Provisional staffing round

This page outlines the steps we take to determine the provisional roll for each school. We use the provisional roll to generate the provisional staffing entitlement.

Boards and principals should understand what the provisional staffing entitlement is made of and how we determine it.

• Your provisional entitlement staffing notice
• How we calculate your provisional staffing entitlement
• Further information

Your provisional entitlement staffing notice

In September each year, we send your board a notice with our prediction of your school’s roll for the coming year and your provisional entitlement staffing.

For Primary, Specialist and Intermediate schools

Your provisional (roll based) staffing entitlement is an assured minimum for the coming year (also known as assured staffing).

Any staffing listed below the Staffing Entitlement line on your provisional Staffing Notice is additional staffing and is NOT guaranteed.

If your entitlement notice identifies a reduction in staffing then your board may need to conduct a needs analysis before disestablishing a position(s).

For Area, Composite and Secondary schools

Your provisional (roll based) staffing is a guaranteed minimum for the coming year (also known as guaranteed minimum formula staffing).

Any staffing listed below the Staffing Entitlement line on your provisional Staffing Notice is additional staffing and is NOT guaranteed.

If your entitlement notice identifies a reduction in staffing then your board may need to conduct a curriculum and pastoral needs analysis before disestablishing a position(s).

Surplus staffing support for a reduction in staffing entitlement

How we calculate your provisional staffing entitlement

To calculate your provisional staffing entitlement, we use a provisional roll. This, is a prediction of your school’s roll for the following year (your predicted resourcing roll). We predict the roll on a specific date. The date is dependent on the school type.

How do we predict resourcing rolls

Provisional roll setting is a 2 stage process. 

1. Systems calculation.
2. Roll analysis and adjustments by the Resourcing Delivery team.

Systems calculation

Our system generates an initial provisional entitlement by comparing the following:

• 1 July roll progression (Primary year levels)
• 1 March roll progression (Others)
• School prediction (All)

The system takes the lower of these rolls for each individual year level to generate the initial prediction.

Roll analysis and adjustments

Once the system predictions are generated, the Resourcing Delivery team analyses the rolls to ensure they're as accurate as possible. 

When checking and adjusting the rolls we look at a variety of factors including:

• 1 July and 1 March roll of the current year.
• roll trends over the past 3 years
• retention rates — does the school keep all its students from year to year?
• local office information, for example, enrolment zone changes, high growth area and so on
• impact of network changes — new schools opening and closures in an area, change of school types and so on
• Secondary Tertiary Partnership participation
• previous growth during the year.

Note: Some specialist schools have a notional roll. Refer to the Education (School Staffing) Order in Council (external link)schedules for information about the staffing of these schools. 

Last reviewed: 17 November 2021 Has this been useful? Give us your feedback