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WELL, here we are. School’s back for 2022 and, for many teachers, the cumulative weight of everything has probably never felt heavier. Summer holidays, likely punctuated by stints loitering around chemists in far-off suburbs as we tried to snag an ever-elusive RAT, may have not been the tranquil refresher many educators had hoped for. Fears over viral transmission in schools are running high. We’ve heard from many teachers in the past few weeks who have been feeling angry and fed up; with workloads, expectations, and the shifting rules imposed from above. Teacher burnout continues to rage on –
and we’re just getting started! But help – and expertise – is at hand, as you’ll find in this first issue for the year. From first-of-their-kind postgraduate courses designed to assist teachers to mitigate workplace stressors, to experts who truly seem to get the complexity of the job at hand, plus some frank words from those manning classrooms around the country, I hope you can sense that some positive change is on the way – I think the best is yet to come this year!
Sarah Duggan
THE NSW Government’s plan to plug workforce gaps by relying on retired teachers and fast-tracking accreditation for final-year teaching students and support staff has
been furiously rebuked by the Independent Education Union. The union’s NSW/ACT Branch has described the plan as “unworkable, insulting and unsafe”.
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“Yet again, the Premier has made a media announcement without any genuine consultation with school staff through their representative unions,” branch acting secretary Michael Wright said. “Our members are angry and are calling out the cavalier attitude of the NSW Government.” The union said that by asking retired teachers to return to school as COVID case numbers explode, the Government was expecting a vulnerable group to step into the frontline. “Fast-tracking accreditation is also fraught,” Wright said. “Support staff undertake work that is essential for schools to function – rushing them into classrooms will ... create different shortages.” In Victoria, retired and former teachers and school support staff are also being called on to fill holes in the workforce, with Premier Daniel Andrews appealing to the cohort to join a central pool of qualified staff. “We’re rolling out free RATs, air purifiers and vaccines - but the most important thing in any classroom is a teacher. Which is why we need your help,” he pitched on social media. At the start of the school year, more than 346 Victorian teachers and 28 principals had put their hand up and were ready to be employed for short-term stints at schools.
News
Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022 • 5
‘D ISGU STIN G’ , ‘ HOR R IFIC’ , ‘ R EGR ESSIVE B EYON D B ELIEF ’
Christian college pulls controversial contract BY G EORDIE LITTLE A BRISBANE Christian school that came under fire over a “disgusting” enrolment contract, which appeared to state the school would expel transgender or homosexual students, has now withdrawn the document. Citipointe Christian College’s new enrolment contract generated immediate backlash, with a petition calling for it to be recalled amassing more than 150,000 signatures before the school retracted it. The contract stated that the school believes any form of “sexual immorality”, which is specified to include homosexual acts and sex outside of marriage, is “sinful and offensive to God” and “destructive to human relationships and society”. The contract also made clear that the school believes “God created human beings as male or female” and that the Bible “does not make a distinction between gender and biological sex”. According to news.com.au, the full contract also stated that the school had the right to exclude any student who “no longer adheres to the college’s doctrinal precepts”. Signatories to the petition labelled the contract “disgusting”, “horrific”
and “regressive beyond belief”. In a letter sent to parents on February 3, principal Brian Mulheran, also a Pentecostal pastor at Citipointe Church, apologised to families and students and said parents would no longer be asked to
“We unequivocally love and respect all people regardless of their lifestyle and choices...” agree to the contract. “The College does not, and will not, discriminate in its operations. On further reflection, we have considered that the process we followed in drafting and disseminating the amended Enrolment Contract could have been done in a better way with the College community,” the letter reads. “My primary concern is the education and formation of our students and their care. We deeply regret that
some students may feel that they were, or would be, discriminated against because of their sexuality or gender identity. That was never the intention of the College….” In an earlier statement posted on January 30, Mulheran defended the contract. “We have always held these Christian beliefs and we have tried to be fair and transparent to everyone in our community by making them clear in the enrolment contract,” he said. “We are seeking to maintain our Christian ethos and to give parents and students the right to make an informed choice about whether they can support and embrace our approach to Christian education…” Terry Burke, secretary of the Independent Education Union – Queensland and Northern Territory Branch, condemned the college for trying to use contracts to avoid their responsibilities under Queensland anti-discrimination law. “Trying to avoid anti-discrimination laws by asking parents and/or students to agree to discriminatory terms in a ‘contract’ is beyond shameful and rejected by our union…” he said. Amid the controversy, one teacher has quit her job at
Citipointe Christian College’s new enrolment contract reportedly stated that the school believes any form of “sexual immorality”, which is specified to include homosexual acts and sex outside of marriage, is “sinful and offensive to God” and “destructive to human relationships and society”.
the college and withdrawn her son from the school. Helen Clapham Burns told Network 10’s The Project she felt she could no longer represent the school’s views. In a 2016 sermon posted to Citipointe Church’s YouTube channel titled ‘God’s plan for sexuality,’ Mulheran explained his views
on “sexual immorality”. “[God has] given us the gift of virginity,” he said. “We’ve got that until we used it the first time … but he’s also given us the gift of our biological sex and our sexuality, and that’s a gift of God, that he’s given to us. “Today, society is trying to change the definition…”
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6 • Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022
SIGN IFICA N T R ISK OF TR A N SMISSION
Teachers should have hospital-level protection: expert BY SA RA H DUGGA N TEACHERS should be provided with the same safety protections against COVID-19 as hospital workers, a leading epidemiologist has warned. Dr Moe Assoum, founder of Mercy Global Health, said that Australian educators will likely be returning to
workplaces for the school year that pose a significant threat. “Given the way the transmission dynamics of Omicron have evolved … unless you have very well ventilated rooms … and you also have good mask compliance, there is a significant risk of transmission within classrooms,” Assoum told Australian Teacher Magazine. “Teachers should probably have similar safety precautions like we do have in hospitals, because let’s face it: schools are germ factories as well,” leading epidemiologist Dr Moe Assoum says.
The infectious disease expert said teachers should be given access to surgical grade N95 masks “at the very least”. “They should probably have similar safety precautions like we do have in hospitals, really, because let’s face it: schools are germ factories as well. So, N95 masks, even potentially face shields will go a long way. “Some [classrooms] don’t even have fans and the windows in some don’t open.” A recent survey by parent advocacy group The Parenthood found that two-thirds of parents don’t think it’s safe for their children to return to school and are far more worried by the health risks posed by COVID-19 (62 per cent of respondents) than they are about the impact of more disruption to their children’s wellbeing (36 per cent). Assoum indicated that by pushing ahead with their return to school plans, the Victorian and NSW governments put many vulnerable parents in the firing line. “…many, many families over the school holidays have been in a shadow lockdown, where they’ve just been isolating, keeping to them-
selves and not going anywhere. “With this reopening of schools, they’re forcing families out of this shadow lockdown and essentially putting vulnerable families at risk – and that’s where I think that there has to be a better measured approach to reopening schools than just ‘let it rip.’” RAT testing students twice per week – a measure NSW and Victoria
“... teachers should be given access to surgical grade N95 masks at the very least.” plans to implement – will “only go so far”, the expert said. “Mainly because with rapid tests, you won’t really test positive until you’re around day two or three, so you’ve been infectious for a little while before you test positive. The damage would have been done already there.” Meanwhile, Prime Minister Scott
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Morrison’s announcement that educators will be exempt from COVID-19 isolation rules if they are a close contact of a positive case has been met with outrage. Assoum said the new rule seeks to protect the “integrity of school staffing” rather than teachers and students. “…the Government, I believe, is very conscious that they’re going to have a lot of cases coming up and a lot of teachers will fall sick, a lot of students will fall ill as well. “I personally just call [this change] smoke and mirrors to detract away from the real problem, which is an unsafe opening of the states at this point.” However, Assoum said there are many countries that have been able to implement a safe school return. Mask wearing and PCR tests remain the most effective tools here, he said. “In the US, before the school year started, every student had to get a PCR test done in some schools, and certain schools in New York and New Jersey. “They found around 15 per cent of their students had COVID on that first day, so they curbed it really well by doing that.”
News
8 • Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022
N EW CSU P ROGRA M GET T IN G AT T EN T ION
Teacher’s aides ‘perfect candidates’ to retrain as BY GEORDIE LITTLE IN a bid to ease Australia’s looming teacher shortage, a new program has been developed to guide teacher’s aides into the profession. Charles Sturt University (CSU), in collaboration with schools in the Dubbo area, has created a program to retrain teacher’s aides as qualified teachers. Under the program, aides could reduce their required placement days in recognition of their experience working in schools, along with receiving credit for prior qualifications such as a Certificate III or IV in Education Support or a Diploma of School Age Education and Care. The online pathway is available to teacher’s aides anywhere in Australia. CSU senior lecturer Dr Libbey Murray said teacher’s aides are the perfect candidates to move into teaching. “They see how classrooms work,” she said. “They see how teachers manage classroom interactions and classroom behaviour, and even just things like setting up the learning
environment, evaluating students’ learning, doing assessments of students’ learning. “And teacher’s aides, when they’re working with children one on one, they’re often responsible for creating individual education plans for children, working with teachers to make sure that children’s learning plans are meeting the key learning areas and meeting other education outcomes.
“So they know a lot already and they can do a lot already, which is fantastic. What a bachelor’s degree will do, is make sure that they really know the theory behind why we’re doing what we’re doing in classrooms.” Studying full time, students could graduate as fully qualified teachers in as little as three years. “So they often might choose to just do two subjects in the autumn session, two subjects in the spring session, and then catch up another four subjects over summer when they’re not actually in schools working as much,” Murray said. “So they can do their eight subjects a year across those three sessions, which is really helpful when they want to keep earning money and being teacher’s aides in schools. “I think that’s probably the hardest thing in retraining people in any kind of mid-career changes … we all seem to need to have jobs and pay for so many things and have cars and phones and you know, everything nowadays, that we can’t get away with studying full time and not working at all.”
With completion rates for teacher education courses plummeting in recent years, Murray said that teacher’s aides are likely to have a better idea of what they’re signing up for when they begin studying. “I’ve just been trying to come up with ways that we can get more teachers in classrooms, qualified teachers, high quality teachers. That’s what we need…
“We were thinking at CSU, who better to retrain than people who already know children, already know that they like the industry, already know school systems, know how classrooms work. Those things are really important, because the students who are in undergraduate degrees sometimes drop out because they realise teaching isn’t for them, or they don’t think that they like the system or whatever their choices are. “So it’s a really great kind of group of people to target and to support, when they already like what they’re doing and want to be in that system and want to help children more.”
As a teacher’s aide, Ashlyn Forsaith, pictured right, says, “you’re ... that fly on the wall that sees all the behaviour issues and how teachers are struggling to manage that...”
Teaching’s not for everyone Ashlyn Forsaith is a fourth-year teaching student, who for the last two years has been working as a teacher’s aide. She told Australian Teacher Magazine that the first-hand experience she’s gained in the classroom has been invaluable. “The first [placement] that I did, I wasn’t a teacher’s aide, so I didn’t really know what to expect from it. And there was a lot from the opera-
tional side that I didn’t understand about schools. So even using OneSchool or anything like that, it just was very confusing. “And then once I was in a school, I was able to see how the school operates and how timetabling works and all the small things that they don’t teach you at university, I was getting the firsthand experience. So that was really important
that I learned all that.” Since becoming a teacher’s aide, Forsaith said she has second guessed her studies at times – a reflection of the insight aides have into the challenges of teaching. “You’re that person, that fly on the wall that sees all the behaviour issues and how teachers are struggling to manage that, or they don’t know how to juggle all the meetings and the lack of planning time. “I definitely think there would be some teacher’s aides that would be great at being a teacher, but whether or not having that extra responsibility is necessarily worth it... “I know that if you’re a teacher’s aide, you get more one on one experience with students and you get to build relationships with them. Often they prefer to have a teacher’s aide in the room and get help from them rather than the teacher themself. So you see a lot of benefits from that side, the relational side, but I guess a lot of teacher’s aides think, ‘well, I could be earning almost double our wage’, because it’s very, very minimal what we earn as a teacher’s aide, compared to teachers.” Forsaith works in inclusion and
engagement, an area she hopes to stay in once qualified. “I think I’ve found my passion in supporting those kids specifically, so I think when I graduate the plan will be to either find a support teacher
“I guess a lot of teacher’s aides think, ‘well, I could be earning almost double our wage... ” role, so I’m not so much in a classroom, but I’m more doing the planning for those kids that need … the one on one support, or making adjustments for those kids and then talking to teachers about that. I find that more valuable than just being a classroom teacher, personally. “But again, I don’t know what’s going to happen with me. I could get offered a position at the school
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Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022 • 9
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I’m currently at, and that would be really good as well. “My mind seems to change all the time. Whether I think I can do it, whether I can handle the classroom life or not, but I definitely love being a teacher’s aide. Gosh, if I was getting paid a teacher’s wage I would definitely stay a teacher’s aide.” Erica Louise found herself working as a teacher’s aide after COVID disrupted her previous job as a writer. “I’d been a freelance writer for 12 years … and COVID came along and kind of just threw everything on its head. So basically, all my work dried up – I did a lot of entertainment writing, so it dried up. And I was like, What am I going to do? “Some friends were saying to me, ‘You would be an awesome teacher’s aide’, and I said ‘Ah, I’m not sure’, but I thought, well, I’ve got nothing else going on, I’ll just study to become a teacher’s aide. This was in 2020. “So I did my Cert 4 and really, really enjoyed the course, got a placement, just out of lockdown, within a week they offered me a job and I’ve been there ever since.
So I loved that work. Loved everything about education, working with adolescents, I work in high school, and I just thought, ‘Well, I really get a lot out of the classroom, I get a lot out of working with these students’.” Louise enrolled in a Bachelor of Education, which she will start this year. She said that many aides could be attracted into teaching by the salary. “As a teacher’s aide, you do so much, in some ways you are teaching but not teaching, and the salary is so bad, really, for what we do. “I’m not going to say the money is a factor for me, but I do think that for what I do as a teacher’s aide, I could step it up and earn a lot more than I would be as an aide if I became a teacher.” Despite the big pay disparity, Louise said there are benefits to remaining an aide. “As a teacher’s aide, you turn up on the time that you do, you leave pretty much when students leave, and that’s your job. So there is a lot more responsibility with being a teacher, of course. And that’s not for everyone.”
CSU senior lecturer Dr Libbey Murray (pictured above, left) says teacher’s aides are the perfect candidates to move into teaching. “... who better to retrain than people who already know children, already know that they like the industry, already know school systems, know how classrooms work,” she says.
