Through a PTA & Parent lens with Anna-Marie

In this episode, Debbie Ross sits down with her bestie, Anna-Marie. A mum and local PTA chair, to offer a candid and heartfelt look at the world of primary education through the lens of a parent. Set against the backdrop of their move from Auckland to a tight-knit coastal community, they explore how the school serves as the heartbeat of a small town and why integrating into that community is so rewarding. Anna-Marie shares her unique experience leading a modern PTA, moving away from traditional structures toward a collaborative "team effort" that focuses on high-impact events like fishing competitions and regional networks.

The conversation dives deep into the realities of the modern classroom, from report writing to the increasing administrative burdens placed on teachers. Anna-Marie reflects on how being a mum has shifted her perspective on education, emphasising the need for parents to offer teachers trust, respect, and the space to do what they are qualified to do. Whether discussing "Funday Mondays," curriculum changes, or the transition to high school, this episode is a refreshing reminder of how parents and educators can work together to create a thriving environment for the next generation.

Hosted by Debbie Ross
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or to chat, please email: nurturingeducators@gmail.com or visit  www.nurturingeducators.co.nz

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Transcript

Debbie: Hey, everyone. Today I'm sitting down with someone really special. My bestie Anna-Marie. We've known each other since high school, travelled the world together, and lived together. Now she's deep in the heart of school life as both a mom and a PTA chair. In this episode, we're going to get a real inside look at what primary education feels like from the parent and community side, especially in a smaller school outside of Auckland. We'll chat about teachers, fundraising, school culture, community vibes, and where she thinks education is heading. Let's dive in.

Debbie: Okay, welcome, Anna-Marie. How are you today?

Anna-Marie: I'm good, thank you, Debbie. Thanks for having me on your podcast.

Debbie: You're welcome. It's exciting to have you here. Would you like to share with the listeners a little bit about yourself?

Anna-Marie: Well, my name's Anna-Marie, and I'm Debbie's best friend and I've known her for a very long time. We travelled together overseas. We've done our way. And we've just hung around a lot together over the last few years. And that's about me. 

Debbie: Family, kids?  It's just about us. I a

Anna-Marie: Actually, sorry, hold on. I forgot about them. Yes, I've got two kids. They're seven and eight. I've got a husband, I've got a part-time dog that we share with my parents. And we live out of Auckland. At the beach. And both me and my husband actually only work four days a week because we quite like the lifestyle of being at the beach. So it's great. We moved here about five years ago now.

Debbie: How was that transition across?

Anna-Marie: It was good. It was good. We had decided to leave Auckland when my first child was born and so we actually did a bit of a trial run up around this way and then went back to Auckland, renovated our house, sold the house and moved back up here. And it's been really good, I think, because both of us had decided that we didn't want to be living in a big city with the kids and wanted to have a bit of a lifestyle change that it made it really easy for us both to be happy and make friends and just really try to integrate ourselves into the community that we've chosen. So it's been a really good change and we both have absolutely no regrets from that actually.

Debbie: Cool. And it's quite good because you're still kind of connected to Auckland. Like it's not too far.

Anna-Marie: 100%. We're an hour away. So we can pop back if we want to. But the longer we've been up here, the more that we feel like—how do they describe it?—like little country bumpkins going back to the city. Even though we grew up there and we know it so well, we're like, oh my goodness, look, this has changed, this has changed. I can't believe they've done this. So, yeah, it is good. It is.

Debbie: Awesome. So we've got you on the show today to kind of get your perspective from the mum/PTA side of things. So do you want to tell us a little bit about how you first got involved with the PTA?

Anna-Marie: I first got involved with the PTA because I had decided that I wanted to be a part of my children's, I guess their kindy and their education. I wanted to be involved in that. But I obviously know nothing about teaching—can definitely say that I'm probably not great at that. So I was thinking of other ways that I could be involved in that. So I originally started doing the Kindy PTA and met some fantastic ladies there doing that and kind of got an introduction into what it was like to do some fundraising and why the need for fundraising was there. And I guess also it just fell in line with my skill set. I can throw a good party. So I thought this was for me.

And the school one, when the kids had finished Kindy, I went along to the school PTA and actually the same ladies that were on the Kindy one were there. My husband had sent me off and said, "Whatever you do, don't become the chairperson of the PTA." So that's what he said. So I said, "Absolutely," and went along to the meeting and the PTA actually at the school at the time, they had kind of disbanded and a whole bunch of stuff had happened, which I didn't realise at the time, but we'd gone along and they were looking for a chairman and a treasurer and all sorts of things. So me and another three girls decided to instead run it like a traditional PTA. We just said, look, we'd all love to help, but we can't commit to all being a chairperson or things like this necessarily, mostly because Nick said I wasn't allowed to. So we sat in the exec committee instead.

