Anonymous #443

Submitter information

Name

Anonymous #443

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?

Primary

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?

My concern is that this would become a prize by postcode if 'excellence' is based purely on student grades.

It's easy to get good results in a school where there is a culture of learning amongst the community - parents, students and teachers. Many students in such areas are tutored during out of school hours because their parents can afford it and in cases insist on it.

However, schools that struggle with regards to parental support, trauma, student attendance and behaviour are much more challenging places to work. Teachers in such schools may not get the academic results shown on tests, but instead instil a love of learning in children, help a child suffering from trauma want to come to school etc. This is all hard work that requires skill, patience and a love of helping children. I don't believe that this is able to be assessed adequately enough to award any prizes.

I would not like to see teaching become a competition.

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 agree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

There are some great ideas for attracting people to become teachers, however, the problem seems to be that they leave within a few years of having joined the profession.

The reason I do casual work now, is workload, the common use of scripted lessons in literacy and student behaviour.

I recently did a five week teaching contract for year 4/5 students. My life radically changed and I found myself doing 3 to 4 hours of preparation, marking after school and the same on the weekend. Teaching consumes your life! You seem to be on call via dojo, have to navigate a very overcrowded curriculum and are required to complete many administrative tasks.

I dislike scripted programs because the few I've dealt with don't seem to trigger much enthusiasm amongst children and I have to admit to finding them boring. Really if teaching has come down to reading a script from a book you might as well get the gardener in to take that lesson.

Behaviour is an issue when management will not support teachers and give meaningful consequences. Parental attitudes to consequences for their child's actions can of course also be the problem.

Unless these issues are resolved people will join the profession and then leave.

As far as bringing in overseas teachers - it is absolutely that they have a good command of English. We can't have children, particularly in primary school, being taught to say things incorrectly with poor grammar. It is also important in the early years that accents don't negatively impact on the learning of vowel sounds.

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?

I agree that this still needs some work. Universities have improved over the past few years. Prior to this they seemed more intent on teaching theories and leaving students to their own devices when it comes to actually teaching. The new graduates used to walk out of University saying, but where do I start, how do you teach. Perhaps a bit more of a prescriptive approach, a framework would be more helpful. Teachers need to be classroom ready.

Maximising the time to teach

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

Strongly agree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

I strongly agree that teacher workload needs to be reduced. Students also need to be given enough time to be creative. As a relief teacher I see very little art done in schools now. The curriculum is just so overcrowded.

There seems to have been a huge push down from high school subjects into the Primary school.

Primary schools need to be allowed to stick to the basics. I have just taught a unit on persuasive text in Advertising to Year 4 students. That's all very well if they have the basics, but this class just didn't. I asked them to write a narrative for one of the television adverts and their sentence structure was very poor - one child wrote a page that consisted of one sentence. It would be far more beneficial for such a group to keep working on basic sentence structure rather than delving into marketing. In Year 4 Science, many of the concepts were taught in year 9 when I was at school. I don't believe that genres should be taught in early school years - children need to stick to the basics and not feel stressed by so many other unimportant (at that stage) topics.

The issue of teaching concepts before students are ready is a problem too. The teacher may spend half an hour trying to help students understand, yet in a few years the same concept could be comprehended in 5 or 10 minutes. We are asking too much of students when we ask 5 year old to give up what could be creative time to struggle with concepts like the past. When they aren't ready, they spend what could be their creative time, learning through play time to struggle to understand something they just aren't ready for. The push down needs to stop.

Primary school children more than ever need to be spending time in nature, have creative time, play time and not have to tackle high school topics.

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?

Extremely effective

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

I am all for national teacher registration, wages and requirements. For people moving between states there are different working with children and registration bodies which make it difficult. If nurses can have a national registration then I think teachers could do the same.

I fully agree that teachers need to have permanency. In South Australia there are many teachers who have worked for over ten years on contracts! That's a dreadful way to treat staff!! They don't know from one year to the next where they will be, whether they will have a job or not. They have to remove all of their teaching materials from the school each year in case they do not return. SSO's are in the same boat. It is not good enough to treat anyone like this, let alone professionals. SSO's are an essential part of a school and should have security and proper pay during holidays. Many SSO's leave due to the lack of security and schools lose all of that training and experience.

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 agree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

It is absolutely essential that permanency be given to staff, it is not good enough to not know whether you have a job from one year to the next or whether you need to move. Look after staff and they will stay.