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10 • Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022
DELVIN G IN TO COST-EFFECTIVE R EFOR MS
New Grattan report receives mixed reception A NEW Grattan Institute report that recommends bigger class sizes to create extra preparation time for teachers has been labelled as cost-cutting and fraught with complications. The report’s survey of 5442 teachers found that amidst a growing workload, 92 per cent of teachers don’t have enough time to prepare for effective teaching, and 86 per cent don’t have enough time for high quality lesson planning. To allow more preparation time for teachers, the report calls on governments to implement a three-pronged reform agenda which involves increasing class sizes, finding ways to use the wider school workforce, and reducing teachers’ time spent in curriculum and lesson planning. According to the survey, a majority of teachers would prefer slightly larger classes in exchange for extra preparation time, 68 per cent would agree to other staff covering their extra-curricular activities
“... money ... won’t stop some of the existing frustrations and existing pressures.” – saving two hours a week, and 88 per cent said they would save three hours a week if they had access to high-quality curriculum resources. Fifty-eight per cent of teachers also agreed that workloads would be reduced if they spent an additional two to three days together preparing for teaching before the start of term. But one survey participant, speaking with Australian Teacher Magazine on the condition of anonymity, said every suggestion given in the survey seemed to operate on the premise of not increasing school funding. “By the time I got to the end of it (the survey), I was a little frustrated with it,” the high school teacher said. “It looked like they already had a strategy and they were giving very sort of binary ‘Yes or No’ kind of strata to the questioning. “It’s like the plan was there before they were gathering the data – rather than one sort of informing the other.” One hypothetical in the survey asks teachers whether they would
To allow more preparation time for teachers, a new Grattan Institute report has called on governments to implement a three-pronged reform agenda which involves increasing class sizes, finding ways to use the wider school workforce, and reducing teachers’ time spent in curriculum and lesson planning.
prefer to teach a larger class (26 students) and have extra preparation time, or a smaller class (23 students) with no extra preparation time. Seventy-nine per cent of primary teachers said they would prefer to teach a larger class, if it meant they would get an additional two hours of preparation time each week. About 85 per cent of secondary teachers also agreed with this proposition. But the survey participant said neither of these solutions given were “very good options”. “It’s one of those, ‘Is it the Devil or the deep blue sea’ kind of questions. “It’s just like, here’s a bad option and here’s a slightly less bad option. And funnily enough, that skews the data towards a slightly less bad option. “But hang on, I’m not willing to pay that price for that. I think if you gave teachers three other possibly better options, that maybe would require funding for more teaching staff in schools, they’d probably take those, but those weren’t on the table.” The Grattan Institute’s education deputy program director and co-author of the report, Julie Sonnemann, said the purpose of this particular question was to test trade-offs, which is, within a given amount of funding, what is the best
way to organise a school’s resources. “So whether we like it or not, at the moment, our schools are deciding within their given budget envelope how to run their school,” she said. “And all we’re seeking to do, is to test against the status quo, would you prefer to organise resources in a different way, if it would help be in your interest and in the interest of students?” But an increase of two or three students to create more planning time is not a trade-off that high school teacher and NSW Teachers Federation representative Alice Leung is willing to make. “In public schools, we have some of the most vulnerable of student populations,” she said. “So if you are adding three students who are from refugee backgrounds, or if you already have a class with a lot of students from refugee backgrounds, learning English as an additional language or dialect, or students with learning difficulties, then that makes the class extremely complex.” According to the survey, teachers preferring larger classes in exchange for more preparation time holds across both advantaged and disadvantaged schools. In addition to this, Sonnemann said the report does not advocate for larger class sizes across the
board, but rather suggests that school leaders should have the flexibility to make decisions based on each schools’ specific needs. “There is some evidence that students who experience disadvantage can benefit from a smaller class. And we certainly, in those circumstances, would see that [smaller classes] might be most appropriate for that school,” she said. “What we’re trying to do is open the conversation up in cases where schools and teachers might see the
“Our objective is to identify and remove any sources of frustration...” potential to organise their classes differently to open up more preparation time – they actually have the flexibility to do that where they think it’s relevant for their school, but it’s certainly not a solution that would fit all schools.” The other reform to help teachers focus on effective teaching is to find better ways to use the wider
school workforce, including support and specialist staff. According to the survey, more than two-thirds of teachers would ‘agree to having non-teaching staff take on their extra-curricular activities to free up more time for effective teaching’. These include tasks such as yard-duty and taking students on school camps. Whilst this change is estimated to save an average of two hours per week for teachers, Leung said it comes at cost for all involved. “There’s no non-teaching staff who are just sitting at school doing absolutely nothing waiting to go on playground duty,” she said. “Our non-teaching staff, our school administration and support staff, they’ve already got jobs to do. “We’ve got a business manager who’s already liaising with plumbers as there is a leak where I am sitting right now, you know, or trying to solve the ongoing possum issue that we’ve got at our school. “We have school administration officers who do all the printing, the photocopying, the enrolment processes, the financial processes of the school day, or a lab assistant who mixes all the chemicals for our science students.” Tasks like playground duty are also an essential role for teachers to build a rapport with students, Leung said.
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Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022 • 11
“Without that relationship with the students, you can’t get them to learn. It’s not about just knowing them in the classroom, it’s about knowing them as a whole person. “So all of those wellbeing activities, extracurricular activities, is important to actually teach the child as a whole person and not treating them just as a learner in my classroom only, you actually need to know them.” Sonnemann acknowledged the value of these extracurricular activities, but said the question is more around whether the balance is right between how much time a teacher spends in and outside a classroom – given classrooms are where teachers make the biggest difference to the development of a child’s learning and wellbeing. “So, we recognise that yard duty does have some important benefits in terms of relationships between students and teachers,” she said. “And we’re certainly not suggesting that teachers wouldn’t want to do some extracurricular activities, like going on school camp where they build these really important bonds, it’s just a question of how much are they [prepared to do]. “You know, is the balance right at the moment, and if they’re extremely stretched, and not getting to the core part of their roles in terms of planning what they might teach in class, whether they could
reforms were “things you go for when you really don’t want to invest more in schools”. “They’re the kind of suggestions you’re trying to make when you want to make a change without
“Making pay and working conditions attractive is what we need to do.” pull back in some areas to give them more time in others?” But Leung said these reforms pick at the surface and will not solve some of the deeper issues facing the workforce. “So you have to [look] at the root cause of all the issues facing schools now, like the teacher shortage, a lack of people wanting to become teachers, more and more teachers trying to leave the profession – that is the root cause of the problem of workload. “And you can’t solve the workload issue by just picking at the peripherals … anyone who has ever worked in a school or worked as a teacher, will know that these
recommendations have come from someone or a group of people who have absolutely no idea how schools work. “If we value our children’s future, and we value our children’s education, we actually need to look after the working conditions of teachers and not find ways to cut corners and cut costs. “Pay and working conditions are almost the 101 of attracting a workforce. For some reason, it doesn’t apply to teachers, it applies to almost every other profession. Making pay and working conditions attractive is what we need to do.” The survey participant said the
really making a change – you just shipped a few of the pieces around and trying to find the minimum cost alternative.” Sonnemann doesn’t see it that way. “The objective of the report is not necessarily just to look at costeffective reforms,” she said. “Our objective is to look at the way schools are operating and to identify and remove any sources of frustration that are a part of teachers’ roles. “I mean, you can throw more money at a problem, but that won’t stop some of the existing frustrations and existing pressures on teachers’ time, that just gets eaten into by other things that pop up. “What we are calling for is to look at some of the low hanging fruit first, in terms of improvements,
so where there are cost effective reforms that make sense, and would also reduce teachers’ frustration and stress. “Let’s put those on the table and then once we’ve explored and tested the success of those things, if they’re not working, then yes, let’s look at some of the more expensive reforms.” Some of those expensive reforms include reducing faceto-face teaching hours, which Sonnemann said the Grattan Institute does not support. The report estimates that reducing school teachers’ hours by two each week would cost up to $2.3 billion a year. “We’re not supportive of a really expensive move to [reducing] face-toface teaching hours across the board as a first step, because there are a lot of areas where there could be improvements first,” Sonnemann said. “Potentially, we could do a lot of those things that might actually improve teachers jobs in ways that perhaps a blanket mandated, protected industrial solution may not actually achieve.” The Making time for great teaching: How better government policy can help report is calling on Australian governments to commit to a $60 million program – less than 0.1 per cent of Australia’s annual recurrent schools funding – to investigate and pilot the recommendations made.
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12 • Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022
J UST B R I E F LY
Tudge may not budge CANBERRA, Jan 31 - Speculation is rising that Alan Tudge will soon return as Education Minister, after it was revealed that his former staffer and ex-lover Rachelle Miller will not give evidence to an inquiry into his conduct. Miller has made a number of allegations of abuse against Tudge, but pulled out over concerns of a “political fix”.
COVID spike predicted SYDNEY, Feb 1 - As experts predict a spike in COVID-19 cases following students return to school, a survey by consultancy firm Nature has forecast large numbers of infections could go undetected. The survey found nearly one in three parents in NSW and Victoria don’t plan to follow guidelines requiring twice weekly RATs of students.
Mask wearing works CONNECTICUT (US), Jan 31 - A first-of-its-kind study has found that having kids wear masks leads to a significant reduction in child care centre closures due to outbreaks of COVID-19. The study followed the experiences of 6654 child care workers over a year.
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Uniform needs redesign
MANY years ago I had an unpleasant experience supervising a trainee teacher in his final teaching round. I must admit the incentive in those days was that supervising teachers were paid rather than necessarily the more noble endeavour of contributing to the formation of the next generation teachers. The teaching round began badly when he arrived as if he had just got out of bed. I hoped appearances were deceiving but he quickly revealed that his knowledge of the subject matter was sketchy and, often, plainly wrong. When my students tried to correct him, he lost his temper and chatted them for being cheeky. At the end of the round I assessed him as ‘Not Ready To Teach’. A few weeks later I returned to the staffroom after a lunch break to discover he had been stalking me in the corridors ranting about how I had destroyed his life. The university later apologised for his unacceptable behaviour but were unable to answer some key questions. Why wasn’t his unsuitability addressed until his final teaching round? What guidance had he been given in previous rounds? Why had previous supervisors accorded him a ‘Ready
to Teach’ rating? How much of their education curriculum addressed knowledge of content and pupil management? Many years later I am still not convinced lessons have been learnt. Education curricula are still top heavy with theory. In my experience, I benefited more from studying educational theory and pedagogical paradigms after I had been teaching for a while. It is rare to meet a new graduate teacher who gushes about their training and admits they feel ready to take on the challenges of teaching. I say this
mindful of a number of new graduates whose arrogance and overconfidence belies their attitude that they are already God’s gift to the profession. Truth in Reporting is essential when assessing trainee teachers. Supervising teachers must be given the opportunity to assess trainee teachers confidentially, providing honest and sometimes negative feedback. Sitting down with a trainee teacher with whom you have developed some rapport and arriving at a joint assessment is naïve and ultimately unhelpful to the trainee teacher and the students they will end up teaching. The alarming attrition rate of teachers leaving the profession in their first five years is an indictment not only of schools which provide scant support for beginning teachers but also teacher training institutions which fail to select or weed out unsuitable candidates. The fact that 10 per cent of education graduates cannot pass the Literacy and Numeracy benchmark test is surely the canary in the coal mine!
STARTING STARTING STARTING AA NEW ANEW NEW JOB? JOB? JOB?
OTAGO (NZ), Jan 28 - School uniforms need a radical redesign to better meet students’ needs because they are restrictive and limit physical activity, particularly for girls, a public health researcher has discovered. The University of Otago’s Dr Johanna Reidy found that uniforms also failed to provide adequate sun protection.
Labor funding pledge SYDNEY, Jan 25 - Labor has promised $440 million in funding to schools for better ventilation, building upgrades and mental health support. “We’ve heard nothing from Scott Morrison about a plan to keep our kids COVID-safe at school…” opposition leader Anthony Albanese and shadow education minister Tanya Plibersek said in a statement.
So long remote learning SYDNEY, Jan 24 - Acting Education Minister Stuart Robert has farewelled the “age of remote learning” and backed NSW and Victoria’s back to school plans. Appearing on The Today Show, Robert said the plans were “sensible”.
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Opinion / The Hard Word Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022 • 13
WE N EED MOR E THA N THA N KS
What our Govt is offering just isn’t enough RICHARD P OOLE English teacher, public selective high school, Greater Western Sydney
MY ‘Why I Teach’ box is balanced precariously upon an assortment of paper-based paraphernalia that’s yet to be tidied up after another year of kids, COVID, and compliance: reports that needed editing during remote learning – written after-hours and printed on my own dime, of course; a personally annotated copy of Macbeth – not much use to me now I’ve finished encouraging (forcing) my Year 10s to act out Shakespeare from their homes on Zoom; and a bunch of permission notes that inadvertently wandered into my home, to be kept for at least seven years lest a student claims that they suffered distress during a performance of Othello in Year 11. On top of the box teeters a pile of marking – 70 handwritten, 1000-
word essays that threaten to spill onto my office floor before I can mark them over the “holidays”. I want to describe this box with reverence, but even if I went full English teacher I don’t think I’d be able to convince you that an old Adidas shoebox with “reasons why I do this job” scrawled on the lid was anything but the closest thing to hand when I received a card from the Year 8 class I’d taught for four long weeks on my first prac. After removing the box from the stack like a magician pulling a tablecloth, I add the end-of-year offerings and flick through my past students’ words for inspiration. It’s been a hard year, and the words are especially meaningful this time. In the first semester of my education degree I learnt that everything students do, positive or negative, is an attempt to have a need met. When students act out, it’s never really out of malice but is instead a maladaptive strategy to try and be heard. I have lived by this philosophy throughout my career and it’s served me well. Even so, as the years go on it’s becoming clearer to me that while at times adults do this too, malice does appear. This is especially true when power, position, or political clout are at stake.
On Tuesday the 7th of December 2021 my colleagues and I acted out so we could tell the government and the community that we need more than thanks. We stood together to say “we are needed”, “we are tired”, “we are hurting”, and “we aren’t going to take this any longer”. We went on strike in the largest act of solidarity I have seen in my working life. I have never experienced such positivity about my vocation from
“ ... we were threatened, guilttripped, and treated with hostility by our employer ...” the general public, especially parents, but in the lead up to this action we were threatened, guilttripped, and treated with hostility by our employer and our government. We were told we would be failing our students if we downed our markers and shut-down our computers. We were told that our
We have asked to be heard because we’re not OK, and in response we’ve faced malice and vitriol and sarcasm and belittlement. ” single-day strike caused “more disruption… [than] COVID”, and that our union was spreading “misinformation”. All these comments do is show us how scared they are of us, how strong we are together, and that we can win this fight. We have asked to be heard because we’re not OK, and in response we’ve faced malice and vitriol and sarcasm and belittlement. As a teacher I know this doesn’t work: when a student needs more support in class, I don’t deride them for asking for help like our Government has done to us. Instead, I listen without judgement, put their needs first, and accept that what I am offering just isn’t enough. And what our Government is offering just isn’t enough: our classes are too large, our workload is too high, we’re treated with distrust, our credentials are questioned, our
salary is declining, our responsibilities are increasing, our colleagues are leaving, our workplaces are crumbling, our classes are unattended, our desks are overflowing with endless paperwork, and our students are suffering. Closing my Why I Teach box, I know that one day my students’ gratitude just won’t be enough to keep me coming back to the job I love. We need more than thanks, but not from students, parents, or the public – from the people who ask us to come to work every day to guide the next generation through this uncertain world towards a future that we’ll never see. Like it or not, teachers are fundamental to the success of our civilisation. We must be valued as such, or there won’t be anyone left to help our children build a better future.
