Anonymous #142

Submitter information

Name

Anonymous #142

Where are you located?

Western 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.

Strongly agree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

The problem with this is that teachers are far too busy and the people employed in marketing have no clue what teachers do. To be valued as teachers, administrators have to stop doing unnecessary jobs, including ridiculous KPIs) and other business oriented goals that were designed by non-education companies. Government schools are non profit, we need to return to these simple values, so teachers are actually valued.
The experienced and expert teachers, who should be prized are instead challenged by administrators who have often taught less than 5 years and bc they feel threatened by these teachers, they relegate them to subordinate roles and often stripped of any leadership without cause or justification. This is usually because they have little experience and lead through compliance. Bullying is more than rife. How can you value teachers when the administrators who bully us are the ones who then get to lead the grievance process that you have as policy.
Administrators cannot be experts at teaching, this is criteria for principals and leaders and needs to stop. Only teachers can be proficient at teaching, anyone who does not understand how a current classroom operates does not have any claim to telling an experienced teacher how to do their job. It is beyond insulting.
We also have to deal with being assaulted, insulted and treated like garbage by our students. Why do we still have students abuse, when we also have keeping our workplace safe policies. Why do we still allow bad students to go on good standing rewards? Your administrators (because they are not leaders) are not supporting teachers enough. Perhaps this is due to the fact that you are not providing enough external agencies to manage serious behavioural issues. Teachers will continue to take the brunt because it is easier. I have literally been told by admin that they just don’t know what to do with students. I can tell you, this is not a good thing to hear.
If you want to elevate the profession, support the teachers that you have so we will choose to once again become mentors to trainee teachers and stop telling young people to, ‘never become a teacher’.
I haven’t even touched on 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.

Neither agree nor disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Stop them being treated like garbage by students and intimidated, to work well beyond their role, by their admin.

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?

Universities have no idea. Too much theory and an unnecessary waste of time doing theoretical tasks that will have no relevance. Schools need to be directly linked to teacher readiness. Without this students will always start behind.

Maximising the time to teach

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

Neither agree nor disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Lol so hard. This should have happened 20 years ago. Teachers should never be doing admin tasks. Teachers need assistants who will do the ‘busy’ work including photocopying and material and resource prep. Governments fling the word differentiation around and have absolutely no clue what that actually entails for us. My school took 20 minutes from our DOTT so we are all under our allocation. their excuse was that we were not at our full face to face time. They gave us the choice to vote to extend our school days so that we could get our 20 minutes back. The admin;however, got themselves a permanent relief teacher (at the height of Covid and insane internal relief timetables) so they have less teaching time and more admin time. The irony being that we now have less DOTT and they have given us more admin, bc they have more time to do so. Lol.
We also teach multiple learning areas bc they give us no choice. I am not a health, maths, PE teacher. I cannot teach outside my qualifications and to do so consumes all my time in learning and prep. This is not ok. I had a colleague who became suicidal then resigned bc she was forced to teach dance, she was a drama teacher.
You need to teach admin what rights we have, they cannot demand that we do things that are not our job, yet they do it every single day. The less experienced admin are the worst.

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?

Aspirant policies and true and fair promotional pathways do not exist. It is bully boys clubs. Schools should not be able to manage staffing this needs to return to a central office. Schools advertise jobs and ‘follow policy’ but don’t really. They write adverts that only allow for who they want to get the job.
Having a pathway for a HaLT would be the same as above. Unfair. Why would anyone want this role if it came with an incredibly painful workload on top of their teaching? Which is really what would happen.