Anonymous #273

Submitter information

Name

Anonymous #273

Where are you located?

Australian Capital Territory

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?

You have not listened to the solution that we are basically offering you every time we voice our needs.
1. If you want the best, pay what it is worth.
2. If you want us to do a great job teaching our students, then give us enough time to prepare for it.
3. Recognise the many extras added to our workload over the years and make realistic changes to reduce this so that we stay in our profession.

You have thrown bandaids at a system that you have consistently broken over many years. The government has even derided us in public. I think this is designed to make the government feel better, but is is not going to help us very much at all. The little that you have offered that might work is insufficient and will not make enough difference to stop this trend. You are bringing back some programs that worked in the past, but way too late.

I have worked overseas and in Australia and the rate teachers are leaving the profession is worldwide. I have also experienced your approach to importing teachers with overseas experience and you need to look at this, not at recruitment advertisement.

You seem to have based a lot of this on bringing in new teachers (the reduction in this being your own fault with the eligibility strategies you recently introduced). New teachers do not cost much, but even with the support provided for their first year they quickly realise that they want life in the evenings, on weekends, and some of their so-called holidays. A quick calculation of pay rates and they can earn more with less stress and more time to live in other employment. They are also impacted by the consistent negative press that teachers get and the negative behavioural interactions with students, and sadly, the students' parents. Instead of advertising and awards?! maybe fine the media and politicians every time they engage in some 'teacher bashing'.

I am sorry, but you are not really listening to us. Apart from the First Nations considerations but these should have been made 50 years ago. So way too late.

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?

Strengthening Initial Teacher Education (ITE)

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

Somewhat disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

More young trained teachers without experience but, dare I type it, cheap to pay. The retention rate once they begin the job and discover that they have to work every moment of their spare time is already recognised as low, even with the current reduced face to face hours for their first year. Yes, we do need them to be trained, but some government bright idea contributed to this a while back when they decided that only a certain category of school leaver was good enough to apply. Most of these applicants pretty quickly worked out that with their innate intelligence, and great matriculation results, they could earn a lot more money for a lot less work in other professions.

Some of these ideas have been tried before. I studied with a large cohort of TAS individuals that were cross training to become teachers and many of these became school leaders. The thing is, this is not new and was effective, so why did it stop?

Yes! Yes! Yes, to more First Nations teachers, but why is this needed now, surely you are about 20 years too late with this one. Maybe you are going about it the wrong way. Who wants to be vilified for their profession (see point 1) and their nationality (see statistics on racist incidents and incarceration).

The literacy and numeracy levels have already prevented a lot of potentially awesome teachers who are perfect for the job from entering the profession. I know of at least 2 that kept failing this. It is not differentiated with so what you are effectively doing is exclusion of the neuro-typically diverse,. We need these people in schools so that we can make a difference.

Maximising the time to teach

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

Strongly disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

You suggest more support staff to do the admin. If you continue to pay at current salary rates and show lack of consideration for their leave entitlements then which support staff are these?

A lot of the admin that I do is typing up my worksheets and differentiating them. Will support staff be sufficiently trained? So would you pay them at a rate that recognises these skills?

Workload is why most of us are burning out. You offer us piecemeal band aids all over the country in the draft. This is going to take longer than 6 months to fix. I would like to say that digital resources have been a source or great time wasting in many instances so they are not the bountiful offering that you might think.

The problem is that as you only ever drip feed change in so you you will only ever calculate a miniscule value for increase in teacher workload each time. We are striking because no-one thought to keep a cumulative balance and add them up. Also, you have no idea what takes up our time. Wellbeing is our biggest challenge and I see absolutely nothing to help reduce our time on that. A realistic provision of psychologists and counsellors will reduce our workload significantly, and give us some break times back. Then we can destress at school.

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?

You had huge warning signs about this one for several years but chose to ignore them. Do you plan to pay attention to this next time? Sounds like something to soothe your own consciences.

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.

Strongly disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Leadership progression is nice for some, but they are doing this anyway. Losing these people is not the main cause of a teacher shortage. If we are already overworked when teaching then it only becomes worse when going up the ladder. Losing so many teachers mid-career means you do not have the staff to progress.

Nice for the mentor support. It is a great idea and should have been happening already. Problem is that the workload is still there, no matter how many supportive ‘hugs’ you get. Besides, we already have mentor programs that are supposed to run but we don't have time to actually run them because of the workload!