MEN TA L HEA LTH A N D WELLB EIN G
Finally giving priority to sense of belonging DR KELLY-A N N ALL EN Educational and Developmental Psychologist, Senior Lecturer, Monash University
ON January 18, the OECD published their Trends in Education and, unsurprisingly, ‘belonging’ was identified. It’s unsurprising because we have decades of information proving that belonging is an important fundamental need. Extensive research has shown it to be essential for our mental health and wellbeing, some-
thing too important to ignore, and an important characteristic of our biological makeup as a species. But it may have taken a virus that prompted lockdowns and physical distancing measures to finally make us realise just how important a sense of belonging is for our everyday lives. Once we can’t belong to the different groups, workplaces, schools and other places of interaction in our usual way, those feelings of “not belonging” can be quick to enter our minds. As someone who has studied belonging since 2010 and spent years as a school psychologist, I saw a revolving door of issues reported by students not feeling a sense of belonging. By the time students would reach out to me, in some ways it was too late – they were already feeling ostracised, rejected, excluded, and wanted to change schools,
[It has] taken a virus ... to finally make us realise just how important a sense of belonging is for our everyday lives.”
or worse, leave it completely. No one ever came to me asking for strategies on how to maintain their sense of belonging or improve it. Rarely was I referred students who had early warning signs that their sense of school belonging was waning. Though belonging is seen as important, and belonging is often stated as a priority in schools there are few school programs and interventions designed to target belonging. Sure, there are programs that help a student’s sense of belonging, but rarely do they intentionally set out to do this. The simple fact is that when something is naturally occurring and effortless we tend to not think about it until something threatens it. And despite belonging being a well-documented problem for schools, it has taken COVID to finally put it on the agenda for OECD within the education sectors. Why has belonging been a problem for schools before this? The OECD collects information on school belonging through the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). They have identified that a student’s experience of belonging is an important ingredient in a successful school outcome. But, worryingly, their data identifies that many students don’t belong. In fact,
at every data collection point since 2003 the number of students who don’t belong has risen. So though the trend for students feeling like they don’t belong to school has been steadily rising since 2003, it is almost
“... it’s important that belonging does not simply become the next buzz word.” 20 years later that we finally see it on the agenda. What can we do now that it has been identified as a trend in education? Thanks to the OECD, we know a lot about the current state of belonging within education. As educators and educational researchers, we must take this information and act on it. We can steer policies and priorities in schools that drive goals and visions for change. Because schools and universities offer such important opportunities for students to belong, and because belonging is so well established as
an important facet of mental health, wellbeing, and academic motivation, it’s important that belonging does not simply become the next buzz word. Rather, leaders and policy makers could take the OECD report as an active invitation to create meaningful ways to prioritise belonging at a social level and take a lead from schools. There is an opportunity here to harness our intuitive understanding that belonging is important while also arming ourselves with the decades of research that show belonging is essential for us all but especially adolescents and young adults. Hopefully, now that belonging has been identified as a priority, we can pair our knowledge gained from research to drive impactful change for the benefit of education sectors. It is one thing to identify belonging as an important trend, but it will be another to act on this and draw from the research skills and capacity of those working in this space. As we look to a post-COVID world (if that is such a thing), and whether our lives will indeed ever return to normal, we need to remember that belonging should not be undermined just because it seems easy. For many of us, it’s not and we must continue to prioritise it.
Cover Story
14 • Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022
Inquiry learning vs. explicit teaching – Has our ITE got the mix very wrong? CIS research fellow Glenn Fahey has called out what he sees as an “ideological bias” among ITE staff – a leaning he says has left students without a balanced understanding of how to teach effectively. “That’s why we’re seeing more of that constructivist and less of that instructivist approach coming through,” he says.
BY SA RA H D UG G A N IT had always struck with a rather hollow marketing feel, but now the well-oiled ‘we must attract the best and brightest into teaching’ line might have finally popped. Recent research, a building choir of anecdotal accounts, along with a federal review – its final report pending release – have raised a fresh question mark over the quality of initial teacher education (ITE) courses offered to aspiring teachers in Australia. Has it been a serious misstep to focus on teacher quality and not on that of their training in the wild bid to reverse the ongoing slide in our national student achievement? Is there really a fortress of ideology that wards off evidence-based instruction in ITE, as some insist? Or do graduates get the ‘classroom ready’ treatment they,
and their future students, can depend upon? We take a closer look at the criticism being cast and what students are really taught about teaching and learning at the ITE level.
A ‘baptism by fire’ Hannah Muir* graduated with a string of high distinctions from one of the most prestigious ITE courses in Melbourne. But after one year on the job in a secondary school, she says her teacher training experience successfully set her up for a “baptism by fire”. The English classroom, she quickly discovered, was not the place she’d been so rigorously prepped for. “We had one lecture on behavioural management and the management of students in the classroom,” she says. “The university equipped us well
with inquiry learning pedagogy, but the fundamentals, the things you need to actually know to be a good teacher; which is to manage the classroom environment, to teach explicitly, to work with col-
“I was [told I was] there to ‘facilitate students’ learning’, not to teach them anything.” leagues and handle parents, the filling out of reports, these basics were not addressed. “You can have great teaching strategies, but if you can’t get 25 individuals under control, you’re
not going to be able to implement those strategies anyway.” Muir says she was told by lecturers that her job as a teacher was, above all, to be a “facilitator”. “I was there to ‘facilitate students’ learning’, not to teach them anything. And I think that was an interesting take, and one that was really pretty demeaning.” ITE under scrutiny Last April, before allegations of abuse were fired and a political hiatus ensued, federal education minister Alan Tudge launched an extensive review which intends to look at the “next evolution of reforms to initial teacher education”. Australia’s falling PISA scores were noted, and the need for ‘quality’ graduates circled as a key improvement tool; a potent lever that could hoist us back amongst the top group of nations.
The review’s first discussion paper flagged some immediate concerns: eight ITE providers still do not have an endorsed Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA) scheme in place, challenges endure with ensuring preservice teachers are provided with a sufficient professional placement experience, with on-placement support shown to vary ‘considerably’. Research from 2015 was cited, revealing graduates feel their training could have been enhanced by more time spent in schools, more time on teaching strategies and less theory. Interestingly, principals backed up this assessment. Glenn Fahey, a research fellow at libertarian think tank the Centre for Independent Studies, is in full support of the review. “We actually have to have a closer look inside ITE, not just which teachers are coming into the gig –
Cover Story
Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022 • 15
Professor Nan Bahr, Dean of Education at SCU, says “a lot of work” has been done to ensure every single course has a balanced mix of subject areas. “Teacher education ... prepares teachers for the practical environment. And I think that our current graduates are spectacular,” she says.
you can get the ‘best and brightest’, but if they’re not being trained effectively and given all the tools to be successful in the workforce … you can pick only geniuses that become teachers but that whole ITE experience is not going to deliver those policy outcomes that everyone hopes for.” How much is ‘evidencebased’? Fahey’s own research report, Failing to teach the teacher: An analysis of mathematics Initial Teacher Education, found examples of universities promoting teaching practices and learning theories that don’t align with current evidence. Of the 31 universities under the microscope, Fahey found 27 had a “clear emphasis” on student-led learning approaches. None of the 31 focused on explicit teaching. “…rather than redesign their mathematics units to include evidence-based instructional approaches, some universities appear to have simply labelled constructivist approaches with the terms ‘evidence-based’ or ‘research-based,’” the report observed. In 2019, Jennifer Buckingham and Linda Meeks waded through the content of 116 literacy units across 66 ITE degrees to determine the extent to which undergraduates were receiving “evidence-based information on how children learn to read; and the most effective ways to teach them”. They found just 16 per cent of degrees mentioned phonics and eight per cent mentioned explicit teaching, while four per cent of units had a specific focus on early reading instruction. In addition, the majority of unit outlines failed to include the ‘five essential elements’ of evidencebased reading instruction. Six of the most commonly prescribed textbooks were found to contain information that was insufficient or misleading. The authors concluded that “initial teacher education students, and the children they eventually go on to teach, are being short-changed”. Taking a pedagogical stance Muir’s experience broadly echoes such findings. Her two-year masters’ degree, she recalls, was hinged around the model her university was grounded in: inquiry learning. Explicit teaching, she says, occupied a very lean slice of the learning agenda. “Most of it was focused on giving students agency in the learning process and how we can facilitate that, while also meeting individual student’s needs. It actually produced people that didn’t know how to teach explicitly,” she says. While on her teaching placements, Muir says the university’s pedagogical stance became overwhelmingly obvious. “When they came to visit me, they were looking for me to do inquirybased learning tasks the whole time; various differentiated learning tasks, jigsaws and all these complex pedagogical activities. “They didn’t want to see me there explicitly teaching, they wanted me
to move away from that. And what I’ve actually done in the last year is reverse that completely.” Muir found that her students didn’t take to inquiry learning tasks. What they want, she insists, is explicit instruction and support – a need that has intensified as the pandemic parades on. “The inquiry model is something that’s very idealistic, and it’s something that in a perfect world you would like to implement. You’d like to differentiate for all your students, you would like to set up an environment which meets every student’s needs and fosters their love of learning through spiralling inquiry units, but you literally can’t. So, I’ve changed tact.”
“We need to be more directly monitoring what goes on in ITE courses.” Greg Ashman, head of research at Ballarat Clarendon College in Victoria, says he meets and is contacted by graduates who appear to have not been taught about evidence-based practice. “[They] typically see explicit teaching as a last resort and emphasise inquiry learning, whereas the evidence supports explicit teaching over inquiry learning as the primary approach,” he notes. “Graduates also tend to emphasise differentiated instruction even though there is little evidence to support the practice, at least as it is commonly interpreted in the classroom.” An ideological bias remains: researchers Ashman believes that the main problem is that teacher training, unlike that of other professions, focuses too little on the practical concerns of the profession.
“…Those who work in ITE typically do not currently teach. There are even some teacher trainers in Australia who have never taught. This leaves them vulnerable to ‘luxury beliefs’ – ideas that enhance their status with others who work in ITE but that are impractical to implement or hopelessly idealistic.” He says many ITE practitioners pursue teaching approaches and research that are often deemed to be ‘superior’ from an ideological perspective. Essentially, interests are skewed, he says. “The basic problem is that the incentives of those who work in ITE are not aligned with the goal of ensuring graduate teachers are as effective as possible. “In fact, many who work in ITE would be dismissive of the evidence about which teaching approaches are more effective than others, claiming that education is far too complicated to come to such reductive conclusions and labelling anyone attempting to do so as a ‘positivist’ – which makes you wonder what they think they are doing.” Fahey also calls out what he sees as an “ideological bias” among ITE staff – a leaning he says has left students without a balanced understanding of how to teach effectively. “What we know is that by and large, education academics do weigh more heavily around the constructivist-inspired ideas… “Academics have (now) got that driver’s seat in the teacher training experience. That’s why we’re seeing more of that constructivist and less of that instructivist approach coming through.” The ongoing dialogue around 21st century skills has also clouded the picture for our budding teachers, he adds. “That has created very much a persuasive narrative around inquiry and exploration. Most people, if they are only exposed to that one side of the argument and not necessarily to where the rest of the instructional research is at, (well) it’s understandable they would feel compelled that inquiry is the way to go.” However, Professor Nan Bahr,
Deputy Vice Chancellor (Students) and Dean of Education at Southern Cross University, suggests criticism around the lack of explicit instruction in teacher training is missing a critical point. “…it’s almost like saying that a surgeon needs to spend more time cutting up cadavers than they do in understanding the theory and function of how our body works,” Bahr says. “We do actually need to understand how to apply theory, and how to make practical efforts in connecting that theory with the child that you have in front of you. “My personal view, is that there’s a very good mix, and a very strong development for our graduate teachers at the moment and that they’ve got a very good understanding of why they need to teach in certain ways – and explicit teaching is certainly an important part of their teacher preparation.” Fahey maintains that up until now we weren’t able to clearly see that ITE training was the prong driving the inquiry-based emphasis prevalent in many classrooms. He’s calling for change. We need to be more directly monitoring what goes on in ITE courses, he argues. Rather than rely on selfreported measures and on-paper compliance with the standards, Fahey says the actual practices graduating teachers demonstrate needs greater scrutiny. “Because that’s obviously what really counts. “No one wants to see, ultimately, a federal government that has to heavily regulate the sector. But it’s also clear that universities to date have not been responsive … it’s increasingly clear to me that we do need to take that firmer hand.” Not just ‘somebody’s whim’ Professor Donna Pendergast, dean and head of the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University, holds a different view. While the Minister’s reform agenda is an admirable one, she says, ITE programs are not just offerings devised on “somebody’s whim”. “They actually meet program
standards,” she says. “And they have to demonstrate that they enable graduates to be that terminology ‘classroom ready’. So, there’s a whole lot of structure around that, that has to be achieved and it includes entry standards, both academic and non-academic, it includes success at the LANTITE test … they have to successfully complete the TPA – that’s a massive final hurdle…” Pendergast notes. In addition to these overarching measures, Pendergast says “a lot of work” has been done to ensure every single course has a balanced mix of subject areas. “One of the challenges is that there has been a lot of reform in initial teacher education, and we’re only really seeing it start to emerge now … “We’ve only had a couple of thousand graduates out of those programs, so we don’t know what impact that’s had in the teacher workforce and consequently on student learning outcomes.
“...students [are] without a balanced understanding of how to teach effectively.” “So to initiate a review at this time, that’s really about initial teacher education, only seems to me to be a wasted opportunity.” Pendergast says that research into ITE course content sometimes “doesn’t go far enough”. “…it might not necessarily provide the full story,” she says. “And secondly, there’s some contention around [direct teaching approaches] as to their effectiveness for all students. So it might work really well with some students and meet some areas, but for other students, you need other contextual approaches. “You have to do more than explicit teaching instruction and teaching phonics – those things alone are not going to address the personalised needs of every single student.” Pendergast says graduates leave with a “far more comprehensive” set of pedagogical tools in their professional toolkit. “We know what works in certain contexts, but we want them to be much more capable: to know when to use them, when not to use them, when to draw from other ways and strategies of teaching.” Bahr, meanwhile, says it’s ultimately a mistake to look at things like NAPLAN and PISA and use these as an indicator of a decline in teaching quality. “I find it intriguing and disappointing, because I know that teacher education has had a lot of scrutiny and is very practical. It prepares teachers for the practical environment. And I think that our current graduates are spectacular.” * name has been changed to protect identity.
Movers, Shakers and Policy Makers 16 • Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022
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Rebecca West Assistant principal and Top 10 finalist, 2021 Global Teacher Prize Pop quiz IF I COULD SWAP JOBS WITH ONE OTHER PERSON, I’D LOVE TO... be a photographer. I like the idea of capturing people’s memories and moments in time. IF I WON THE LOTTERY, THE FIRST THING I’D DO WOULD PROBABLY BE TO... buy a house, unfortunately we’re in the renters market still. A COUPLE OF THINGS I REALLY LIKE TO DO TO WIND DOWN INCLUDE... reading... and movies. My hubby and I are big movie fanatics. We met working at Video Eze. MY HUSBAND WOULD DESCRIBE ME AS... motivated. MY KIDS WOULD DESCRIBE ME AS... funny - and cuddly. We laugh a lot. A LONG TERM DREAM THAT I’VE HAD THAT I HAVEN’T ACHIEVED YET WOULD BE... becoming a principal one day.