Debbie: Oh, good. Kind of started to run it like a...

Anna-Marie: Yeah, yeah, team effort. So there was four of us, and we basically split up the role so that there was a chairperson, a treasurer, a person in charge of all the volunteers and a person in charge of sponsorship. And that has really worked well with sharing the load. And I like to just say to people that sort of, this person is the treasurer and this person does the sponsorship and this person does the volunteers and I just sign the tax returns. Yeah. I basically just sign the tax returns. Let's be honest. It's a great group of people. So yeah, that's how I got started in that.

Debbie: So you organised fundraisers? What else do you do to help?

Anna-Marie: We organise fundraisers for sure, and we do all sorts of different fundraisers—big events, little events for the school to help the school. They'll have a walk-a-thon, so we'll go along and cook the barbeque for that. Wacky Wednesday we'll do a bit of baking—I mean, let's be honest, we just mostly just buy it from the supermarket and put it on a plate—but we do a little bake sale like that. We do help out with Christmas; we do a Christmas carols sort of Christmas market thing at our school as well. And we do some online fundraisers, so you know, Dad's Pies and protein bars and things like that.

Debbie: Because the school wouldn't be able to do as much as they do without that money, eh?

Anna-Marie: Yeah, quite important. Yes, yeah, definitely. And I don't think I fully appreciated how important the money that we raised for the school was until I started doing that.

Debbie: And so what kinds of things does the school use the money for?

Anna-Marie: So we run our PTA slightly differently as well, because we don't think we know how to spend the money properly. We have a school board who are fantastic and we have our principal and our deputy principals, who we work quite closely with. So what we actually do with money, instead of fundraising for a specific thing, say a pump track or something like that, we actually just fundraise a whole bunch of money and give it straight to the school and say spend it on whatever you need. Any resources you need. It's all for you. And that can be on sort of teacher aides, it can be on books, it can be on absolutely anything. We say that all of our fundraising is there to support the children and the teachers and make it the best school it can possibly be. And it seems to work quite well. They spend it quite wisely. Budgets are tight, so.

But we do also—I think the reason we've realised how important it is is because our principal will usually contact us at the end of the year. We usually give our money at the end of the financial year, which is April 1st, and she'll contact us at the end of the year because that's when she starts to do her budgets and she says, you know, "How much money do you think you guys will be able to give us?" so that she can start to forward plan as well, which I think is really important rather than just dropping money in here and there and everywhere. We have a savings account for it. We actually, you know, invest some of the money so we can get the best return out of it. And that's how we run it.

Debbie: Awesome. And do you think that those fundraisers are also a really good opportunity to involve the community?

Anna-Marie: Definitely, definitely. All of our events are community focussed. We live in a very small community. There's about 6,000 people and then we have a slightly bigger reach in all the other different places that are closer to us. And we spread out all of our events to all of those different places. I think that with fundraising, you seem to target the same people over and over and over, and there is only so much money they can give. If you can create an event that has a wider reach, then the potential for fundraising is bigger.

For instance, in March, we're going to do a family fishing competition.

Debbie: Oh, fun.

Anna-Marie: And we have done a collaboration with the local fishing club and with the Coast Guard and all sorts of different things and we have put that out to the whole peninsula for that one. We've done it before and we will get a huge amount of entrants that will come in from all different places. But also from the community. It means that we have a Christian school just down the road from us—there's not many kids that go to that one, but they're always included too.

And we also have worked really hard at becoming really good friends and creating a really good network with the other PTAs that are in the area. So there's a group chat for those and "PTA All-Stars" actually is what that chat's called.

Debbie: I love it.

Anna-Marie: Just all the chairpeople are on that chat and it gives us an opportunity, one, to promote the events that we're doing all over the place and they'll promote them at their schools. And it also gives us an opportunity to plan our calendars so that we're not—we haven't got the same event on at the same time or too close together. And it also gives us an opportunity to talk about the structure of our PTA, like how we're running it, what are we fundraising for, what seems to be working well, where we can buy a candy floss machine for cheap, you know, different things like that. So that works really well.

Debbie: So for someone who's never done a fundraiser before, but would like to do one in their community or for their school, what would be a couple of tips that you would give them?

