If an education policy drops in an empty school, and only three pupils are there to see it, did it make a sound? Tim Murphy watches the PM on a school holidays visit to the classroom.
"Watch out you don't get knocked over in the rush," quipped one school staffer as the media were ushered out into Remuera Intermediate's playground.
The comment drily underscored one of the oddest political visits to a school of recent times - the emptiness, the silence in the playground, in the classroom blocks, in the hallways and foyers was deafening.
Here we all were, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, Education Minister Jan Tinetti, their officials, police diplomatic protection squad members, the school principal and half a dozen staff, a news media pack and ... three Year 8 students who must have drawn the short straw and been persuaded it was in the national interest to break into their holidays.
On the empty, middle holiday Monday of the April break, why did the Government think it needed to launch a policy announcing 320 more teachers for years 4 to 8? And at one of the bigger intermediate school complexes around, complete with a faux school walkabout for the Prime Minister?
The principal Kyle Brewerton, board chair Anna Scott, teachers and the selfless Year 8 trio of Ellie Gillen, Lucy Stewart and Guangnian Li could not be faulted. They not only gave up their precious holiday but opened their school and embraced anything the politicians could throw at them with grace and a smile.
Politically, however, something seemed missing.
It should have been a big deal. Funding more teachers and therefore cutting the size of classes in those year groups has been a long time coming. Half the teachers are expected to be in classrooms 'from next year' and the student-teacher ratio should fall from 29-1 to 28-1 by the start of 2025. Hipkins said it hadn't been done since the previous Labour government in 2008 and noted National had in 2014 wanted to increase the ratio.
Labour's move will cost $106 million over five years, with 25 different 'initiatives' on teacher supply now in play, according to Government supporting documents released with the announcement.
The Government was plainly impatient to get the good news out, school holidays or not.
Three weeks ago the National Party announced one of its education policies, Teaching the Basics Brilliantly, which calls for schools to teach one hour of reading, writing and maths every day, and resurrects standardised reporting standards to parents.
Labour is also in an industrial standoff with both teacher unions, the PPTA and NZEI. But Tinetti emphasised when announcing the extra 320 teachers that the policy was not linked to the teachers' pay and conditions bargaining round.
The Government alerted Remuera Intermediate, which has 850 students, to the request for a visit only last Thursday night. The three pupils rounded up to front the PM and Tinetti are the school's head students. With great school power comes great responsibility.
Hipkins, the former education minister, might well spark up, off a full classroom of kids. Yet the stage-managed, moving maul around the empty Remuera Intermediate on Monday was enough to dampen even his spark.
On more than one occasion, a considered quip, a Prime Ministerial observation, fell flat. "This is a fancy floor. Is it a sprung floor?" he asked in one yawning, wooden floored room, to no particular answer. Beside him Tinetti bounced slightly, prompting Hipkins to suggest she dance, and give the 6 o'clock news some televised action.
"If only", you could almost hear the camera operators thinking.
The politicians discussed white boards. "You can write on this one," Tinetti remembered, from her days as a teacher and principal. "Some you need special pens."
"You can still move things around on the screen?" the PM inquired as they marched off to another student-less classroom.
Blank screens in the music room, still lifes in the art room, spotless food-free surfaces in the PM's favourite stop - the cooking room. "That's always my favourite."
Tinetti told the three ever-patient students she had kept her Year 7 recipe book and used it every year for hot cross buns at Easter. No audible reply, so she answered herself: "Cool."
Hipkins was momentarily energised facing a table of bright insects in the art room. "I can see some familiar shapes in there, plastic bottles and coffee cups being used to create art, so that's quite cool." No one interrupted the silence that followed.
When it came time in another classroom for the media stand-up for Hipkins and Tinetti to detail the increase in teachers and decrease (from 29 to 28 of students to teachers) for this segment of schooling, the education minister did most of the talking.
She jumped at the chance to explain some of the issues raised, smiling as she moved to the microphones. Tinetti had 27 years as a teacher and school leader but is not wedded to referring to learners or ākonga, talking about "kids" and children throughout.
Citing statistics showing that for writing, reading and maths the 'achieving at the expected level' for students was falling sharply between Year 4 and 8, Tinetti said: "I'm not happy with the downward trends we are seeing in maths, reading and writing. More teachers, targeted to where they are most needed, is a practical way we can improve results for our kids."
Interestingly, having increased resources for that one segment of schooling, the minister said she did not want to address educational challenges piecemeal and would call an advisory group to look at class sizes over the long term. "I want this work to happen fast."
So it is, at this point, policy half full.
To questions of how much difference improving the ratio by one student (29 down to 28 to one), Tinetti said some schools could find greater benefit, depending on how they managed teacher resources. Some smaller schools already operating at or under the 28-1 ratio might see no difference.
Brewerton told Newsroom Monday's announcement would make little difference to his school.
"To be frank, it will not make any substantive difference. Once we reach the 28 to 1, we will have one additional teacher, but at the moment we are already funding two and a half additional staff over and above our entitlement, so it will not change anything in our classrooms."
The school was a large one, with senior leadership team members and learning support roles, and the new funding only targeted classroom teachers.
System-wide, the policy should be beneficial, Brewerton said. "It's a simple numbers game."
But the overall funding system dated from 1996 and the challenges facing students and schools had changed vastly. As president of the Auckland Primary Principals Association, he said the country needed bipartisan agreement on a new system, but there was no indication either side of politics was willing to move to that.
"If I were funded currently as a secondary school, I would have 14 more classroom teachers, two senior leaders and full-time counsellors," he said.
The minister and Prime Minister had been responsive to the association's advocacy on these issues. Monday's announcement was one element.
"Some has been taken on board. Class size is part of that."
There was a semi-official photo in the empty playground at the end. No attempts at selfies with the PM had been evident earlier.
As for the three star pupils who played the roles of an entire student body on any other political visit, Brewerton said Lucy, Guangnian and Ellie had only recently become the school's head students. "That's their first official engagement - a pretty serious one. It's a fantastic opportunity for them."
