Anonymous #203

Submitter information

Name

Anonymous #203

Where are you located?

New South Wales

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)

No

Elevating the profession

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

Neither agree nor disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Raising teacher profile, recognising achievements and promoting excellence will do nothing unless teachers are paid in accordance with the work they actually do. Realistically teachers' pay could be doubled and it would not be an excessive amount.

My wife teaches Kindergarten in a NSW public school in Sydney. She performs miracles every year, taking 20 or so kids who mostly know nothing and turning them into functioning members of society who can read, write and work with numbers. What she teaches her students forms the foundation of their entire academic life and she is very good at it.

I have watched government (state and federal) policy being implemented that is basically trying to kill her with over-work. She has to document everything the kids do, write endless lesson plans, deal with fractious kids and parents, and maintain her cool in face of children who are sometimes violently uncooperative.

Every evening she works to plan and prepare for her lessons. Every weekend it's the same. Reporting season comes twice a year and raises stress to ridiculous levels. She goes to sleep thinking about work and it wakes her up at 3am.

Now she's become an Assistant Principal and she not only has to teach her class, she has to guide her colleagues as well. She gets some time off class to do essential work, but there are so many meetings to attends that she is rarely home before 6pm. And she leaves home at 7am to be at school early for more meetings.

And for all this she gets paid less than I do.

If I could find the government minister(s) responsible for this process, I would invite them to come to our house for dinner to see what happens in the life of a real teacher. And after they have joined us for a meal I would invite them to try and explain why it is they are presiding over a system that is actively trying to kill my wife from stress and overwork.

There is no shock and no surprise in the community when we hear that we have a shortage of teachers. Of course we do! We treat them so terribly it's a wonder we have any at all.

I have run out of room to say more. Please contact me for some concrete ideas that will have a meaningful effect in teachers' lives.

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.

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

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?

There's nothing concrete in the proposals.

At a minimum, we have to have 2 adults in every classroom at all times. We have so many behavioral issues that it's impossible for a single teacher to deal with everything on their own. The days of a single teacher being expected to manage the whole group of students on their own are over.

We also have to ensure that kids with special needs a) get a diagnosis as promptly as possible b) get support so that the classroom teacher is not their primary support. This can take months and sometimes years, during which time teachers bear the brunt of the support provision.

In addition, we have to educate parents and remove any cultural stigma associated with kids who have special needs. There are far too many cases of such kids whose parents refuse (out of ignorance, fear or social pressure) to get the needed help for their children.

When this happens, the primary carer for the child becomes their classroom teacher, and it's not fair. It's not fair to the teacher, it's not fair to the child, and it's not fair to their fellow students whose lessons suffer in consequence. I support having as many special needs children in the community as possible. But they must have the correct support so they they can be cared for properly, and the primary responsibility for delivering that support cannot lie with the teacher.

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?

There is a ridiculous practice in NSW where teachers who get promoted to Assistant Principal cannot thereafter return to their previous role.

Instead, they have to resign from teaching and enter the Casual system.

This is a desperately stupid waste of valuable teachers and it angers me that it is still in force. It further upsets me that nobody has identified this as one of the sources of our teacher shortage.

There has to be a pathway back down the ranks for teachers who attempt to go higher and find that it doesn't work for them. Otherwise, applying for a promotion is too much of a risk, and we will miss out on some great people who are (quite sensibly) not willing to take a chance on their own ability.