Anna-Marie: Start small. If you're going to do it, I would say contact anyone that's already got something set up. There are so many of them. There's Dad's Pies. There's the protein bars. There's a samosas one that we've done. There's a cookie dough one. There's Christmas tree ones. There is the Colour Run—there's a full setup for that.

Debbie: Wow.

Anna-Marie: There used to be—we're actually trying to look into it at the moment to see if they're still running it—do you remember the Weet-Bix Triathlon for kids?

Debbie: Yeah, yeah.

Anna-Marie: There's someone out there and if anyone knows who they are, get in touch, but we would love to do a kids' Weet-Bix kids' Triathlon along our beach and around that. I think the kids would absolutely love it. But they come with all of the marketing, all of the things, and all you really need to do is provide the resource to do that. That's a good place to start.

Debbie: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Well set up. Good. How does fundraising impact students?

Anna-Marie: I think fundraising from my perspective impacts students in that they get to—how's the best way to describe this? I think it supports the teachers. And if you're supporting the teachers, then your kids are getting the best out of it. If the teachers have what they need to teach a class, then they're going to be able to do an even better job than they're already doing. And if the school has what they need in regards to buildings or whatever, all of that comes into making a really good school and it goes into teaching your kids well. And the kids feel pride in being able to fundraise money for certain things. 100%. And they just, they love the fun of it. The kids love the fun of it. And the parents love the idea that they are helping out their children and all the people that are supporting their children.

Debbie: Yeah, nice, great. So going back to your mum role, how has being a mum shaped how you see education in New Zealand?

Anna-Marie: Well, before I was a mum, even though I am best friends with Deb, turns out I know nothing about teaching. So, as a mum, it's been an eye-opener into how much is involved in educating children. And that comes down to getting them to school, making sure they have a lunch, but also helping anywhere you can—like if the teachers say we're going on a field trip, or at our school we do a lot of "please send in your recycling" so that they can use it for play-based learning and then you get it back a week later decorated, a lot of egg cartons decorated.

But it's just, I guess it's because the simplest way to describe it is I'm a mum and I have kids and therefore, my priority now is my kids and my interest is now my kids and my family and my community. And so it's made me more interested and more engaged in what teaching is. Obviously, I was taught at school a few years ago. It was a few years ago. And once you leave school, it's not a priority, you don't really think about it that much more other than to make the occasional comment of "told them I'd never need to know that" or "oh, actually, I learned that at school, it was actually important, that was a useful fact."

Debbie: Yeah.

Anna-Marie: And so I think being a mum just re-engages you into what teaching is.

Debbie: Yeah. So where do you think teachers need the extra support?

Anna-Marie: I think the teachers need the extra support in all the other things they have to do for the classroom. I mean, there's just keeping the space nice, keeping the kids engaged, and that could be down to dress-ups and things like that. It's just simple things like that. But I also think that teachers need the support from the parents. One thing that I have realised over the years is that there's different types of parents and teachers.

Debbie: It’s big now.

Anna-Marie: Yeah, different types of parents. Yeah, a lot of feedback on the PTA. Could you imagine what it's like to be a teacher? And there are, and aside from all of the—to be a teacher, it seems to me, and this is just my take on it, is that you need to be really good at admin. You need to be really good at forward planning. You need to be really good at thinking of being a bit creative and coming up with things like that to try and engage the kids. But you also have to be a people person very much so, not just for small children. They could be your passion, but then you have the whole family that comes along with it and you may have some parents that will be there every day being like, "How'd my kid go? What's happening?" and you'll have the parents like myself who are like, "You seem qualified. Let me know if I need to come. Otherwise, good luck to you. What a great job you're doing. I couldn't do it, so good luck."

Debbie: Oh, yeah. Just, yeah.

Anna-Marie: It seems that you need to be a people person and you need to almost be a therapist at times for adults.

Debbie: So what do you think as a parent, or what other parents can do to better support their teachers?

Anna-Marie: I think that parents know their children, and if there is something that is bothering them, then go to your teacher and talk to your teacher about it. And I would say go talk to your teacher about it. Don't fire off an email necessarily. If you're uncomfortable, say, "Hey, can we meet up and talk about this at a time that'll work," not just popping in after class when they're stressed and they're trying to do that, but do that. That's a good way to support the teacher because it means you've started those lines of communication that you need.

