On 21 August, schools received their anticipated entitlement reports for 2025, based on anticipated enrolments. The school workforce generated anticipated entitlement reports for SAS staff, which the Department sees as a significant improvement in the quality of advice for principals to help them with their planning and resource decisions. On 22 August the Secretary provided advice to all Principals regarding this information .

The Department asserts the essence of the procedure is unchanged, and that there have been some enhancements as follows:

• In an effort to streamline policy and procedure documents, Department of Education (DoE) has transitioned this procedure to the new standardised template, which enhances the ‘readability’ of the document.
• Also aligning with improved accessibility, this will appear on the intranet as a web-base format. The version is intended as a download – if a staff member did want to print a hard copy, they can do so, but the format is intended to be web-based.
• The procedure now places a greater emphasis on the Principal’s responsibilities in regard to clear and transparent communication to potentially impacted staff – including a requirement for the principal to inform their DEL prior to commencing any nomination process.

Should a nomination be required, the DoE has included the following to support impacted SAS:

• An opportunity for a SAS staff in the affected classification to self-nominate if they wish.
• Part-time and full-time staff will be considered equally in terms of seniority – part-time staff will not be unduly disadvantaged because.
• The procedure clearly notes that all permanent SAS (including those made permanent via TWT) in the affected classification would be considered in accordance with the seniority rule – appointment by TWT neither advantages or disadvantages the staff member.
• Principals are required to consider all opportunities to reduce or offset the need for transfers by considering all resources available, including any leave offset or flexible funding.
• In the event a staff member believes the process for nomination was not conducted appropriately, School workforce have articulated a pathway to seek a review.

The timing for Principals to confirm any SAS nominated transfers is in Week 1, Term 4, which is a few weeks after advice for teachers. School Workforce has extended this timeframe to ensure Principals in schools being supported in the 2025-2026 School Administration Improvement Program have time to be advised of this additional resource and can then consider this as an opportunity to retain a SAS staff member who may otherwise have required nomination.

From 26 August, DoE published a Staff Noticeboard for all staff to advise of the location of these refreshed procedures, which will be accessible to all staff with intranet access. A link to the procedure and confirmation statement has also been built into the nominated transfer application to ensure that prior to submitting their transfer, the staff member has had full opportunity to read the procedure and seek advice if required.

At the PSA DoE Schools Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) meeting on 28 August PSA raised concerns as to the proposed changes and the claim that there has been only enhancements to the procedure. A further meeting has been requested to deal with concerns raised by delegates and members with the PSA.

The consensus is the procedure is different and has changed. More than enhancements see the following:

• Principals can talk to all staff in the classification to see if anyone is going to retire, take leave without, maternity leave or similar, so they may be able to offset the vacancy.
• Previously part-time employees were always nominated first, then full-time. All staff will be assessed the same now so it’s on seniority.
• Staff can self nominate to transfer with seniority getting first option.
• Principals now have to document the meeting with staff in relation to reduction in allocation.
• TWT staff are treated exactly the same as all other perm staff.
• Staff can be excluded from nominated transfer if they are providing specialty support to students such as SLSO SHS or are assisting a special program.
• What is the guideline when in the frame for a nominated transfer with regards to location of new position on offer. One hours’ travel from home or previous school workplace? Access to public transport?

There is also the question of when will the SASS Recruitment and Transfer procedure be updated to reflect these changes to the anticipated entitlement and nominated transfer procedures. Current policy reflect the previous timelines where staffing changes occurred from term 2 in a school year prior to the current proposal which aligns the SASS staffing operation with the Teaching Staff agreement timelines.

For any issues or unintended consequences for members who may be impacted by this process can seek advice and support during term 4 2024 via or 1300 772 679.

School Learning Support officer Survey July 2024

Members will be aware of the survey conducted from 21 June until the 19 July concerning the following important matters.

School Workplace Incident reporting

Its clear from the survey that most members are able to report serious incidents via the Department’s 1800 811 523 Incident Hotline or via Sentral IT platform. The concern here is that it can take multiple reporting of incidents to have the matter addressed and in many cases an unacceptable delay in resolving the problem.

A major concern from the survey is frequency of incidents, respondents indicated daily 25.75 per cent, weekly 39.01 per cent, or monthly 15.81 per cent. The type of incidents reported involve bad behaviour, violence or assault and the use of weapons and other objects is also unacceptable. At the PSA Schools Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) meeting on 28 August, the PSA agreed to provide the survey data to the Department to assist in ongoing work through the Health Safety and Wellbeing initiatives. The PSA meets with the Health and Safety Directorate on 19 September.

Assisted School Travel Program

It is clear from the survey responses that there is confusion across school settings as to who is responsible for the securing of students in vehicles where the Assisted School Travel Program operates. This involves contracted service providers, Assisted Travel Support Officers and school staff. The PSA raised this as a major concern at the recent DoE Schools JCC meeting. The parties have agreed to meet and deal with the data from the survey and list of concerns collated from PSA special education delegates. Until the parties have met to deal with the issue the PSA advice to members has not changed. For further information, please refer to the bulletin HERE.    

The 2024 Whole-of-NSW Government People Matter Employee Survey

The 2024 whole-of-NSW government People Matter Employee Survey (PMES) opened from Monday 19 August to Friday 13 September. The department has sought PSA assistance to promote the PMES which assist the department to identify opportunities to improve workplace culture and processes in our schools and Education support offices.

School-specific changes to the survey

This year, the Learning and development team has continued to work with the NSW Public Service Commission (PSC) to ensure that the survey language is more relevant to schools. This includes the provision of 3 school-specific custom questions in the 2024 survey.

Driving change with the survey feedback

With the 2024 PMES results scheduled for release in November, the Department hopes to boost survey participation to gather enriched feedback and gain a deeper understanding of members experience at work. With this information, it aims to develop Department-wide initiatives and provide more school leaders with valuable insights to guide local actions to improve the experience of school staff.

Survey anonymity

The Department has heard in previous years there are concerns around the anonymity and privacy of results. Therefore, DoE would like to emphasise that the survey is administered by the Public Service Commission, which adheres to strict rules around the reporting and usage of collected data. The survey does not collect any identifying information, such as name, date of birth, email address, or employee ID. Work areas only receive reports where 10 or more people in a group have responded. An even stricter lower limit of 30 applies to open text comments and demographic results. As displayed in the results reports, no individual response is reported in connection to text comments or demographic information. More information can be found on the NSW Public Service Commission frequently asked questions.

 PSA encourages members to have your voice heard!

In 2023, 41,082 staff from NSW Department of Education completed the PMES (a 37 per cent response rate). This was an improvement over 2022 participation and enabled more principals to receive reports for their school. To gain deeper insights into the experiences and perspectives of Education members, it’s crucial that efforts to promote PMES further increase participation in the survey for 2024.

More information can be found on the NSW Public Service Commission website. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact the Employee Feedback and Listening team via .

For member support or assistance please contact or call 1800 772 679.

PSA Industrial staff as of 9 September

Siobhan Callinan Industrial Manager
Simon Van Vegchel Senior Industrial Officer
Sharny Chalmers Industrial Officer
Ann Attwater Organiser
Alison Crittenden Organiser
Marisa Bosco Organiser
Monique Anderson A/Organiser
Susan Chee Quee Organiser
Peta Noke GA Organiser