NSW educator Rebecca West has had a mad 12 months. The passionate assistant principal at Bonnyrigg Public School has dedicated her working life to giving disadvantaged kids their best start possible. Whether it be helping colleagues worldwide with her YouTube channels (Clever Pickles and Talkin’ Chalk), creating social, behavioural and academic interventions to ensure students at her cherished school have a safe and engaging place, or leading professional development on teaching, learning and leadership at Lachlan Macquarie College (LMC) Working Party, this driven mum of three young kids is an unstoppable education Energiser Bunny. A tech innovator who uses play-based, experiential, STEM, and games-based learning in her teaching, West was a recipient of one of 12 Commonwealth Bank Teacher Awards last year, and was a top 10 finalist for the prestigious 2021 Global Teacher Prize. She spoke to GRANT QUARRY. So how long have you been at Bonnyrigg, how big is the school and how would you describe it? I started here in 2016 and we’ve just over 300 students. It’s definitely a complex school, very low socioeconomic. We have the highest enrolment of Aboriginal students in our network. So it’s almost 20 per cent Aboriginal students and it’s close to 70 per cent EALD English as an additional dialect, with a multitude of languages, but primari-
ly Vietnamese speaking. We’ve got some Samoans, some Cambodians, but mainly Vietnamese. So we have a Vietnamese language teacher here that runs a community languages program. We’ve got lots of emergency housing here. Social housing has been going through ‘a state of refurbishment’, which has been happening, I believe, for 10 years or so. But it means that a lot of emergency housing is here for refugees and also for people flee-
“The things that happen here are not solely me ... because we have amazing teachers here, too.” ing domestic violence. So there’s a lot of trauma in the community. But that being said, they’re also highly supportive of the school and grateful that we’ve got very good wellbeing practices in place that support their needs. And we work with a lot of external agencies to support whatever’s going on at home, so that it reduces the impact to the kids’ learning. You have a very active interest in social media, and launched your two YouTube
channels some time ago. Has it proved handy during the pandemic? Yeah, definitely. So both channels started in 2017 … I wanted to delve into the area of flipped learning, creating content for kids prior to that explicit teaching, so I just made videos on maths games, and I tried to make them as simple as possible in terms of resources. So I used dice, dominoes, and playing cards, anything that parents could pick up for $2, if they wanted to do it at home, or hopefully, they might even have them at home. And putting it on YouTube means it’s a free and easily accessible resource. It led to high engagement in the kids’ learning … and it led to improved mathematics results in the classroom. I found out that other teachers had come across the channel and were using it in their class and their kids liked it. Then I had a lovely colleague recommend to me that I should do stuff for teachers, share tips etc. And that led to ‘Talkin’ Chalk’, where I just shared anything that I thought was working in my classroom... I’m not necessarily an expert, I’m just sharing, ‘this is something I did with my class, and it worked really well, this might work for you, too’. Obviously I’ve been adding videos to that over a couple of years, so when lockdown hit, I had a lot of content on there ready to go. So kids could play those maths games at home and teachers could just share that. So instead of teachers spending hours and hours creating their own videos, they would have something that
they could share, and then focus on something else that was more explicit for them or comfortable for them. There were a lot of teachers out there that didn’t feel confident making their own videos and teaching, so I created some videos on how you can use your video editing or how you can make a lesson by screen recording and not showing your face if you don’t feel comfortable showing your face. I had already made videos on how to use Google classroom because I had used it with my YouTube class. So I was just sharing that as much as I could online. And then I had a lot of feedback from people saying ‘I don’t know how to specifically do this particular thing with it’, so I would make other videos specifically on things that people were asking for… It just meant that there was a platform ready to go... What’s been a school highlight from your last 12 months? I have really loved seeing our teachers adapt to something that is highly stressful. Teachers are incredibly resilient, creative, innovative creatures, and the fact that a lot of them were still able to find a way to engage in professional learning was inspiring... I’ll give you one example, my team and one of the other assistant principal’s teams, we had started looking at professional learning around writing strategies for our kids and obviously, when lockdown happened, it was like, ‘well, we can’t go and participate in those types of things’. So instead, we
transitioned to a book club format, we got a book that was all about these really good quality writing strategies, and we would meet on Zoom, we would go through the chapters, and we would talk about how we can apply that in our teaching. We tried some of it through home learning, as best as we could, in the versions that we were teaching. So for the kids that were submitting work, we could try and provide feedback based on what we had learned from this book. And that was just a great example of teachers going ‘no, I’m not going to bury my head in the sand because it’s hard, kids are still at the front of what we do, and we’re still teachers, and we’re lifelong learners, so we’re going to do it in another way that suits us’. And that was just one of those moments that reaffirms just how great teachers can be. And, it’s also good to have like-minded people that love learning as well. That’s what I like doing at the end of the day. What about a low, anything really stand out? The low definitely has just been seeing the impact on wellbeing, the impact that it has had on people’s perceptions about teaching as well and feeling a bit devalued. And that’s not by our school, that’s just by societal and systemic issues, that perception that teachers get taken for granted, the unpaid hours that we put in, and the high workload and the fact that every time we watched an 11am press conference, the word ‘teachers’ wasn’t really mentioned. We heard lots about ‘students’ and ‘families’ and ‘health and safety’, but teachers weren’t really a priority from what we saw there. So it was very demoralising to see teachers feeling that, and that’s just not my own staff, that was everywhere. So I guess that’s quite pivotal, considering we’re at this point in time now, where salary negotiations are happening and we’re talking about workload expectations, and what will be in place to change that, because the teacher shortage is very real, and that’s something that needs to be addressed from a more global perspective... So I think that has definitely been a bit of a low in terms of seeing teachers feel very demoralized and seeing a lot of teachers leave the system as well. Across the board, you see it on social media, and all the teacher groups, people saying, ‘I’m done, I’m leaving, I can’t do it anymore’, which is very sad, because there are a lot of good quality teachers out there that have just been impacted so much by this.
Movers, Shakers and Policy Makers Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022 • 17
What can we learn from these pandemic times, in terms of improvements, from your perspective? I don’t know if it is the right phrase for it, but I think ‘technology poverty’ is a very real thing. Even when we were in lockdown, we still had parent Zooms. So we could touch base with parents, we had some fun social ones where we played some games and some other ones that were more about information, we had another one where our school psychologist delivered a presentation to our families, just to reassure
them that ‘yes, your children are going to have weird sleep routines, and they’re going to be emotional, and here are the things that we can do for that.’ However, only our parents who could access technology had access to that support and that information. So really, without technology, you become isolated – and isolated in a very metropolitan built up area, and that should never be something felt by a community. Whether they’re rural and remote, or whether they’re in a city, you should never feel isolated like that because of the lack
Rebecca West was a top 10 finalist in the prestigious Global Teacher Prize in 2021.
of access to technology. Because even our families who had technology, we utilised a communication app called ClassDojo, where the teachers could send messages to the parents, and the parents could translate it to their own language. So the language barrier can still be broken down if you’ve got the right technology to do it. But the fact that we had parents who don’t even have enough data to send one photo through of their kids’ work, that’s extremely concerning when we’re talking about living in a tech savvy society... Because how do we build relationships with our communities, with language barriers and mental health issues … if we don’t have those tools to support it? I think of all the things that I can access, if I want to get therapy for my son, I’ll just Google it. They can’t even have that – they don’t have that access. So I think technology poverty is something that really needs to be brought to the forefront of the conversation, because that’s not even something we can provide as a school. We can provide it between nine and three when the kids are here and give them access to it, but that doesn’t provide it out in our community. To be shortlisted as a top 10 finalist in the Global Teacher Prize is an extraordinary effort... I think it’s an indicator of the great
things that we do here collectively, … we’re highly collaborative, and we do great things together. The things that happen here are not just solely me, obviously there’s initiatives that I try and drive as an educational leader here, but it’s also because we have amazing teachers here, too.
“The things that happen here are not solely me ... because we have amazing teachers here, too.” Your school community was chuffed? The kids are definitely proud ... they’ll come up and be like, ‘you’re one of the best teachers in the world!’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, because I’m at one of the best schools in the world, obviously’. (laughs) And they get this big grin on their face… I get it, the award is my name up there and recognising what I do… but it’s that collective recognition of what we’re doing. On a personal note, yes, I was so grateful and honoured to be recognised with those
teachers. When you see the other finalists and the amazing things they’re doing in such challenging conditions around the world, I had a little bit of imposter syndrome thinking, ‘oh my God, these guys are working so hard in impoverished nations’, but it’s also nice to know that this is my 19th year of teaching, so for almost two decades now I have put in my best effort to try and do good things for kids. So it’s still lovely to have that recognised and go, ‘yes, what we’re doing is worthy and valuable’. What’s got you quite excited for 2022 and keen to roll up your sleeves to get stuck into? The new curriculum’s just been released, so that’s got my attention at the moment. We’re not an early adopter school, which means it’s not mandatory for us to implement it, however, we’re very excited about the changes that are in it. So I think we’ll be taking some areas of the curriculum to explore and do some professional learning, ready for mandatory implementation in 2023. We’ve talked for a long time about how overloaded the curriculum is, and there was a lot of consultation for this particular syllabus. So I’m really excited to see how that supports our student development and to make some really good quality changes for evidence-based teaching.
Transform student writing HALF HORI
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February 2022
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Stars moving to the beat of a different drum BY DEN IZ UZGUN WEARING happi coats imprinted with Japanese characters, an obi belt strapped around their waists, and a hachimaki headband to top it off, students at Rosny College are jamming to the beat of their drums through an ancient Japanese art form. The centuries-old taiko drumming tradition has found its way to the Hobart campus and is inspiring students with disabilities as part of the school’s Springboard program. Led by teachers Belinda Graudins and Andrew Short, the drumming experience has had an amazing impact on students’ physical and mental wellbeing, and is motivating them in ways that are different to traditional classroom learning. “The kids after they play, they actually feel very recharged and energised and we’ve noticed that it’s a really good therapy for them,” Graudins says. Taiko drumming first struck a chord with Graudins in 2008, after she watched a local Hobart group perform. “I got to know about the group and decided to give it a go. And I went along with my children, who were 10 and 16 at the time, and we all just played for fun and it sort of progressed on and I learned a lot more.” The drums were introduced to the school in 2014 when Graudins was working as a teacher assistant alongside Short. “And I said, ‘Oh, I do taiko drumming, might be something we could see if the kids would like to do’. Andy embraced that idea and so I
brought some drums in and it just went from there.” So, what does a typical taiko drumming session look and sound like? “It can be pretty noisy,” Graudins describes, laughing. “When we’re rehearsing, we tend to be in a semicircle so I can see them all, and I’ll play a rhythm and they will copy and follow. “Eventually we build up a sequence of rhythms and they know what’s happening, but I’m the person they watch for any cues and to keep on track.” A bit of theory also goes with the sessions, but students are usually champing at the bit to hit the drums, Graudins says. “[We teach] a little bit on correct postures and how to stand at the drum. “I use some terminology to get them used to what taiko drummers would know – ‘left and right’ is ‘don and con’ and we speak that language with the beats. “We also did a bit of learning of some Japanese words, so the students could introduce themselves with Japanese vocabulary.” As they get a handle on how to play, their confidence hits sky high, Graudins says. “Early on they’re perhaps a little bit, ‘Oh, I’m not sure if I can do this’. But they grow in leaps and bounds and we’ve seen the more they play, and especially when they’re starting to perform … they’re just so much more confident as time goes on.” Other students who might be hesitant at first, and watch from afar, also want to chime in after they suc-
Led by teachers Belinda Graudins and Andrew Short, taiko drumming has had an amazing impact on Rosny students’ physical and mental wellbeing.
cumb to the excitement and fun. “Quite often, as the year goes on, they see students starting to perform around the school, and they think, ‘Hey, I would like to do that, too’,” Graudins says. “And so we get a lot more students come on board as the year goes on and embrace it and just get the thrill of performing, whether it be within the college or when we visit primary schools.”
In 2018, the students had a lifechanging experience when they visited Japan to learn firsthand from taiko masters. “We just couldn’t believe how they handled flying to another country and being there for 10 days mixing with the taiko masters over there and other students,” Graudins says. “We were just blown away [by] how much their confidence had
grown and how much they had grown in themselves in that short period of time away.” Today, the school is aiming to get all students jamming on the drums, not just through the Springboard program. “We received a grant to buy $25,000 worth of drums, so the program is destined to be bigger than it is at the moment. It’s got to be bigger,” Short says.
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In The Classroom
Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022 • 19
A LL THAT GLITTER S IS N OT GOLD
Catering to kids with working memory deficit “While we can’t really grow a child’s working memory, per se, teachers can certainly design their instruction so that it doesn’t undermine or overload the working memory that the child does have.” It’s imperative that these kids are identified early on, she adds. Signs include a difficulty in sustaining focus, slow processing of new information, and a hazy recollection of detail. “You’re going to have kids who have incomplete recall of the material or information that they’re trying to retain … they might remember the first thing you said, or the last thing you said, or some of the things that you said, but not in the right order... “They often have difficulty following a discussion in class because they can’t track the thread of con-
“The fads ... say that ‘you’re a great teacher if you have everything shiny, dancing, hanging in your classroom.” BY SARAH DUGGAN SWATHED in lurid streamers, plastered with posters and awash with artful writing prompts, the average Aussie primary classroom can hold a veritable circus of visual stimuli. But for the one in ten children that have low working memory, teachers’ well-intentioned decorative efforts are only compounding their cognitive load and intensifying the learning struggle, an expert in the field says. Let’s simplify the learning environment Shirley Houston, an educator of over 30 years and board member of the Dyslexia SPELD Foundation of WA, is calling time on overly colourful and cluttered learning environments. “The fads in education say that ‘you’re a great teacher if you have everything shiny, dancing, moving, hanging in your classroom. “That’s actually not good educational pedagogy, but it’s certainly what’s expected,” she tells Australian Teacher Magazine. In contrast to the pared back aesthetics found in Scandinavian schools, Houston says our teachers face pressure to ensure their learning spaces remain full-on visual displays throughout the year. “[Scandinavian teachers] are not told ‘if you don’t have every child’s piece of work hanging from the rafters covering every section of every wall then you’re a bad teacher’.
“While we can’t really grow a child’s working memory, per se, teachers can certainly design their instruction so that it doesn’t undermine or overload the working memory that the child does have,” Shirley Houston, an educator of over 30 years, says.
“So I think it’s quite hard for our teachers, but one of the things that I ask them to do is to think about, ‘what could you remove from your classroom that would just reduce that (visual) white noise, so that the kids aren’t finding it so hard?’” This March, Houston will be delivering an online webinar with Critical Agendas for K-6 teachers that will drill down into how to effectively teach, identify and support students with low working memory.
A look at Cognitive Load Theory According to John Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), the human brain can only grapple with a small and limited amount of new information at any one time – grappling which is carried out in the working memory. However, it can process large amounts of information that’s pre-organised and stored in the long-term memory. Internationally renowned educationalist Dylan Wiliam has
described CLT as ‘the single most important thing for teachers to know’ – and indeed research has suggested that building ‘domain specific’ background knowledge that sits in long-term memory may be one of teachers’ most critical jobs in the classroom. But we digress. Spotting the signs If working memory is overburdened, learning tasks become difficult or impossible, Houston says.
versation. They don’t tend to contribute as much because of that,” Houston explains. An inability to keep to a schedule or to successfully plan and reflect are other manifestations to watch out for, she says. “[These students] like experiential learning because if something is right there in front of you and it’s hands on, it makes less demands on working memory.” If walls are awash with posters, prompts and other visual distractions, student with low working memory can be easily sidetracked and derail off task, Houston says. “If you’ve got a kid who is trying to do a writing task – and writing has got a very high working memory load – if they have to find a sentence beginners chart in the classroom … by the time they’ve looked at the 80 different things ... on the walls and located where the poster is, they’ve forgotten what they were doing.” Bright lights, noisy group work, rotating activity hubs and shared desks are other potential distractions that make learning a real battle for those with a working memory deficit, she notes. “I want teachers to understand that extraneous load is something that they can do something about. There’s an intrinsic load to tasks, you know, long division will always be hard. Algebra will always be hard, and that’s an intrinsic thing. “But then it’s how you present the task, the environment you present it in, the supports that you offer, that will make a difference.”
In The Classroom / School Of Thought 20 • Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022
THESE TOU GH TIMES R EQU IR E A SEN SE OF HU MOU R A N D. . .
A cultivated sense of lightness and perspective
BY TIM P ERKI N S BACK in early December 2021, we were beginning to believe that the worst of the pandemic was behind us. We dared to dream. We dared to book our holidays. We dared to organise end of year drinks. We dared to invite the family over for Christmas lunch. We dared to book interstate flights and holiday houses and yoga retreats. We dared to think we might be letting our hair down at New Year’s Eve parties. What an anti-climax the summer holidays have proven to be for so many of us. One of the things that we are all finding such a challenge to deal with is the enduring uncertainty, which is one of the shadows of the pandemic. It has become so hard to commit to plans and so we are reluctant to make any plans.