And another good way to support the teacher is to let them teach and to let them do what they're doing. They've got a whole year plan and just because something is happening on those particular days, the big picture will come out. And I always use the example that in my job, I went to uni for four years. I think I'm qualified to do my job and if a teacher was going to come along and say, "I reckon you should do this, maybe you should do this, I've got some thoughts on this," I'd be like, "Excuse me. I'm not really sure about that." It's the same with a parent—even though we all went to school and we all had teachers, teachers have got a four-year degree. They know what they're doing. So let them do that. And it takes a lot of respect to do what they do. Respect is not the right word for that, but you need to respect your teachers and you need to provide them the trust to be able to do that, and that's part of that. And I think that that's the support that you can provide your teachers is just give them your respect and your trust and let them do what they do well.

Debbie: Yeah, no, that's a valid point there. So what have you learned about schools and education from kind of working behind the scenes?

Anna-Marie: A few things. There's a lot of admin. More so than I ever, ever realised.

Debbie: And I feel like it's getting worse...

Anna-Marie: Yeah, I don't think it used to be as bad.

Debbie: Yeah.

Anna-Marie: And there seems to be a lot of change of curriculums that, again...

Debbie: Again.

Anna-Marie: 100% adding into that admin and all the things that they had done previously, they're now having to do differently. There seems to be a lot of meetings. But also being a teacher and being a principal of a school requires you're dealing with families, whole families as well. And there's just a lot on. There is a lot on for a teacher. They, while you think that your child is the most important thing that's ever happened, your teacher may also be dealing with some family issues somewhere or their own personal things as well. And like we all say, don't bring it to work. That's fine. But there are just so many other things that are pulling on their time as well and giving teachers time to be able to do that or, I don't know, out-of-classroom time or whatever.

At our school we have "Funday Mondays," which is where you have a different—the kids might get four different teachers for the day, so they get release time and stuff.

Debbie: Yeah. The kids love it...

Anna-Marie: And as a parent, you're saying, "Oh my gosh, amazing, you got Monday Monday!" rather than, "I can't believe they're swapping the teachers all the time. Like, I just wish they had one teacher." And my daughter's actually had teachers in the last two years that have taught four days a week and then there is another teacher that comes in on the Friday because they are working towards retirement. Initially, some parents were a bit concerned about that, about the consistency and stuff. The kids thrive on it.

Debbie: Well, they get different teachers, don't they?

Anna-Marie: They do. And I'll tell you what, your kid is going to get to high school and have seven different teachers in a day. The best way you can prepare them for that is give them some resilience and some attitude around that from yourselves being like, "Oh my gosh, this is great. You know, are you having fun? Which teachers do you like? Like, what's happening?" I mean, my daughter's poor teacher this year—she taught her four days a week and she absolutely loved her, but her Christmas card said to her, "Merry Christmas, blah, blah, blah. I hope you have a wonderful retirement. Thank you so much for letting this teacher come in on a Friday." I was like, "Good one."

Debbie: Cute. The honesty of the young one, too. She just really likes her.

Anna-Marie: Yeah. Oh, that's cute.

Debbie: It's actually a really good point, though. I think it is important for the younger students to have a variety of teachers because it just gives them an opportunity to learn and develop other areas and other skills.

Anna-Marie: Yeah, well, our kids in this area, they go essentially, everyone calls it, they go straight to college. So they go from primary school straight into high school, big high school, big intermediate.

Debbie: Intermediate incorporated.

Anna-Marie: It has Intermediate Incorporated in it. So they all catch the same bus. They all do the things. And a lot of parents talk about what a shock it is for the children to leave a beautiful little primary school into this big college. And you know, starting to teach them younger, perhaps, about different teachers, getting them involved in sports so that—like we're kind of one of the feeder schools into this big college—our kids play a lot of sport or do a lot of activities so they can meet some of the other kids at other schools as well. So hopefully by the time they get to there...

Debbie: They've already got the connections.

Anna-Marie: They will. And they need those connections to go into a big, different environment and they're doing it all by themselves. So that's probably the only way I can really support my children with that. So that's what we're doing.

Debbie: What do you think parents value the most in primary schools these days?

Anna-Marie: I think parents—that's a sort of...

Debbie: A loaded one.

Anna-Marie: It is a hard question. I thought about this a lot. I think parents value a teacher that always smiles at them. Will engage with them if they do need help and sit down and explain something. I put a little disclaimer on that, you know, sometimes there's needy parents and maybe the best way to support them is to say, "Not right now" or you know, but the parents that are really trying to do that, that is absolutely great.

