Anonymous #062

Submitter information

Name

Anonymous #062

Where are you located?

South Australia

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.

Somewhat disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

The proposed people who are being recognised - First Nations, STEM etc. is not wide spread. It doesn't include everyone.
There are huge numbers of teachers who don't fit into any of those categories. Need to be elevating the profession for everyone. Not just some targets.

Give educators power to use their professional judgement and make decisions in house. This gives us power to actually look like we know what we're doing! Taking away the ability to design and produce our own resources or removing behaviour management help or options takes away our power. Powerless people will not look valued in the community.

Other professions that take 4+ years to study for eg. law, some medical/allied health, engineering are valued much higher than teaching by the community. They are portrayed as something that the community need, and are paid accordingly. Make the same happen for educators.

The idea that the minister saying nice things about educators in the media will help is pretty poor... this happens already. We need to hear fro the community, students, educators and teachers in a positive light.

More awards don't help everyone. They are not able to be awarded fairly. It is a popularity contest. it is a method of rewarding the likely overworked, praising them and then wondering why not all teachers are the same. We shouldn't need to strive to win an award to be valued.

Increasing HALT teachers does not value regular education employees. In fact I have doubts the community even know what that is.

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.

Somewhat disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

It is not valuing teachers currently in the profession. Also not considering the issues that have caused the teacher shortage issue.

Paying people to become teachers will not solve this problem long term. Like the current (awesome) teachers we already have, they will be burnt out quickly.

Consider everyone! What is this doing to keep teachers teaching. It makes me want to quit - I'm getting ripped off!

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?

None of the actions support people becoming good teachers.
They support diversity in the work force and being literate.

ITE needs a mentoring program.

Maximising the time to teach

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

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

$25million is not even close to enough money. It would cost at least $2.5million to reduce teachers face to face teaching time by 1 class at our school.
This will not allow a broad range of views from different types of schools to find out how effective it is.

This does not show enough focus on reducing admin. It actually appears to focus on giving us the time to teach. Our face to face teaching load might actually be OK if teachers didn't have so much unnecessary 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?

Moderately effective

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Initiatives to retain teachers are great!
Quality frameworks and conditional/provisional registration screams unnecessary admin.

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.

Somewhat disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Streamlining HALT accreditation does not necessarily allow HALT teachers to be paid as a HALT teacher. Not sure in other states, but in SA it must be a won position.
This should not be the case, if you are a HALT teacher you should be paid as one - without winning a position.

Creating guidelines is great, but that just tells people what to do... not sure what can be included to improve our career path?

In SA if you are an experienced teacher there is little value in becoming a middle leader as the pay is almost the same. As a middle leader I would also suggest that this is a poor career pathway. There are little PD opportunities or ways to actually become a strong qualified leader within a school setting. There is a lot of hope for the best and guessing. This is not a good leadership strategy.