Planning is a future focussed activity and so it supplies us with hope and positive expectation. It is part of our positivity survival mechanism. And to a great extent the pandemic is taking that away from us. It’s upsetting and frustrating and confusing. My wife’s 50th – off. New Year’s Eve celebration – off. My son’s 21st – off. Our summer coastal holiday – cancelled half-way through after a positive rapid antigen test. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. It’s like being in a boxing ring with an invisible opponent. And when the hell did we start travelling with our own virus testing kits? What are we, astronauts? Part of the problem for us is that we are so damned adaptable. We roll with the punches, we accept the new edicts, we educate ourselves in epidemiology, we teach from home, we cancel our plans, we reduce our social contact, we stop visiting our ageing and sick relatives, we stop going to bars and restaurants and cinemas and all of the other markers that we were indeed working hard so that we could live well. All of these changes have hap-
pened in the blink of an eye and we appear to have adapted. But have we really? Have we made the transitions psychologically or purely physically and mechanically? Is the
“We are wondering if human proximity and warmth and being fearlessly tactile will ever return.” deep psychological impact coming for us like an aftershock? Is our apparent acquiescing to these necessary changes also what is fuelling our confusion, emotional malaise and even our anger and rebellion? Have we become too superficially resilient for our own good? This whole pandemic thing has made us all uneasy. We’re ill at ease. This disease has indeed caused a sense of dis-ease. We’ve become adept at distancing from
We’ve all become quite adept at developing a Plan B and this is a great approach for managing our disappointment and sense of futility.
family, friends, neighbours, strangers but we’re not comfortable with it. And we’ve got to a point where we are wondering if human proximity and warmth and being fearlessly tactile will ever return. It is so bloody fatiguing this disappointment and confusion. I’m reading an extraordinary book at the moment called Apeirogon by Irish writer Colum McCann. It
tells the true story of two men from worlds in conflict with each other’s – one a Palestinian and the other an Israeli. They are drawn together by each having been through the awful experience of losing a young daughter – the Palestinian girl killed by an Israeli sniper outside her school and the Israeli girl blown up by a Palestinian suicide bomber during a school break.
In The Classroom / School Of Thought Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022 • 21
The book is divided into 1001 chapters to mirror the collection of Arabian tales One Thousand and One Nights and also as a nod to the seemingly endless struggle for peace on this hotly contested geographic postage stamp. The characters give us the sense of constantly being on edge. Never being at ease. Never feeling fully safe. Of
“It’s one of those interesting ... situations of not knowing what we have until it is taken away from us.” moments of joy and celebration and forgetting and normality being pierced by awful reminders of their lack of safety and confidence for a normal life. Needless to say both Palestine and Israel rank at the very bottom of the Global Peace Index – a scale used to measure the sense of safety and ‘at easeness’ that a population feels living in their own country. Without wanting to make any direct comparisons between scuppered holiday hopes in Australia
and the horrifying and seemingly endless conflicts in the Middle East, I couldn’t help but think of the parallels of feeling that each engender, with being fearful and uncertain and having our sense of optimism so challenged for such a sustained period of time. We are on edge. And it is essential for our wellbeing that we recognise that this is the case and that it is not normal or familiar. And that it will pass. But maybe not for quite a while yet. We crave a sense of control over our lives and our futures and we realise now, that to a great extent, we used to have that. It’s one of those interesting and weird situations of not knowing what we have until it is taken away from us. We realise now, that in the safe and stable country in which we are privileged to live, we have always really been able to do, more or less, as we chose. And now that has been taken away and we are finding it very hard. So where to from here? It’s incredibly important for us all to confront the brutal facts and yet maintain hope and a sense of meaning. One way of doing this is making an active and considered choice to not hold too tightly to our hopes and expectations. Anticipating that things won’t go according to plan, and factoring that in, can reduce our upset, pain and disappointment. We’ve all become quite adept at developing a Plan B and this is a
There is still joy and happiness and hope and pleasure all around us, we just need to remind ourselves to look for it.
great approach for managing our disappointment and sense of futility. We need to develop our capacities to manage uncertainty and to be increasingly at ease with it. A great way to manage this is a sense of humour, a cultivated sense of lightness and perspective. Disappointment often lacks perspective. We can allow it to overwhelm us and we can catastrophise its apparent consequences. This is not a helpful way to be. Because, I’ve got some bad news there will be other variants. I mean I’m an untrained epidemiologist now as well and word on the street
amongst my many millions of fellow untrained experts is that we are not out of the woods yet! Renowned psychologist and the father of the concept of Positive Psychology, Professor Martin Seligmann tells us that there are three things that most often get in our way when we are in need of resilience. These are Personalising – a belief that something is our fault or possibly more myopically, these things always happen to us and our pain and suffering is much worse than anyone else’s; Permanence – a sense that the specific negative event will never end; and
Pervasiveness – a sense that it will seep into and negatively impact every single aspect of our existence, nothing will remain unimpacted. Challenging these three beliefs with clear and sober thinking is an essential component to enhancing our coping mechanisms during this unbelievably challenging time. In our hearts we know that this is neither our fault, nor is it all about us and nor is our experience of it any worse than anyone else’s. The concept of impermanence is very liberating at times like this. We also know that it will not always be like this and that, in relative terms, the sacrifices are more of a disappointment and an inconvenience than they are a catastrophe. And we also know that there is still joy and happiness and hope and pleasure all around us. We just need to remind ourselves to look for it. We get more of what we focus on and, importantly, we get to choose what we focus on. One of the questions we can valuably ask ourselves might be: ‘Is what I am doing, what I am thinking, what I am saying, how I am acting, helpful or harmful?’ We are very good at helping our students through these sort of approaches so let’s treat ourselves with compassion and apply the same good sense to ourselves. Perfectionism and unrealistic expectations are the enemies of positive coping strategies. Australian Teacher Magazine • August 2020 • 15
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Australian Teacher Magazine × Advertorial 22 • Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022
A DVERTOR IA L
Empower your students to create change BY ALEXANDRA LO NGSTAFF THE last two years have been tough globally. The impacts of the pandemic have been confronting, and levels of anxiety have risen. According to a study conducted by UNICEF, young people aged between 13 and 17 feel their ability to cope well with life has plummeted. This finding is likely to be an ongoing reality for many as the pandemic continues to bring added pressures and long-lasting impacts.
Since 2018, nearly 290 schools from around Australia have signed up to do the Ration Challenge. PHOTO: Joel Pratley/Act for Peace
But the pandemic hasn’t been the only thing causing a decrease in wellbeing. Studies show that climate change causes significant levels of distress for young people, who feel they have inherited problems that they don’t have the power to do anything about. Add to that the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Gaza, and the ongoing reports of immigration and a rising number of refugees — many of whom are now
“It has never been more important to provide youth with the tools they need to feel empowered to make a difference.” facing displacement due to climate change; no wonder young people are feeling overwhelmed and helpless. “It has never been more important to provide youth with the tools they need to feel empowered to make a difference,” Ruthann Richardson, from Act for Peace, says. Act for Peace is enabling young people to feel empowered and hopeful about change. “A growing pool of research shows that schoolage students feel increasingly disenfranchised and anxious about the state of the world. The impacts of climate change on their future, the health and economic repercussions of the pandemic, and the ongoing and escalating refugee crisis are all issues where young people’s thoughts, opinions, and feelings are so important in the decisionmaking process.” Act for Peace runs a fundraising event called the Ration Challenge. For a few days, students eat the same rations as a refugee, raise money, and perhaps most importantly of all, lead their own way in creating a
Funds raised in last year’s challenge provided 6120 Syrian refugees with emergency food rations. PHOTO: Arthur Tainturier/Act for Peace.
The Ration Challenge takes place from June 20-24, 2022. Students aged 12 and above can participate. Register your interest, and the Act for Peace team will guide you through getting your school involved. Give your students the power to change the world through the Ration Challenge by visiting schools.rationchallenge.org.au
new path forward. “Young people’s voices are often sidelined by political leaders on a myriad of important social issues,” Ruthann says. “The Act for Peace Ration Challenge aims to empower students to find their voice and feel they can make a real difference.” During Ration Week (June 20-24, 2022), students eat the same rations as a refugee living in a camp in Jordan, just rice, lentils, beans, chickpeas, oil and fish (or tofu for vegetarians or vegans), and gain an empathy-building glimpse into someone else’s experience. Students will also take control of their own fundraising initiative and start important conversations with their peers and communities about how it feels to eat only rations. Since the Ration Challenge Schools Program began, schools across Australia have raised over $1.4 million to help support refugees and displaced people around the world. Moreover,
students across Australia have developed their advocacy skills and raised vital awareness.
“Never underestimate the power of having a conversation with a student and the carry-on effect that can have on the wider community.” The Ration Challenge has proven to be an exceptionally powerful tool for teachers and students. As Chris Goodman, Director of Mission at Oakhill College, explains, “anything you can do as an educator that you can engage young people with, anything that you can do to
teach your students and children about the world and not just the bubble that they may be living in their own suburb or in their own school area in Australia, to make them more worldly and to be able to be people who go to those margins and work with people living on the fringe, whether that be in a local community, city, the country they live in, and/or the global world, then the world is going to be a better place”. Since the Ration Challenge Schools program began in 2018, 290 schools across Australia have signed up, and 4074 students have taken part, with many returning year after year. “The Ration Challenge 2021 was our fourth year running the challenge at CBHS,” Jonathon Bishop, a teacher at Christian Brothers’ High School, says. “We started off with ten participants in 2018, 27 in 2019, and last year we had 40 members of our community participate in the challenges, including students from all year levels (7-12). I believe that the most
enriching learning experiences are the ones in which you can fully immerse yourself and relate to real-world issues. By participating in the Ration Challenge, you will be able to work together with a wide range of students to achieve great things. Never underestimate the power of having a conversation with a student and the carry-on effect that can have on the wider community.” The Ration Challenge is a way of giving your students the power to change the world. And while it offers only a glimpse into the experience of being a refugee, the experience has a beneficial impact on a student’s ability to feel they have the power and capacity to do something in an increasingly challenging world. By putting themselves in the shoes of a refugee for one week, your students will learn about current global issues, gain more empathy and feel empowered to lead and make a difference. While on a practical level, the funds your school raises will help provide emergency food, healthcare, and life-changing support for refugees and communities affected by conflict and disaster.
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The PC Locs Story. Australian educator Paul Symons founded PC Locs in 1998 when he noticed a need for securing laptops and devices in his school. He started by building security leashes and chain kits in his back yard in his spare time and installing them in a few schools throughout Australia. After successfully deterring theft, word spread throughout Australia and demand for his products grew to the point where Paul left his teaching job to fully commit to PC Locs. Expanding globally, thousands of schools and organisations have now experienced the difference of PC Locs: responsive customer service, innovative and high-quality design, lifetime warranty and Baskets by PC Locs.
Introducing the Carrier Range of Charging Stations.
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Designed to be universal, the Carrier Charging Stations can charge, store and secure 10 or 15 Chromebooks, Tablets, Laptops, iPads or just about any other device.1 Baskets by PC Locs. Includes Baskets giving users the flexibility to deploy Laptops, Chromebooks, Tablets or iPad devices safely and with ease. The Baskets are light and durable and are designed to accommodate almost any device, with or without cases. Secure. Keep your valuable device investments safe. The combination of welded steel construction, the mounting-kit and a hardened steel padlock, protects your devices. Compatible. Each Carrier Charging Station comes equipped with a device storage rack and Large Baskets for storing just about any device.1 Efficient charging. The Carrier Charging Stations can charge 10 or 15 devices simultaneously including Chromebooks, Laptops, iPads and most Tablets, with or without most cases.1
Introducing the Carrier Range of Carts.
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Carrier 10 Charging Station
Carrier 15 Charging Station
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Designed to be universal, the Carrier Carts can charge, store, secure and transport 20, 30 or 40 Chromebooks, Tablets, Laptops, iPads or just about any other device.1 Baskets by PC Locs. Includes Baskets giving users the flexibility to deploy Laptops, Chromebooks, Tablets or iPad devices safely and with ease. The Baskets are light and durable and are designed to accommodate almost any device, with or without cases. Timed charging modes. Easily set your Cart to charge for a specific amount of time. You can also set your devices to charge in groups. ECO Safe Charge power management system with a remote controller for safe and efficient charging of all connected devices. External LED indicators. Easily and quickly see if your devices are charging and the charging mode selected. Safe and secure. The combination of welded steel construction, the locking system and the keyless combination padlock protects your devices when they're not in use.
Specifications and images are for illustration purposes only. Final products may differ. iPad is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Chromebook is a trademark of Google Inc. 1 May not fit all devices. Please check the dimensions of the device and the product. Contact us for more details and compatibility. 2 Visit www.pclocs.com.au for full warranty details. 3 Free shipping is to almost anywhere in Australia. Some exclusions apply. Contact us for details and exclusions
Carrier 20 Cart
Carrier 40 Cart Carrier 30 Cart
Introducing the Revolution 32 Cabinet.
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Designed with the teacher in mind, the Revolution Cabinet ticks all the boxes. It is a small and compact unit making it perfect for classrooms where space is precious, includes and ECO Safe Charge for safe and efficient charge and can accommodate just about any device. Charge, store, secure and transport Chromebooks or Laptops.1 ECO Safe Charge power management system with remote for safe and efficient charging of devices. External LED indicators. Easily and quickly see if your devices are charging and the charging mode selected. Timed charging modes. Easily set your Cabinet to charge for a specific amount of time. Safe and secure. The locking system will ensure your Cabinet and devices are locked down and secured. Extra portability. For added flexibility and portability, simply add Baskets by PC Locs to the Cabinet.
Introducing the Putnam Charging Stations for iPads and Tablet devices.
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Putnam 16 Charging Station
Designed to charge, store and secure 8 or 16 Tablet Devices. The Putnam Charging Station features colour coded LED displays so you know when your devices are charged.1
Putnam 8 Charging Station
External Charging Status Display. With a colour-coded LED charging status display for each slot, easily know if your devices are charging (red) or ready to use (green). Pre-Wired. Equipped with 8 or 16 MFi approved Lightning cables or Micro-USB cables, the Putnam Charging Stations come with everything you need to lock and charge your devices. Secure. Fully welded steel construction and a built-in mechanical combination lock makes these charging stations ultra-secure. Small footprint and lightweight. Easily mount the compact unit to the floor, wall or a desk to save even more space. Efficient charging. With 2.4 amp charging at each port, the Putnam Charging Station can charge 8 or 16 iPads simultaneously.
Introducing the Putnam 18-C Base Charging Station. Designed to be universal, the Putnam 18-C Base Charging Station can charge, store and secure 18 Chromebooks, Small Laptops or just about any Tablet device.1 2 Numbered Slots. By assigning each device it’s own slot number, it’s easy to know which devices are missing at the end of the day with only a quick glance. Say Goodbye to Tangled Cords. It’s virtually impossible to tangle the charging cables in the Putnam 18-C. The cords are just the right length to reach each device. No Keys to Worry About. With an integrated mechanical combination lock, there are no keys to worry about. We’ve also included a master key in case the combination is forgotten. Small footprint. The tall, slim design of the Putnam 18-C Base is ultra-compact, saving valuable real estate in space-strapped locations. Wall or desk mounting. Transform any wall, desk or bench into a secure charging space. The Putnam 18-C is designed to be flexible and adapt to your surroundings.
Specifications and images are for illustration purposes only. Final products may differ. iPad is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Chromebook is a trademark of Google Inc. 1 May not fit all devices. Please check the dimensions of the device and the product. Contact us for more details and compatibility. 2 Visit www.pclocs.com.au for full warranty details. 3 Free shipping is to almost anywhere in Australia. Some exclusions apply. Contact us for details and exclusions
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Introducing the Revolution Carts.