And the other thing I think that we value as parents, and that's just us, is the report cards that we get. And I read the report cards. They're quite brief and they seem to change their formats a lot. And so it's kind of just a tick-box of "within expectations," "below expectations," or "above expectations" and things like that. Anything that's a "below expectation," perhaps that would show up, I would be like, "Oh my goodness, I didn't—I'm not sure I knew that that was happening. I should have been doing something more." So if there is something that is a concern from the teacher, reach out to the parents and say, "I don't know, could we get them some tutoring?" I won't be—I won't be teaching them maths or whatever it is they're struggling in. And I think that just when the need is right, that communication is really important.

Debbie: Important, yes.

Anna-Marie: And the other thing we value the most is the wonderful things they say about our kids. And I'll tell you what, I go straight to the back of the report card, read that lovely little note at the bottom and be like, "Your daughter is so la la la la," and I'm like, "Stop it!"

Debbie: It's really interesting that you bring that up because from a teacher writing reports, sometimes it can be quite tedious.

Anna-Marie: Yeah.

Debbie: You know, having to go through every single person and write something for them, but it's nice to see from your point of view that you actually really appreciate it and then you can kind of see what areas your kids are doing well in and what areas they need improvements, so.

Anna-Marie: Well, it's the only way we really understand what you're doing.

Debbie: Yeah.

Anna-Marie: And, I mean, obviously there's lots of talk in the media about these curriculum changes. It doesn't mean that much to us, really, because we don't understand all those different philosophies because we didn't—we didn't learn them at uni. But I really understand how tedious the reports are—my mother-in-law is also a primary school teacher and she has report writing time. You have a report writing time. So I know that it's a slog and it's happening. But it does mean a lot when you get it. Because everyone just wants to be encouraged about how their kids are going.

Debbie: And that's a good reminder for teachers is, you know, it actually is quite valuable for each person. Thanks for putting in the hard yards for the reports, guys. Nice one. How do you describe the community vibe at your school being in a small town?

Anna-Marie: Our community vibe, I would say, is very strong. We are a very small community and the school is very important. Everyone knows a child that's been through the school or is at the school. And so there is a lot of support for the school. And as far as the children at the school, they also were being taught a community vibe—so they just went and sung carols at the rest home just down the road and they go and do beach cleanups. They go and volunteer, do plant trees. There's definitely a "what you give is what you get" and feeding into all of that.

And as far as within the school, a lot of the play at school seems to be—like they might be playing rugby at school or something like that and all the age groups are allowed to play so that it would be a huge game of rugby and I think that that helps the children when you leave and you go to college, you still feel like you're part of that school because you knew the younger kids that were happening there. There's no separate sort of junior primary, middle primary and senior primary. It's all locked in together.

Debbie: Interesting. So where do you think primary education is heading?

Anna-Marie: Oh, look, I truly think primary education is probably heading to a bit more paperwork, actually, to be honest, for you guys. And I think it's... we talk a lot about how it's so political and each person comes in with a new idea and things like this. My hope for primary education would be to let the teachers teach, let the school make the decisions about what they're doing. I mean, it's great to have a framework—does it need to be so rigid? Probably not. Probably not. Because I think that rigidness is really taking away time from the kids.

And again—and I can't say this enough—these are qualified people who are qualified in teaching, being told how to teach from people who are not necessarily qualified in teaching.

Debbie: Well, I used to be teachers 20, 30 years ago.

Anna-Marie: Correct. Correct. And the kids have moved so far past that in the way that their behaviours have happened.

Debbie: Yes, very different these days.

Anna-Marie: The way that the needs of children—there's so many more children that require a little bit of extra help because of the amount of research and education we've had around that now. And just let the schools do what they do best. I think would be the way that I would love to see it, but I can't see how that will happen because parents love to chime in—like I said, we've all been taught at school, so we all feel like we know what we're talking about, even though we may not. So, yeah, unfortunately, maybe a bit more paperwork. But could you ChatGPT that?

Debbie: Yeah, wow. It's definitely a helpful tool for everyone these days. That's what I was saying. How do we use AI more effectively?

Anna-Marie: Yeah, definitely. All for that.

Debbie: All right, well, Anna-Marie, thank you so much for sharing your perspective today, not just as PTA Chair, but also a mum who deeply cares about her school community. I think conversations like this are a really good reminder that, you know, there's so much that parents and teachers can do to work together, build a strong community and really show each other support and connection. So if you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend or another parent. And yeah, all the best for the future.

Anna-Marie: Thanks, Debbie.

Disclaimer: This transcript was AI-generated. While mostly accurate, it may contain minor errors in transcription, names, or phrasing. For full context, please refer to the original audio.