• Happy Easter & School Holidays: AFS Out-Of-Office Dates

• Applications close 14 April - COVID-19 Vaccine mandate relief support scheme 

• Insurance cover for digital devices: Risk Management Scheme 

• Xero Tip of the Month: Setting up invoice reminders
• Boosting teacher morale and wellbeing during Covid-19

• School Spotlight: St Teresa's School

APPLICATIONS CLOSE 14 APRIL 2022: COVID-19 VACCINE MANDATE RELIEF SUPPORT SCHEME

A reminder that the vaccine mandate relief support scheme applications must be received by Thursday, 14 April 2022.

Schools that had to work through employment processes with staff who have not met the vaccine mandate requirements may be eligible for additional funding to fund part of the costs incurred. The costs must relate to relief teachers that have been employed during paid notice periods directly related to staff members not meeting the vaccination mandate.

The funding is retrospective and is only available for relief staff employed during Term 4 2021 (18 October to 20 December).

Eligibility criteria:

• The school must have entered an employment process that resulted in employment termination due to non-compliance with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
• The school must have incurred actual additional relief teacher costs i.e. a reliever was hired during the terminated employee's paid notice period.
• This fund will only provide support for the notice period, which is up to 4 weeks for non-teaching staff or up to 8 weeks for teaching staff.
• The affected staff must fit into one of the following six categories: principals, teachers, teacher aides, relief teachers, casual staff, caretakers and cleaners or administration staff; and
• The cost is not related to contractors and other tradespeople, service managers, caregivers, and other staff. It is considered these positions will be replaced on a contractual basis and therefore do not require inclusion for backfill of costs to employ relief staff; or may be volunteer staff members thereby negating the school incurring any costs; and
• The cost must have been incurred between the dates of 18 October 2021 and 20 December 2021.
• If the paid notice period took place while the school was closed, no funded relief cover would be available.

Applying for the scheme

Please click the button below to download the application form for this funding via the Ministry of Education website. Please note, as applications are assessed on a case-by-case basis, eligibility cannot be confirmed prior to an application being submitted.

With the growing use of ipads, laptops, and tablets, accidents will unfortunately happen, and devices will get damaged, so having a good insurance policy in place is an essential element for a school to consider when implementing an e-learning strategy. 

Enter the Risk Management Scheme (RMS), a promoted by the Ministry of Education which provides comprehensive contents, legal liability, and cyber insurance coverage, including public liability cover for state and state-integrated schools. 

The Risk Management Scheme is treating the COVID-19 "Red Level" setting as a single event versus covering devices lost or damaged during this period.  As such, damage, loss, or theft of devices incurred by a school in the scheme during the event (for example, the non-return or damage to electronic devices sent home) will be treated as a single claim with a single excess for that school. 

What to expect under the RMS scheme:

• Excess for handheld devices is $100 per claim (and one claim may cover multiple devices). 
• The scheme's insurance levy is $10.50 per pupil per annum which is deducted quarterly from your school's operational funding entitlement. 
• Schools placing a claim can work directly with the RMS Loss Adjustor (McLarens) to help manage the process. As repairs or replacement of devices will be needed during COVID-19, claims can be submitted as required and the excess will only be applied once.
• The RMS COVID-19 Red event status will end when NZ returns to the Orange setting which means claims will revert to normal practice and each claim for a handheld device will incur the $100 excess.

 To find more information, including how to apply for this scheme click the button below.

XERO TIP OF THE MONTH:  SETTING UP INVOICE REMINDERS

Need to follow up on your accounts receivable but don't have the time? Let Xero take care of it for you with the automatic invoice reminder feature! You can set up invoice reminders, configuring Xero to automatically send customer reminders based on how far an invoice is past due.

To set this up:

1. Go to Settings, then General Settings, then Invoice Settings, where you’ll see the Invoice Reminders button. Here you can turn on invoice reminders.
2. Choose from the predetermined days' past due parameters or create your own reminder. You can even customize what each reminder email says by clicking on the Edit link.

Additionally, Xero has an option to include a link to the invoice in the reminder email as well as an option to not send reminders for outstanding invoices under a certain amount. If you need to get even more specific, you can turn off reminders for a particular customer or invoice.

Following the pandemic's disruption to typical schooling and the effect on teachers, their performance, and wellbeing, now more than ever, it's essential that schools take time to safeguard staff health and happiness to avoid stress, fatigue, and potential burnout.  
Below are five simple but effective ideas and practices to improve staff engagement, raise spirits and boost team morale. These boosters could be implemented within the physical school environment or adapted virtually.

• A staff shoutout board: Creating a staff shoutout board in the staff room or other staff designated area to publicly acknowledge the great work they do is a simple, but powerful way to boost staff morale.
• Providing staffroom hampers: These hampers could be filled with lots of little useful items such as tissues, inspirational quotes, lozenges, mints; the sky is the limit! 
• Staff perks: While every teacher loves a salary increase, there are other ways to reward your staff besides offering more money such as paid time off, staff massages, etc.
• A staff social board: Start a social staff board in the staffroom and pin ideas on for team nights out, local events, and discount vouchers. This will motivate the team to socialize, get organized and is excellent for team building. 
• Teacher of the week: Other teachers can nominate co-workers for this title. Administrators can offer the winner a parking spot right at the entrance of the building. Local businesses could supply this teacher with a free lunch or dinner, or perhaps someone could bring this teacher a coffee or some flowers. A poster could hang outside this teacher’s classroom. Honoring a different teacher each week can spread the love and help boost morale.

SCHOOL SPOTLIGHT: ST TERESA'S SCHOOL

In 2022 St Teresa's will have a particular focus on geology, encouraging students to be curious about the world around them with classes ranging from Year 1 to Year 8 heading off on field trips to study rock formations, find fossils and analyse fault lines. Alongside this, St Teresa's are exploring the changes to the landscape, from pre-European times when Featherston was a swamp, and the local legends linked to the landscape. How neat is that?
 
The Accounting For Schools team couldn't be prouder to work with St Teresa's School and look forward to hearing more about these fantastic developments with the local curriculum. 

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