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Designed with the teacher in mind, the Revolution Carts tick all the boxes. They retain an open design to enable passive ventilation and quick and easy visual checks. They are small and compact making them perfect for classrooms where space is precious. Charge, store, secure and transport Chromebooks or Laptops.1 ECO Safe Charge power management system with remote for safe and efficient charging of devices. External LED indicators. Easily and quickly see if your devices are charging and the charging mode selected. Timed charging modes. Easily set your Cart to charge for a specific amount of time. Safe and secure. The locking system will ensure your Cart and devices are locked down and secured.
Introducing the iQ Charging Stations for iPads and Tablet devices.
Revolution 32 Cart Revolution 16 Cart
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Designed to charge, store and secure 10 devices.1 Baskets by PC Locs. Includes Baskets giving users the flexibility to deploy Tablets or iPad devices safely and with ease. The Baskets are light and durable and are designed to accommodate almost any device, with or without cases. Secure. Keep your valuable device investments safe. The combination of welded steel construction, the mounting-kit and a hardened steel padlock, protects your devices. Compatible. Each iQ Station comes equipped with a device storage rack and two Baskets for storing just about any device. Coming soon: USB-C version for expanded compatibility.1
iQ 10 Sync Charge Station
Small footprint and lightweight. Easily mount the compact unit to the floor, wall or a desk to save even more space.
iQ 10 Charging Station
Efficient charging. The iQ Stations can charge 10 devices simultaneously. Need syncing for Apple devices? We have a syncing version which integrates our topof-the-line syncing technology that seamlessly integrates with Apple Configurator.
Introducing the CarryOn Charging Station.
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Ultra-mobile and ultra-efficient. The CarryOn is designed to charge, store and secure 5 Tablet or iPad devices.1 Efficient charging. With 2.4 amp charging at each port, the CarryOn can charge 10 devices simultaneously. Say Goodbye to Tangled Cords. It’s virtually impossible to tangle the charging cables in the CarryOn. The cords are set in place at just the right length for each device. Safe and secure. The locking system along with the mounting kit will ensure your valuable investments are secured. Wall mountable. The CarryOn includes a handy wall mounting kit so that you can transform any wall into a space for charging and storing devices. Ultra-mobile, ultra-compact. The CarryOn is the most portable charging station on the market. Its compact design coupled with built in handle makes transporting and distributing devices easier than ever before and is perfect for space-strapped rooms.
Specifications and images are for illustration purposes only. Final products may differ. iPad is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Chromebook is a trademark of Google Inc. 1 May not fit all devices. Please check the dimensions of the device and the product. Contact us for more details and compatibility. 2 Visit www.pclocs.com.au for full warranty details. 3 Free shipping is to almost anywhere in Australia. Some exclusions apply. Contact us for details and exclusions
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February 2022
Special Report /Excursions, Incursions & Camps DO YOU H AV E A STORY ?
Email classroom@educationhq.com or visit educationhq.com/contribute to start writing your article. We accept contributions from around Australia and publish the best in Australian Teacher Magazine.
Melbourne Skyfarm a glimpse of our future
BY DEN IZ UZGUN A ROOFTOP car park transformed into a thriving urban farm will soon host thousands of students ready to learn about the environment. With its bustling gardens and orchards, the first-of-its-kind Melbourne Skyfarm will showcase how cities can turn seemingly unlikely areas into functioning ecosystems. The concrete jungle isn’t what first comes to mind when we picture biodiversity projects, but Melbourne Skyfarm is aiming to change that by showing students how they can join in sustainable practices anytime and anywhere.
From renewable energy and urban greening to zero waste living and rainwater harvesting, students will get a first-hand glimpse of important environmental initiatives on the green oasis. “As we build our cities, we build these hard surfaces that are made out of metal and glass and concrete, and they now need to become the new substrate for us to rebuild biodiversity and nature and food production and liveable spaces,” Skyfarm director Brendan Condon says in a promotional video. Condon says Skyfarm will demonstrate the huge food growing potential that exists in cities if we
A WILD EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE STUDENTS WON’T FORGET
harness good design, urban farming innovation and circular economy principles. Tonnes of fresh produce will be generated on the rooftop each year through the urban farm’s Biofilta Foodcubes, and 70 per cent of the food generated will be donated to charity OzHarvest. The Australian-designed ‘Foodcubes’ are wicking beds that can combat the harsh Australian climate and keep plants alive with their large water holding capacity. Condon says this sustainable practice will give students an understanding of how to reduce food miles and improve food security.
“We’re capturing and composting surplus organic streams in the city, food waste and green waste, and then putting that into food production,” he tells Australian Teacher Magazine. “We’re showing how you can rapidly build urban farms into surplus spaces in cities like rooftops, schools, backyards and car parks. “So that in itself is one really great platform for students to understand how we can build resilient local food systems.” By attracting bird and insect life to the rooftop, the urban farm will improve urban biodiversity and climate adaptation. In the face of increasing heatwaves, Skyfarm will also promote urban cooling. “We need to be preparing for the extreme weather events, particularly heat, by retrofitting our urban form to be cool, to have shade, and also to drop urban temperature and combat the urban heat island effect,” Condon says in the video. With Skyfarm also being a carbon neutral organisation, students will learn about what this entails. “They’ll be able to see a significant new business that’s carbon neutral, that’s efficient, all electric,” Condon explains. “It’s (Skyfarm) eliminated the use of fossil fuels that’s reduced and eliminated its energy bills … It’s capturing rainwater and using that in the landscape, and it’s just demonstrating a whole range of solutions to climate change that are at our fingertips.” The urban farm’s environmental education area will feature both indoor and outdoor classrooms,
and will be open for students to visit during school hours. Lessons will be both theoretical and practical-based and topics will be tailored to the curriculum. Melbourne Skyfarm has been developed by a group of leading sustainability companies including Biofilta, The Sustainable Landscape Company, and Odonata, with the support of Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) and
“It’s demonstrating a whole range of solutions to climate change that are at our fingertips.” City of Melbourne Urban Forest Fund. “We acknowledge the obligation we have to reduce our demand on the planet’s finite resources and through the opening of Skyfarm, we are sending a message that we can and will do more for our community and the environment,” MCEC chief executive Peter King says. “Skyfarm has seen the transformation of a concrete carpark into a venue Melbournians can gather to learn, socialise and enjoy a completely different space to what they are used to, it’s a place to inspire awareness of the environment we are surrounded by.” The educational component of Melbourne Skyfarm is set to open in the first term of 2023.
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Special Report / Excursions, Camps & Incursions 30 • Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022
GR EAT B A R R IER R EEF MA R IN E PR OGR A M
Students on high seas for Science Under Sail BY BIANCA ROBERTS PEERING overboard, students observe the glistening blue sea breaking in gentle waves as their yacht speeds forward. Two dolphins ride the bow wave alongside, friendly companions in an adventure of a lifetime. It’s not a dream, nor a holiday, but rather a gold-star example of experiential learning: a tale from Bundaberg Christian College’s one week expedition with Science Under Sail Australia. The week-long program saw seven Year 10 students take to the seas under the direction of marine scientist Dr James Udy, mapping marine ecosystems within Queensland’s Capricorn Bunkers, clusters of small islands situated at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. There, through snorkelling and video capturing technologies, they collected data from seagrass samples, and later learned how to analyse and collate the data on Excel spreadsheets. Amanda Kelk, Gateway Coordinator at Bundaberg Christian College, tells Australian
Teacher Magazine that she initiated the program three years ago, with its success rendering it a fixture of the school’s extracurricular repertoire. “It really is quite a unique and incredibly rewarding experience that greatly adds value to our science program and school commu-
“It really is a unique ... experience that greatly adds value to our science program.” nity,” she says. Whilst a selection process is necessary to award seven students a place on deck, Kelk says that effort is taken to engage the entire Year 10 science cohort with the experience. “We don’t offer marine biology or anything specifically, but we just utilise it as best we can across all of our science areas, because what [the participating students]
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do once they’re out there is we try and get them to “Zoom in” and do a live feed with our classes. “So they will show them what they’re doing, as far as how they’re using the instruments [to collect marine data]. “As Year 10 students, it really helps prepare them for research in their senior subjects – the questions they need to ask or what data might help them to understand that bigger picture...” For most students, this was the first time they had opportunities to apply the theory skills learnt in class within a real-world context. “I think Science Under Sail was a great opportunity to learn a lot about real world science,” participant Matthew Udal says. “It gave us an opportunity to truly understand how to collect and analyse data by doing it ourselves hands-on. “There was never a day I wasn’t excited to get up and learn about the wonders of the ocean and science in general.” Year 10 student Megan Therry says the experience has inspired her to consider pursuing a career in marine biology.
Science Under Sail Australia is a week-long program that sees students take to the seas under the direction of marine scientist Dr James Udy, mapping marine ecosystems at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef.
“The trip thrust us straight into on-field research on some of Australia’s beautiful reefs,” she says. “This has given me further insight into the career of marine biology and has enhanced my desire to pursue my love for ocean science even more.” Science Under Sail Australia tailors excursions to a variety of curriculum requirements, with each excursion developed in close collaboration with the par-
ticipating school. Where schools are located along the North-Eastern coast, the trip will be organised as close to the school area as possible, so students can learn specifically about their local marine ecosystem. Trips available range from single day trips to seven day/six night “live aboard” trips, such as that enjoyed by Bundaberg Christian College.
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Special Report / Excursions, Camps & Incursions 32 • Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022
SHA KESPEA R E IN A MODER N CON TEXT
Bringing the bard back to life and relevance BY A N N E VIZE MANY educators dread teaching Shakespeare, often fearing an unenthusiastic teen audience that comes into the experience already believing the unit will be dry, dull and filled with impossible language that is irrelevant to their modern lives. A great incursion does wonders, however, to bring Shakespeare to life and provide inspiration to get students motivated. More importantly, an incursion helps showcase the action, characters and concepts behind the works, so that they become full of meaning rather than simply lines of text. Actors can engage directly with the audience and students begin to understand the importance of tone, expression and movement within a performance space. But what happens after the event to keep the interest going and build on what has happened during a Shakespearean incursion? Cut to the action Give students lines of text printed onto strips of paper and ask them to work in a small group to piece together the action, using their
knowledge of prose, rhyme and action from the play. Once they have reconstructed the text, have each group read the lines aloud to check everything is in its correct place. Shakespearean insults Shakespearean language can be used to great effect if you provide each student with a set of three columns of phrases from the text they are studying and ask them to combine one phrase from each column to create an original insult. Delivered well, phrases such as a ‘lily-liver’d cream faced loon’ will get students laughing, engaging and experimenting with language. Graphic story posters Have students work independently or in pairs to make a poster in graphic novel style to depict a scene from the text. Encourage creativity and use of numbering, storyboards or captions to show how the action moves from one scene to the next. Feel the beat Much of Shakespeare’s work uses a pattern known as iambic pentameter. The ‘off again / on again’ nature of the beat is what makes the text
beautiful and enticing to read aloud. Have students clap the rhythm or compare it to other sounds and sensations they know, such as the drumming of horses’ hoofs or a heartbeat. Analyse lines such as ‘So foul and fair a day I have not seen’ (Macbeth) or ‘Two households, both alike in dignity’ (Romeo and Juliet) and
A great incursion does wonders to bring Shakespeare to life and provide inspiration to get students motivated.
“Encourage students to ... research and find out about the time, place and people.” practice counting and noticing the syllables and patterns and how it feels to read them aloud.
were important to him, as well as what is known about his early writing and personal life.
A splash of time and place Encourage students to dive into some research and find out a little about the time, place and people of Shakespearean England. Have them create a digital or print-based display on his life and the people who
Engage in a debate Shakespeare and the study of his work can be divisive, with some educators and students alike believing it is no longer relevant to today’s young people while others feel there is much to be gained
from studying his writing. Ask students to share their own ideas and have them devise a logical argument to help them debate the topic for themselves. Love it or hate it, Shakespeare finds his way into many English classrooms, with incursions and associated follow up activities playing an important role in bringing his work to life for young people.
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Save & Learn in the Northern Territory What is Save & Learn? Australian school groups, from outside the Northern Territory, are invited to submit an application for $1000 funding to support their NT school tour!
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The planned excursion simply needs to meet the following requirements:
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• staying at least five nights in the Northern Territory • the itinerary must include at least three NT Learning Adventures (NTLA) operators. Application forms and list of current NTLA partners can be found at ntlearningadventures.com
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Special Report / Excursions, Camps and Incursions 34 • Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022
OPTIMISIN G LEA R N IN G IN THE GR EAT OU TDOOR S
Always ensure their basic needs are being met BY GORDON CAIRN S I MUST admit that although the name was familiar, for a long time I thought Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs was a mathematical problem similar to Pythagoras Theorem or Euler’s Equation; something I knew was significant in certain fields but a solution to a problem I didn’t think I had. It was only when I found myself on a mini school camp, slowly cooking in a wetsuit, a life-vest crammed over the top and a tight helmet compressing my brain while stuck in a becalmed sailboat on the hottest day of the year, that the image of a brightly striped pyramid appeared like a mirage floating across the shimmering water. My mind began to recall a university psychology lecture in the dim and distant past about basic needs – breathing, food, water, shelter, clothing – needing to be met before a person can start to think about reaching their full potential. Were my basic needs being met? Well, the black neoprene suit and life-vest were definitely restricting my breathing, I was getting no
shelter from the sun and although I was surrounded by water on this bright blue sea, I realised I was so dehydrated I couldn’t sweat anymore. Any personal growth, to say the least, was extremely unlikely. It was when I managed to drag my thoughts away from
“I think sometimes outdoor leaders can be too caught up in the final outcome for the group.” how uncomfortable I felt, that I stopped to consider the young students who were with me on the little yacht and how they must be feeling. I mustered the energy to speak to our outdoor ed instructor who wasn’t as encumbered with gear as we were and told him of our predicament. Thankfully, he took immediate action by heading for
shore where we searched our pockets for enough change to buy the kids some ice cream and bottles of water. Normally I am in the role of the instructor myself, impervious to the students’ situation, but it was only through experiencing what they were experiencing that made me realise how often I have led groups on camps when meeting these basic needs hasn’t been given enough consideration. Truth be told, I think sometimes outdoor leaders, myself included, can be too caught up in the final outcome for the group, be it reaching the top of the mountain or abseiling down a cliff face. We dismiss students’ genuine discomforts as merely an excuse for getting out of an activity they can’t be bothered doing. The concept, often represented as a triangle, has been around for a while. In 1943, American psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed the idea in his paper A theory of human motivation that people need their physiological needs met before they are able to move on to having their other needs met, but ultimately they will not
When overseeing outdoor ed experiences, remember, basic needs – breathing, food, water, shelter, clothing – need to be met before students can start to think about reaching their full potential.
be in a place to benefit intellectually, psychologically or emotionally from the experience if all they can remember is their cold feet or the feeling of intense hunger. Of course, it is difficult to know where another person is on the Maslow pyramid – how can the instructor know if the student has drank enough water or had a proper breakfast that morning? However, we can take a metaphorical Maslow in our backpack and check in with the group about
their basic needs throughout the camp. If possible, the backpack can have some survival tools to help meet those needs; hats, sunscreen, protein bars, a spare layer of clothing and extra water – even when the trip is not too arduous. Perhaps Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is like those other mathematical theories after all; we need to work out what the unknown elements are to find the solution to students’ needs.
Australian Teacher Magazine • August 2020 • 15
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February 2022
STEM in Schools DO YO U H AV E A STO RY ?
Email classroom@educationhq.com or visit educationhq.com/contribute to start writing your article. We accept contributions from around Australia and publish the best in Australian Teacher Magazine.
Singh teaching ins and outs of computers Peter Doherty Outstanding Teacher of STEM Award-winner Sharon Singh says while Australian students are savvy with using technology, many do not know how the internal system of computers work – unlike their counterparts in Hong Kong and South Korea.
