Poor staff morale at top Auckland school

One of the country's oldest and most popular high schools is under scrutiny after top-level criticism of staff morale and management processes.

Auckland Girls' Grammar School has been ordered to urgently commission an independent report into the situation, which was exposed in an Education Review Office report conducted in October last year.

It is understood that this report is an edited, "toned-down" version of the one that had been originally presented to the school.

"Unresolved, this situation has the potential to undermine staff-management relations and to detract from the school's positive learning culture and progress made to date," the report said.

"Given the nature, extent and complexity of the concerns raised by staff, it is important that the board comprehensively address this situation in order to effectively fulfil its good employer and wider governance obligations," it added.

The report was published last week and it is understood the board of trustees was hoping it would go unnoticed by media. It is highly unusual for an ERO report to investigate staff morale.

In another rare move, the office said that a review team would return "within 12 months" to monitor the school's progress. Principal Liz Thomson did not return calls.

Board of trustees chair Ann Northover thanked ERO for alerting the school to the problems and said a lot of things in a school would just "sit there" until something happened to "bring the matter to a head".

The board would address the issues, she said.

Teachers contacted by the Herald on Sunday chose not to comment, concerned about being identified by management. However, one staff member said the school had always been "bad" and the ERO report had simply exposed that.

A "significant number" of staff were worried that management relied too heavily on email and said their concerns and complaints over employment conditions had not been properly dealt with.

Lack of communication and poor management processes were the most common complaints.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY