; that they are not qualified to do anything else. Mr Snookes says that while he thinks he has skills in public relations (he jokes that when he does road patrol every afternoon he gives the "royal wave to cars,") and in development planning, he's likely stuck for life in a job he loves.

At which point it strikes me that there is something odd about his office. In this workplace of a 21st century principal, there's no computer.

There is dead silence for long seconds when I ask the question. "I've got a secretary who is very good on the computer. Okay?"

Can he actually use a computer? A longer silence. "No, no, I can't. I've been on courses. When I say I can't, I don't use a computer. I've got a few certificates on the wall in the staff room for people to laugh at."

So he's really not, is he, qualified to do anything else?

The contented principal smiles and breathes a sigh of the utmost relief: "No."