WHETHER it’s a lesson on artificial intelligence or quantum computing, St John’s Anglican College is constantly pushing the boundaries of innovation – and it’s partly thanks to the pioneering minds of teacher Sharon Singh and her colleagues. Since arriving in 2015, Singh has brought a renewed vision to the Brisbane school, and more recently helped plan a new STEM Design Centre where students access cutting-edge technology. One of the programs taught in the centre is an Australian-first computer design unit where students learn about what makes computers tick. As tech expert Dr Karsten Schulz (the brainchild behind the program) puts it: “it’s essentially opening the lid of what a computer is”. The unit’s Blueberry4 Computers allows Year 8 students to dive into the inner workings of a computer, with a specific focus on the microprocessor.
Singh first introduced the subject after teaching overseas and noticing a gap in Australian students’ knowledge in the field. “My experience working internationally in the computing and IT field has shown me that Australian students are savvy with using the technology, however, many do not know how the internal system of computers work – unlike their counterparts in Hong Kong and South Korea,” she explains. Singh says it is important that students learn about computer science early in their schooling. In the second year of the program, students expand their knowledge through Grok Academy’s new course on quantum computing, and get to visit the Silicon Quantum Computing lab in Sydney via a virtual tour. Students also have the opportunity to gain real-world experience through the Dell Student TechCrew program, where they do work experience as IT technicians, helping
other students and staff solve tech issues and fix hardware. “Students need career readiness skills and schools need additional technical support,” Singh says.
“...many [Australian students] do not know how the internal system of computers work.” “Through this program, offered only by Dell Technologies, students gain hands-on experience and industry certifications, plus opportunities to compete globally for prizes and patents.” For the school, it wasn’t all smooth sailing from the outset however – previously there were no dedicated spaces to teach these subjects.
“… there were two standard traditional classrooms that were used for computer classes which were small and restrictive,” Singh says. The new award-winning STEM centre now boasts a media studio, makerspace, and designated areas for virtual reality, 3D printing, robotics and drones. Singh says the space fosters students to take risks within a safe and fun environment and allows them to be critical and creative thinkers. “Students needed a space that was inviting and practical, where they could work on projects more freely during, and out of, class time; where incomplete projects could be left and returned to without packing and putting it away so the classroom could be used for other lessons.” The hub also prepares students for competitions and training, including the Microsoft AI Challenge, Australian Space Design Challenge and CONRAD Challenge.
Whilst getting females to choose computer courses is “quite a challenge”, Singh is tirelessly working to attract more young women to the industry. Previously, male students formed 99 per cent of enrolments in the Year 9 Digital Technologies classes. Today, male students form 60 per cent and female students make up 40 per cent of enrolments. “Continuously developing and implementing a program that is relevant and attractive to all students and focusing on the Year 8s with relevant content – for example AI, VR, robotics, computer design – has led to an increased student participation especially in female students,” Singh says. For her lasting impact on St John’s Anglican College, Singh was last year awarded a Peter Doherty Outstanding Teacher of STEM Award and was also a finalist for the Queensland College of Teachers TEACHX Innovation in Teaching Award.
STEM in Schools
Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022 • 37
LEA R N IN G, EN GAGEMEN T A N D ACHIEVEMEN T
Despite a frog-free bog, St Raph’s on point
BY MARGA RET RYA N IF your primary school worked on a cross-curricula problem-based STEM unit to create a frog bog habitat on school grounds in mid-2019 and you’ve yet to see or hear a frog in it, would you still consider it a success? Victoria’s St Raphael’s Primary School does. In fact, the northernMelbourne school has presented about it at Deakin University’s 2021 STEM education conference. St Raphael’s also won a ‘best-engineered product’ STEM MAD Award from the Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools’ organisation and Swinburne University. So, while the activity around this artificially created bog might be frog free, there’s a cacophony of learning, engagement and achievement going on. How’s that?
that good pedagogy is transferrable across Foundation to Year 12.” Luna’s teaching assistant for the project was Catherine Talarico, a former architect retraining as a primary school teacher. Her daughter, Lilyana, who was in Year 6 at the school in 2019, says that STEM classes were “just another subject” before the project. She said thanks to the ‘frog bog project,’ she appreciates STEM isn’t just theoretical, but about creating something physical that has a purpose for the future. “We learnt that if their eggs attached to birds’ legs, they will come [hatch]. We were providing a habitat for frogs that are endangered. We got involved in the process of researching frogs, making the bog, seeing different creatures come and live in it. That’s what mattered and it was a success to us.”
Specialising in STEM Leading the project was Patrizia Luna. She notched 17 years’ high school science teaching before taking on the St Raphael’s STEM specialist role in May 2019. “I’d mostly taught at girls’ schools, but I wanted to challenge my understanding of education by moving into primary. I truly believe
How the idea spawned Catherine says what prompted the project was students keen to take action about declining frog numbers and her attending a conference about a high school’s frog bog. “The students just loved the idea, and, with the principal’s permission, we found a 2m by 4m site on our school grounds [to use for it] –
the Indigenous garden near stormwater downpipes.” The Stage 3 students worked on the project for an hour each week during class over two terms with opt-in lunch-time sessions.
“I truly believe that good pedagogy is transferrable across Foundation to Year 12.” They researched water quality, Melbourne Water sent resources, and they had frog experts visit. Next the group dug up the hard clay base, lined the bog with plastic and edged with sandstones to create their bog. To add authenticity, they sourced local provenance native plants to surround the bog, which has various heights with shallow warm water spots to suit tadpoles, when they arrive. Of the 35 frog species living in Victoria, 16 live in Melbourne, with 10 occurring in the local Darebin area where the school is based.
Luna admits she and her assistant weren’t “frog experts”, but showed their vulnerabilities as learners with the students. Through the process, the students linked their learning to several strands of science, literacy, mathematics and more. “In any one STEM lesson, we had students taking on building, blogging, and photographing roles to document it for the school newsletter, for example,” she says. What worked well was Luna and Talarico senior had the principal’s approval to spend two hours a week planning their STEM lessons. Now, problem-based learning happens throughout the school with the frog bog part of the STEM program for all year levels. Luna was keen not to silo STEM skills, but collaborate with other teachers to encourage more hands-on scientific learning in generalist classes, highlighting accessibility. “I am very conscious of being a teacher that doesn’t express a gender bias, to ensure male and female students will engage as much as each other. Kids can’t be what they can’t see, which is why it was important to get professionals and experts in to show what STEM career options are available,” Luna says.
The project segued from the school’s Walker Learning pedagogical approach in Foundation to Year 2. It highlights playbased learning, oral language, hands-on and sensory experiences. Meanwhile, Year 3-6 classes had just focused on project-based learning. Luna distinguishes the ‘frog bog’ problem-based learning as distinct from project-based learning. “The latter has a larger focus on the product at the end, whereas problem-based learning is more about the starting with a driving question, then the process. It involves collaboration, teamwork, and the design thinking cycle. Students go through empathising, defining, ideating, prototyping, testing, evaluating, so it’s more about the journey,” she says. That’s the theme for the frog bog – how, not when, the critters will eventually make their way into it. “There are still living creatures, dragonflies and water bugs in the bog, so it’s not just about the frogs; it’s about the ecosystem and increasing biodiversity. The bog learning process has changed students’ thinking about water usage and empowered them as advocates for the environment.”
“We got involved in the process of researching frogs, making the bog, seeing different creatures come and live in it. That’s what mattered and it was a success to us,” former Year 6 student Lilyana Talarico says.
February 2022
Professional Development DO YO U H AV E A STO RY ?
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Global star Mccrea gives effective PD insight to that, they might not remember [anything]. That can sometimes be a surprise. The more experience you get as a teacher, the more you understand some of the mechanics there around forgetting, for example, and you understand that you just have to be careful about some inferences you make about learning from immediate pupil performance.
BY SARAH DUGGAN BRITAIN’S Peps Mccrea deems teaching to be one of the most “fiendishly complex tasks ever devised”. The award-winning teacher, author of the wildly popular High Impact Teaching series and dean of learning design at Ambition Institute in the UK, speaks to Australian Teacher Magazine about the messy complexity of improving one’s practice and how effective PD can cut through the noise.
Hi Peps, you’ve said that teaching is one of the most difficult undertakings ever attempted, how so? I think there’s multiple aspects that make it really hard. The first is that a lot of work goes on in the classroom that is really quite invisible. We’re trying to change the cognitive architecture of other people’s minds without even seeing [that process]. So first of all, that’s really hard. And secondly, the only tools that we’ve kind of got to do this are language and visual communication, and we’re trying to do this with, like, 30 people, it could be even more... And the stuff we’re trying to teach is not easy – if you take a maths classroom, the ideas we’re trying to communicate, some of them took our species tens of thousands of years to figure out; Pythagoras is not something that everyone figures out naturally.
The ideas within the academic curriculum have been developed through centuries of accumulated endeavour, so what we’re trying to do is pretty challenging. The flipside to this is that it doesn’t necessarily look that hard, which I think is an interesting paradox. I think this is because nearly everyone has been in the classroom for quite a big part of their life and it’s kind of felt because you’re in a classroom when you’re young, and you don’t necessarily feel the complex decision making and information processing that the teacher has to do, you can build up this naive impression that it’s easy to teach. And often people have an experience of being able to teach a friend or colleague or maybe their kids, and they find that to be quite natural and easy. But that’s definitely
not the same as trying to teach a class of 30 kids, [run] through a curriculum... And then there’s ascertaining what students have actually understood and remembered… In my experience, what I find is that it’s just harder for teachers to be really confident about what their pupils know and don’t know over a longer period of time. Sometimes we can be surprised as teachers. We might spend a bit of time teaching [students] new stuff, multiplication of fractions, whatever it is, and you even do some end-of-lesson checking in on their understanding. And you’re really confident that ‘oh, these guys get it!’ But a couple of weeks later, or a few months later, when you return
You’ve talked about the relationship between teaching and learning being ‘invisible, noisy and delayed’. Can you outline this concept of the ‘low fidelity feedback loop’ and how it complicates things for teachers? So if I’m a teacher in a classroom and I try to make a change to my practice, to see whether it improves things or not … trying to figure out whether that change is a better way to do things and has positive impact longer-term, is really hard to do. Firstly, it’s really hard to measure – learning is really hard to measure robustly. I might be able to get at the end of the lesson a sense of if pupils got it or not, and a few weeks later whether they remember, but it’s really hard for me to compare whether it’s any better than previously. Because the size of the error in my assessment is bigger than the change that I most expect to see. Secondly, because learning is subject to forgetting … our brains are pretty aggressive in filtering and getting rid of the stuff that they don’t think is important to our survival success. What this means is we [can] only really figure out or say when pupils have learnt something if we test them on it, maybe six weeks later. Checking at the end of the lesson isn’t enough for us to be able to be confident that they really learned it and whether it’s going to last a long time. The third reason it’s tricky, is that there are just so many other factors in play in the classroom ... it might be that for whatever reason, that class was up late last night watching an American football match and they didn’t get to sleep as well. We know that quality of sleep affects [students’] ability to learn and remember. So, there’s thousands of other things that could impact the learning outcomes that they have, and it’s really hard to tease apart if a change in teaching has had any effect or if it’s something else.
You point out that effective PD could be one solution here, can you explain how? Effective PD really ... cuts some of these limitations in the feedback loop. As an example, if we look at some of the research that’s done in cognitive science, researchers have done studies that control a lot of the
“...good PD has to provide teachers with an opportunity to practise ... things...” variables that you can’t control in classrooms to isolate causes and other factors. Lots of people repeat the experiment multiple times and they can find out, for example, the more times that [students] encounter something … the less chance there is that they forget it over time. We’ve uncovered that our working memory can only think about a very few number of things at once … so these insights from research can provide teachers with more reliable principles to guide their practice than perhaps the stuff they discover by themselves in the classroom. What does ‘effective’ PD actually entail? I’m writing a book on this at the moment! Effective PD, in a nutshell, is PD that provides teachers with an understanding of the mechanics of teaching and learning – a little bit like what we’re talking about today, but also provides them with really clear, concrete strategies that they can use in the classroom, and an understanding of what those strategies look like. However, just providing that theory and practical insight isn’t enough, good PD also has to provide teachers with an opportunity to practise these things because we know that without practise we end up with this knowing-doing gap where nothing changes in their teacher practice. We have to go further than that, we have to help teachers to make that practise a habit … so helping them to embed that change. And then finally, the PD has to be motivating. It has to help teachers take ownership over their [development], because without that ... motivation, we tend to see much lower effects of professional development.
February 2022
Careers W RITE FO R U S
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Bathurst Island school’s literacy revolution Alicia Giles has helped students make huge gains in reading at Xavier Catholic College, particularly with her own program which includes decodable readers set on the Tiwi Islands and culturally appropriate phonic activities and resources.
BY G R ANT QUA RRY WHEN young fourth-year teacher Alicia Giles set forth from Bendigo two years ago to the Northern Territory with firefighter boyfriend, Toby, she could not have imagined how her remote teaching stint would unfold. Arriving at Xavier Catholic College on Bathurst Island north of Darwin, the young educator hoped to make a difference, but soon realised it was a world away from what she was used to. “Adjusting to the kids and what they needed was really hard at first, because obviously English is their second language and they live in a very different context to mainstream Australia, yet we’ve got an Australian curriculum that we try and mould around them and fit to them - and it really doesn’t fit them very well,” she says. “So trying to navigate how to teach them, how to sort out all the cultural rules and different things like that, everything was just so fullon at first. “But once I settled in, I loved every minute of it.” Giles found her students difficult to engage, and while they were ‘an absolute delight’, she soon understood how difficult it is for those on such an uneven playing field. “It’s really hard - the way that we measure learning is, we’re measuring them against the same scale as we’re measuring all the other kids across Australia, and it should be such a different scale,” she says.
“Essentially, when we do our reports, every single student, it doesn’t matter if they’re the best attended, or the lowest attended, they all have to get an E, because they’re all at least two years below the average national level. “They all have to do NAPLAN etc, it’s all just very heartbreaking. “The way that they learn and the things that they learn, and those things that are important to them, it’s just very different.” Giles says as an educator you try to merge a culture that’s based on oral language, with a culture that’s so grounded in written language, and a curriculum centred around written literacy, and so you end up with massive gaps. “… and then you end up with teachers who don’t have the skills or the capacity to necessarily fill those gaps,” she says. “I’m working in a high school, but my background has been a lot more in the early years – and luckily it’s worked really well because I know how to teach kids who don’t yet know how to read. “But you can get teachers coming in who have previously been VCE English teachers or high school English teachers or science teachers, it makes it really hard for them, because they don’t have necessarily the knowledge or the skill set of how to teach them literacy skills, or how to teach science or history with students who don’t have those literacy skills yet.” Initially employed as a maths teacher, at the end of last year, Giles
was approached by her principal, Andree Rice, to take on leadership of pedagogy at her school, due to a staff member’s accident and there simply being no-one else. Aware of the enormous challenge of the role – but also the rarity of such an opportunity for an early career teacher – she agreed to give it a shot. With the primary school having engaged the popular British ‘Read Write Inc.’ program in teaching synthetic systematic phonics, Giles understood the importance of following on with that program. “I started grappling with the idea that, ‘we’ve got high school students … and issues [and] we don’t want to have babies’ texts’... “So once I put together my thoughts, along with the need for including things like oral, or language, a lot of the time for our EALD learners, I just found myself drafting what a decodable reader could look like, and that was contextually relevant,” she says. “And that focused on … the science of reading synthetic phonics, on oral comprehension from that EALD perspective, and how I can put that together so that it was a printable reader.” Given the go ahead by her principal, during a road trip with Toby last summer Giles took her notebook and wrote down all of the sounds and what she felt was the most logical sequence, based on where she was, and if they had to fill in gaps with other resources. She wrote a decodable reader for
every sound, with her specificallydesigned program geared specifically to her students and culturally appropriate. “I was very blessed, the other English teachers got on board…” she says.
