Anonymous #256

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Submitter information

Name

Anonymous #256

Where are you located?

Queensland

What type of area do you live in?

Metropolitan

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.

Strongly disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

The teacher shortage is due to what is happening to current teachers now in the form of being overworked, under appreciated and unheard.

If you fix the current issues that have been stated time and time again by teachers, then you might see more people enrolling in Uni to teach.

Throwing places at Uni and money incentives for new teachers are not going to fix anything when they walk / run away after 2 years.

Prac students are coming into our schools and seeing the reality of teaching and many are walking away after their second or third allocations to schools. They are shocked by the behaviour of students and the attitude of parents. They are shocked by how many extra hours that teachers work without getting paid.

They are shocked by the attitude of politicians, both State and Federal, to blaming teachers for shortfalls in the education of students when the reality is the amount of constant change to curriculums, constant increases in the administration tasks that are required to be performed everyday, the teaching in classrooms that are falling apart as public schools have little money for repair, classrooms that have terrible internet capability but teachers and students are still expected to use technology, classrooms that are hot and humid despite air-conditioning that is set at 24 degrees and the disregard of the value of basic fundamentals of teaching for 'fancy' new approaches that have no proven value in education.

Teachers constantly have to complete extra tasks to justify their professionalism which harms the state of mind of teachers and shows disregard for our abilities and our dedication to a very draining (mentally and emotionally) job.

But apparently politicians who have no experience in teaching, or even spoken to a regular teacher (without their bosses around), know more about educators and what they need to stay in the job......🙄

Do not use models from other countries as your guide to education in Australia. We are a different society with different values in Education. Australians do not currently value education and this is reflected by the current shortage of people training as teachers.

Increase the pay, decrease the workload.

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?

Stop making decisions without consulting with actual teachers!

You are constantly consulting people who are not actually teaching in classrooms. These people do not 'know' current teaching issues or are disregarding teachers concerns.

You will not get an improvement in teacher supply or retention when many are leaving due to stress, workload and a lack of pay.

Listen to the staff that are actually in classrooms - not their bosses or anyone influenced by a political agenda.

Teachers want to stay but the lack of action to support teachers in the profession and to value what we are saying, is constantly influencing our decisions on whether to retire or to take our knowledge into new employment opportunities that are outside of education where we are valued and appreciated.

Stop blaming teachers for an education system that we have no control over.

Strengthening Initial Teacher Education (ITE)

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

Strongly disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Universities do not currently apply "real world" teaching.

They teach curriculum that is outdated, and not practical in the current classrooms.
They do not teach enough behaviour management.
They do not teach enough about the administration tasks that teachers are required to complete (OneSchool tasks)
They do not teach how to deal with aggressive parents, bullying staff (lack of a reporting system when admin are involved).

University education in teaching does not prepare students for the realities in the classroom.

There is no simple solution to this problem but certainly more time in school rooms and actually having the ability to be view and be involved in the administration tasks is essential.

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?

A reduction in administration tasks or the processes are essential in reducing workload. A system where teachers can enter the details needed one time and then are uploaded into other areas of filing and data automatically is important. Currently it needs to be entered in several areas of documentation.

Teachers almost need their own admin officer to complete many of the tasks required.

Teachers all need their own teacher aide for every lesson - not 3 a week ( if they are lucky). Teacher aides need to be trained to assist students who have diverse needs in their learning so they can integrate successfully into a classroom.

Stop making it harder for teachers to actually teach in a standard classroom - While it is important to be inclusive socially, many students with diverse learning needs, make it very difficult to for teachers to actually get results for regular students and their needs in learning. Inclusivity in learning does not work in a 'real' classroom.

Behaviour management and its importance in the classroom is very undervalued in terms of time taken away from teaching. A strict system must be in place for all students and where admin cannot keep making excuses for students behaviours and their interruption to learning. Strict rules must be in place in which parents must abide rather than make excuses. More schools for students with aggressive and negative behaviours must be built and specialists in psychology in place to assist students to make better decisions.

Parents must be held accountable for their children's behaviours and attitudes, whether in the way of parent courses that are mandatory for students whose parents lack skills in guiding student or fines for parents whose students are constantly interrupting other students learning in the classroom. Parents are responsible for their own students attitude and behaviour - not teachers.

A reduction in needless Professional Development needs to be in place. This time is more valuable for teachers to plan and assess student learning. Much of the current PD conducted within school grounds essentially is about administrative tasks, and about 'how to teach'. A waste of time for many teachers.

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?

Not effective at all

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Talk to current teachers.

Do not talk to State leaders who are not in the classroom.

Stop making the curriculum harder so students struggle to be successful in their learning.

Students in Prep to 2 should only focus reading, writing, spelling and math to ensure that they can be successful in the basics. They do not need to be involved in Science, Hass and Design technology where assessments can be 10 pages long! The way that early years curriculum is assessed also needs to change for written tasks where teachers are scribing for students during classes and breaks.

Teacher to student ratios must be reduced to ensure that every students needs are met. Programs that actually work to assist students who are delayed in their learning (Reading, spelling, writing and math) must be in every Primary and High school; and if there are a large number of students that need intervention, then more specialist teachers need to be employed rather than increasing the student to teacher numbers.

Numbers of students in classrooms must be reduced and capped to a maximum of 20 students per classroom. This means that more classrooms need to be built and more teachers employed. Overall this will reduce workload especially if teachers each have a full time Teacher assistant.

The resources that teachers use in the teaching the curriculum must be renewed regularly to keep up with curriculum needs.

The funding to State schools needs to be drastically increased rather than constantly increasing the funding to private schools who already get money from their student fees. State schools will be obsolete in the next 20 years if funding is continually reduced in favour of private schools.