Anonymous #021

Submitter information

Name

Anonymous #021

Where are you located?

Queensland

What type of area do you live in?

Regional or rural

Are you an education professional?
(e.g. teacher, school leader, learning support assistant, teacher’s aide)

Yes

Which sector do you work in?

Secondary

What is your occupation?

Teacher

Elevating the profession

The actions proposed recognise the value teachers bring to students, communities and the economy.

Somewhat disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

If you want more teachers to become lead teachers, etc, then remove all of the hoops you have to jump through to get them. I would easily fulfil the requirements to become a highly accomplished teacher, or lead teacher, but I do not have the time or the extra money to put the portfolio together to apply for it. These kinds of things should be automatic for performing teachers who have been teaching for a certain amount of time.

Also, as nice as being recognised for teacher awards and the like, many parents have no idea who is teaching their kids, let alone if they are any good or not. How will this work?

If you want the teaching profession to be valued in the community, it needs to start first with governemtn, and also the media. We are only ever seen as babysitters - during the COVID pandemic, we were kept at work PURELY so people who were working had a safe, free place to dump their children. We are not the communities babysitter - when you treat us as such, it is little wonder that the community feels free to dump all over our profession too.

Your suggestions are laughable, and will not bring a change in attitude, both to our profession as a whole, nor to students considering their career options

Improving teacher supply

The actions proposed will be effective in increasing the number of students entering ITE, number of students completing ITE and the number of teachers staying in and/or returning to the profession.

Strongly disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

If you want more teachers, the fastest and easiest way to do that would be to retain and bring back the teachers you already have. I, and many others, stay in the profession purely because we have families and bills to pay... yes, you need to have incentives to get people into the profession, but you need them to stay once they are there.

Reducing my workload and all of the ridiculous workload would be a start - individual unit plans for every single class you teach, indivualised everything... it is never ending. WE are professionals, treat us as such. cut the red tape.

Bring back "special ed" classes and schools - it is next to impossible to teach, for example, year 10 science to 27 students, and year 4 science to one other...in cases like that, where that student is that far behind, he/she should be in a remedial class, being taught by special trained special education teachers. Often those classes are more than adequate to catch students back up to their peers - they worked in the 90's they can work now.

I understand that pay scales are difficult to improve... but what would help me more than a pay rise, is being able to salary sacrifice more things - if I were able to salary sacrifice my mortgage (in the same way nurses, and emergency services can), that would make a big difference. and might go a long way to retaining some of the teachers you already have.

Strengthening Initial Teacher Education (ITE)

The actions proposed will ensure initial teacher education supports teacher supply and quality.

Neither agree nor disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Resctructure university so that new teachers are better equipped to handle being in classrooms. There is not a single thing that I learnt in my education degree that was actually useful to my day-to-day job. The only useful part was my final practical placement which was run as an internship. If the final year of the degree was changed to a PAID internship, where each student teacher was given a half load and a teacher mentor (one mentor per student teacher, where the mentor gets a line off to assist too), I think many new teachers would struggle less when they start. It has the added benefit of more teachers in schools.

Not only do new teachers need literacy and numeracy tested, the knowledge of the subject areas needs to be looked at - more time of the education degree needs to be spent doing subjects within the relevant teaching areas.

Maximising the time to teach

The actions proposed will improve retention and free up teachers to focus on teaching and collaboration.

Somewhat disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Less [REDACTED] administrative work - every year there is some stupid new task that needs to be done - the current push for there to be unit plans for each subject, but for every teacher to then individualize each lesson plan, with differentiation for each and every student included in that. I personally have 6 different classes- that could be as many as individual plans for many as 168 different students! I do not have the time for that, and I now that I will not be given any extra time for that.
This is on top of all of the other reporting and contacting home that needs to be done on a daily basis.

There is no support from administration at any point with any of that either.


While I am on school administration, lets talk admin - schools are full of nepotism. People being promoted purely because the people in charge think that they will say yes to them. Rarely are people promoted because they are competent, but because they fill a need - they are "yes men" for the prinicipal that will not make waves, or they teach in an area that the school needs filled, not because they are the most qualified. All promoted positions need to be advertised as contracts - you fill the position for a set number of years, and then you need to reapply and show cause as to why you should keep that position. So many useless people end up in administrative positions, and then stay there.


Prinicipals need to be given more power to deal with poor student (and parent) behaviours - we put up with a lot, threats of physical violence too, without there being any consequences, or support from admin.

Better understanding future teacher workforce needs

How effective are the proposed actions in better understanding future teacher workforce needs, including the number of teachers required?

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Better career pathways to support and retain teachers in the profession

The proposed actions will improve career pathways, including through streamlining the process for Highly Accomplished and Lead Teacher (HALT) accreditation, and providing better professional support for teachers to retain them in the profession.

Neither agree nor disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Promote people based on competence, not to fill a need (for example, giving someone a position purely because they are an english teacher, which the school needs), stop refusing to promote teachers because they teach in an area of need (e.g. the school is short in maths/science teachers, so they are not able to fill positions such as year coordinators).

Allow more professional development for teachers, and keep my principal in the country instead of gallivanting around the world visiting international schools - I can't get approval to go to Brisbane for PD, but our Principal is living it up in [REDACTED] !

Stop pushing computers so much in schools- they are detrimental to student outcomes (I can cite many academic papers) and add to workloads, finding appropriate websites/technologies and then learning/teaching how to use them...there is a time for it, don't get me wrong, but it should not be the massive push it currently is.


Stop changing the curriculum every couple of years, and if you do, actually make it an IMPROVEMENT - the new national curriculum is bloody awful - [REDACTED]. Having to restart every couple of years is a major contributor to my workload and burnout...and has me seriously thinking about whether the few perks of my job are worth staying for (I am leaning towards NO, FYI...)