Anonymous #159

Submitter information

Name

Anonymous #159

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?

Early childhood education and care,Primary,Special education

What is your occupation?

Teacher

Elevating the profession

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

Somewhat agree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

The Teacher award is ridiculous. Recognising one teacher for the year diminishes all the hard work every other teacher around Australia does. Placing importance on recognising every teacher, especially on world teachers day and making more of an emphasis on it across mainstream media should be supported over the teacher award idea.

HALT idea does not include Western Australian teachers. This should be addressed.

Medals is a great idea.

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.

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.

Strongly agree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Action 10 needs to recognise an increase in workload for mentor teachers for practical placements. Prac teachers should be completing placements in harder to staff schools to show them the reality of teaching and how to effectively manage students and work/life balance.

All other points are really good.

Taking LANTITE test early into the degree is an excellent idea.

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?

I want to refer to the initiatives in WA.
‘An increase in duties other than teaching (DOTT) time for public primary school teachers from 2021, as well as a DOTT time provision for public school kindergarten teachers.’
Reality: Primary teachers still get less DOTT time than high school teachers and Kindy/Pre-primary teachers and do the same amount of work as them.

‘Development of Kindergarten to Year 10 curriculum, planning and moderation support materials, with associated professional learning of up to half a day made available to eligible public school teachers.’
Reality: there are schools that have not taken up the professional learning for ALL teachers at the school. Therefore these materials can’t fully be utilised if there is little awareness or knowledge of how to use them. If rolling this out across Australia, PL needs to be given to every teacher and checked that is has been given.

It would be interesting to see where the money is going for the workload reduction pilot. Some transparency into how money is being spent, the aims of it and exactly how it will reduce teacher workload and increase work/life balance should be made available throughout the pilot.

Utilising teacher assistants more is a great idea. However, if you’re going to give them more responsibility to reduce teacher workload, you need to pay them a heck of a lot more money.

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?

23. You know why teachers leave. There have been many studies and articles written about it. We don’t want to leave. We truly don’t, because we love what we do, but the very thing we love to do is becoming harder and harder to do. Individual Financial incentives do nothing when mostly what we want is for more funding for our kids in schools. More funding means more aid time, more professional learning opportunities, more programs available for at-risk students. More funding gives us opportunities to employ occupational and speech therapists, psychologists on site to assist and up skill teachers and teacher assistants.

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?

The LEAP program in WA doesn’t contribute toward HALT status.
WA needs to address the system for gaining HALT status to align with the rest of Australia.