“We’ve actually had to shift our benchmarks ... they’re reading for the first time.” “We had a few issues and we had a bit of push-back, especially from our higher Year 7-9 kids, who thought we were taking them back to things that were a little bit too easy, but gradually during last year, by about Term 2, teachers and students were in a really good rhythm, and collecting good data every term to measure growth. “Our kids have grown exponentially, in both their sound knowledge, but also in their ability to read and comprehend - and for a lot of our kids, their engagement in reading has really improved, which is also so important,” she says. “… we’ve actually had to shift our benchmarks, they’re reading for the first time, and we’ve got a handful of maybe five kids who are fully reading and comprehending what they’re reading. “So now we’re having to look at what we can do next year to take them to the next step.”
Rice has been thrilled by the young educator’s willingness and ability to really step up to the plate. “Our students’ reading has improved dramatically, most students showing growth of two or three years in one year!” she says. “She’s done similar outstanding work in maths and has taught our teachers how to better teach maths, using hands-on activities and relevant Tiwi contexts to help students’ understanding.” Giles outstanding efforts saw her awarded last year with an Apple Award as part of the National Excellence in Teaching awards, and the Territory’s coveted Terry O’Connell Regional and Remote Teachers’ Award. Having decided with Toby to start a family in her home town, she is now back in Victoria, but her efforts will continue to benefit her Tiwi Islands kids. “I’ve spent the last probably month or so putting together a very comprehensive Google site with all kinds of instructional videos etc,” she says. “It’s homemade, but it’s definitely good to go, and I’m sure that while they’ll have their own little hiccups next year, they’ll roll with them.” While the world is clearly her oyster, Giles is in no hurry and intends to study a masters of education next year. “I’ve also got a few opportunities to pop back and forth from the territory with some literacy work with a few different schools... “So I’m just kind of sussing out a few different options and taking a year to resettle back in next year and see where things go.”
Careers
40 • Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022
AWA R D-WIN N IN G TU HU KAVA’ S PASSION IN SPIR ES
Big Hill gym building a positive culture Inoke Tuhukava’s passion for the holistic development of students and strong understanding of the connections between physical development, learning and emotional wellbeing have changed lives at his Turramurra school.
BY GRANT QUA R RY LIFE could never be described as dull for Turramurra High School teacher Inoke Tuhukava. The father of five young children variously worked in his 20s as a missionary for several years, in demolition and construction for a time, spent 14 years in the fitness industry, and eventually entered his 30s 10 years ago - as an educator. With a rich tapestry of life experience to draw on, his teaching career has been characterised and driven by a passion for the holistic development of students and a strong understanding of the connections between physical development, learning and emotional wellbeing. “My love has always been art, physical activity and youth,” he says. These days a classroom teacher and now a Year 7 advisor for 2022, Tuhukava mainly teaches HPE electives, including SLR (sport lifestyle recreation), PASS (physical activity and sport studies), and beyond HPE, PBL (project based learning) and a course called ‘my learning’, which looks at four C’s: ‘communication’, ‘collaboration’, ‘creativity’ and ‘critical thinking’. ‘… one of my philosophies is ‘people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care’. And from that I like to stem a lot of my work,” Tuhukava says. “So if we can build that relationship of trust with the student, then
behaviour management is at a minimum. “You don’t have to force anyone’s hand, you take the horse to water, and they’re happy to drink. I kind of run on that philosophy.” Tuhukava’s success at the school across a range of selfstyled and original projects saw him announced late last year as a recipient of a Minister’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. With a student cohort at Turramurra High of roughly 1200 students, of various socio-economic, religious and ethnic backgrounds, he says the school is a perfect match for his style of teaching and specialist areas. “The school, I would say, is very accepting and loving of difference I think that’s one of the most beautiful things about Turramurra High School, how they can get together and support each other.” Among a range of programs and initiatives driven by the much loved educator, his ‘Big Hill’ strength and conditioning program has brought him deserved acclaim (Turramurra means ‘big hill’ or ‘high place’ in the local Ku-ring-gai Turramurragal tongue). Originally a store-room, today the fully kitted, state-of-the-art gym set-up is a tribute to the many hours put in by students and staff across several years. All, including Tuhukava’s original head teacher, Glenn Gibbons, have given their time to construct
and maintain the gym, walls have been demolished, floating roofs strengthened and painted, flooring put down, excavation done, concreting and more, in the process of turning dead spaces into learning spaces. “So (back in 2014) I literally had 12 Year 10 students from Wednesday to Friday, just doing work around the gym,” he says. “We had kids doing mechan-
“I wanted to offer quality coaching and use my skills, and I felt the best way to do that was to build a gym.” ic work on the rowers, we did a heap of landscaping and that kind of stemmed from ‘Careers’, where they do a ‘giving back day’, but usually I tried turning that into ‘giving back week’, and just over the years a big group of kids, mainly from the Big Hill program, have helped out and given back.” Twice a week (on Tuesdays and Thursdays) students come to school before 7am to participate in group and individualised pro-
grams. The other days in the week it’s an open gym. With a great sense of camaraderie and a positive culture, students are comfortable to push their limits in a carefully controlled and monitored setting. “In Years 9 and 10 there’s a great interest in body image and personal awareness and individuals wanting to exercise. I just wanted to create an environment in which students could come in and use the school gym,” Tuhukava says. “And I wanted to offer quality coaching and use my skill set in my KLAs, and I felt the best way to do that was to build a gym.” Starting with seven participants in 2014, the before-school program these days has anywhere up to 30 individuals per group per class. “With a lot of the skills that they’ve learned, they can put those skills into practice, and they have some space to be curious in a supervised way, so they can explore and have fun and enjoy movement.” Another project of which Tuhukava is very proud of is ‘School to Work’, which he’s established with the help of careers advisor Andrew Harrison. “A lot of students that sit in Year 11 and 12, and potentially waste time, or just try to get through because maybe they, their parents feel they need to do 11 and 12 to be successful.” With multiple pathways to success in mind, the pair have been
able to utilise people that Tuhukava knows from his fitness career, but also now alumni, who run workshops and sessions on a range of areas to do with health, physical wellbeing, physical activity, and employment opportunities in those areas. “So from students that have done online sporting apps to personal trainers, to physiotherapists, strength conditioning trainers - we’ve had them come into the school and been able to use some funding to help the gym and also to help get the right people in to just encourage students to see that, ‘OK, if you’re more kinaesthetically inclined, or if you have an interest in health, and the health sector, if not the fitness world, then there’s all sorts of avenues that you can take’.” Regarding his Award for Excellence, Tuhukava, not surprisingly, isn’t keen to blow his own trumpet. While very thankful for the recognition, he feels he’s simply doing his job, something he loves. “I think there’s just so many great teachers out there doing great things … I really feel for all those teachers that haven’t been given that award, who’ve put in so much work over the years, maybe their whole career and just big recognition to all those teachers, because I know I’m not the be-all and endall and I’m far from the best teacher out there.”
CRT Corner
Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022 • 41
GOLDEN TIPS FOR THE STA RT OF YOU R YEA R
Prep for an extra spikey Term 1 maelstrom
BY MARGARET RYAN I’M not going to lie. While CRT teachers are in short supply fairly consistently across Australia, chances are any school role you take will see you swept into an extra spikey Term 1 maelstrom. Pardon the coronavirus pun. You may have even done your due diligence and weighed up a bevy of work offers. Despite that, work conditions are going to be less than perfect. Expect turmoil, even more trickier student behaviour to manage, plus socio-emotional issues to navigate in the classroom (and staff rooms). Here are three golden tips to steer through whatever schools throw at you. 1. Go with the flow Each school has its own systems, then layer on top of that the extra COVID-19 edicts from your respective education department. There’s a lot of moving parts and it’s far from well-oiled. Accept uncertainty and unfamiliarity. As well, your high expectations might need tweaking. For example, you may not get the full site induction or copy of the ori-
entation booklet when you arrive at a school or even bell times. You could have many more questions than staff available to answer them. You’ll need to figure out a lot on your own, if students don’t offer you helpful information. Winging it is a gamble because you’ll probably make mistakes and face flack. Acknowledge that “learning opportunity” by thanking school staff for their feedback and reminding them you’ll continue to do the best you can. And amidst this chaos, now might be the time to return to penning a reflective journal about each teaching day to help you debrief and gain perspective. Much like you did during your practicums. Remember to jot down your ‘ah ha’ moments, what worked/what didn’t in class and why, key ‘housekeeping’ information if you’ve just worked at a new school, and where you want to improve. Your journal chronicles your professional growth and development. They could, cough-cough, inspire you to write an op-ed column for Australian Teacher Magazine/ EducationHQ or form something you could combine into your own book one day.
2. I’ve got just the lesson plan for that This might seem an odd juxtaposition to the ‘winging it’ tip above, but hear me out. It’s about preparing as much as you can so you can be flexible enough to wing it.
“The theme ... is simplicity, preparation, reflection, time, and connection.” Be ready in case the substantive teacher hasn’t left you a lesson plan. Your teaching tool kit should include a range of props plus hard copy and e-copies of worksheets and lesson plans around literacy, numeracy, and technology for each stage. Expect some overlap. Even if you’re teaching high school, some students may need to revise stage 3 concepts. Similarly, if you’re in a primary school, have options for extension students – stage 4.
Aim to organise these worksheets by stage level and topic. Check your jurisdiction’s syllabus for an overview of the key concepts for each subject and aim to have an option for each. You can build this up over time. When you’re subbing in a school and they’ve set the class an engaging worksheet, ask if you can keep a copy for your toolkit. 3. Help where you can Research shows altruism goes a long way – helping or being kind to someone makes you happy. Consider that for a near-instant fix. So, rather than dwell on your own confusion, angst and how unrecognisable teaching as a profession has become to you, do a little distancing of your own. Step outside yourself to observe your co-workers – anyone look like they’re struggling? Your response could be as simple as offering to make them cuppa and quietly asking if they’d like your help with something. An alternative is doling out smiley stickers at whim to students – I offer stickers even for high schoolers. Those instant rewards can be so rare in their classrooms, that when a CRT teacher offers them, it’s a novelty
with a touch of nostalgia that helps build relationships. They may not all go for the smiley stickers, so it’s handy to offer choice. And speaking of ‘smiles’, move around your class and staffroom to test the power of your own. It’s a wordless way to connect with others and let them initiate the talking. Bonus tip: patience My favourite saying of the week is ‘Learn to sit back and observe. Not everything needs a reaction’. In teaching, it’s known as ‘wait time’. The NSW education department talks about two ‘wait time’ strategies teachers have up their sleeve. The first is your pause after you ask a student a question before they speak; the second sees you wait until a student (or students) has, (or have) stopped speaking out of turn before you talk. A fellow teacher told me she once had to wait five minutes for the latter to happen. It takes a lot of self-control not to puncture a cacophonous classroom with your own holler. The theme with these tips is simplicity, preparation, reflection, time, and connection. Build them into your daily practice for smoother navigating through the pandemic.
As a CRT it’s important to move around your class and staffroom with a smile on your dial. It’s a wordless way to connect with others and let them initiate the talking, if they need to.
Careers / Beginning Teachers 42 • Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022
AVOIDIN G THE PITFA LLS
Tips on becoming a fully registered teacher mit a portfolio with 37 pieces of evidence to match! Rather than focusing on standard by standard, identify where your good teaching practice has demonstrated you’ve met the descriptors. Actually eight to 10 pieces of quality evidence can be enough, says the QCT spokesperson. The QCT advises teachers to ensure that evidence be based on reflection, feedback, and come from a range of sources such as student learning and observation of your teaching. It should be drawn directly from your work and be annotated to reflect that you’ve achieved the standards by accounting for a range of descriptors. And one more – you need to show the impact of your teaching on student learning. “Teachers can demonstrate the descriptors through evidence including unit or lesson plans, assessment tasks, student work samples and classroom obser-
“Use evidence from your authentic practice, don’t create items simply for the process.” BY MA RGA RET RYA N AS a graduate entering the workforce, the clock immediately starts ticking towards your deadline to become a fully registered teacher. Miss that deadline and you may no longer be able to teach – it’s that important! Ask for extension, if you need it, ahead of time. Depending on the jurisdiction – state or territory – where you teach, it can take from up to four years as a full-time permanent educator, or five years if you’re doing casual, relief, or temporary (CRT) teaching. It sounds like loads of time, but ask around and you might be surprised how many teachers have frantically raced to meet that deadline. They may have been overwhelmed with the amount or quality of evidence to collect and, particularly for CRTs, find a school that agrees to supervise and sign off on their evidence and the process. But no need to panic, yet. These tips will help you become more dogged and strategic to achieve your goal. Oh, and learn your new label – PRT – that’s short for ‘Provisionally Registered Teacher’. First cab off the rank Your starting point is the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). It sets the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers in 37 descriptors across seven standards. You’ll need
to demonstrate the standards as a ‘proficient’ teacher to get over the line. AITSL’s website offers resources, but also check in with your jurisdiction’s registration authority and school leaders for guidance, advice and queries, as well. And make sure you’re using the most up-to-date guide, too! Registration authorities regularly run free seminars for beginning teachers. As a CRT educator,
“... it is important to take professional responsibility for your own career progression.” you might not be in the loop to know when these are on, so ask your school or your regulator. I had to lobby my NSW education directorate office as a CRT to be able to attend and not have to pay, but I hear around the traps this was unusual. The point of proficiency A spokeswoman for the Victorian Institute of Teachers (VIT) says the
two-year provisional registration period allows educators to “further develop their practical skills as well as demonstrate proficiency and good teaching practice within a supportive environment”. Like other jurisdictions, schools assign a mentor (or mentors) to help beginning teachers with this process. The Queensland College of Teachers (QCT) has this advice if there’s no established process in place at your school: “Contact your school reviewer to discuss how to proceed. Beginning teachers may find themselves in a broad range of contexts from full-time to supply work, to working in regional, remote or urban areas. Regardless of the context, it is important to take professional responsibility for your own career progression.” If a school stonewalls you about helping you with the process – it may be because the principal is too busy, about to retire, unfamiliar with the process, etc, or even thinks you’re not quite up to grade – consider moving on to another more receptive school that allows you to improve your skills. Your school needs to verify your evidence, so without their signature, your evidence can’t be submitted. It’s unlikely a principal will sign your evidence from other schools. And this is where it gets interesting.
Putting the cart before the horse A misconception among new teachers is that going through the process makes you proficient. In Queensland, for example, the provisional registration period is intended to include a development period for a teacher to become proficient through experience, guidance, mentoring and professional reflection. The application for full registration through a school recommendation report is only one component of the process. Another furphy is that you need to submit the evidence to the relevant teacher registration authority (TRA). It’s actually up to school reviewers to complete an assessment and then recommend to their local TRA that you’ve met the requirements. It’s this recommendation and assessment the PRT then sends in their application to the QCT. Do you need to tick every box? Two important standard descriptors you should ensure you cover in your evidence are 1.4 and 2.4, which encompass understanding, respecting and demonstrating strategies for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners. However, you should still demonstrate your teaching practice covers all 37 descriptors. But that doesn’t mean you’ll need to sub-
vations. Use evidence from your authentic practice, don’t create items simply for the process,” the QCT spokesperson said. And in Victoria, for instance, your inquiry question drives the fivephrase process, which hinges upon the learner at the heart. A matter of time VIT recommends new teachers allow about four-to-six-weeks to undergo the process of demonstrating proficiency. However, the NSW Education Standards Authority discouraged me from trying to complete the process in two terms, so it obviously prefers a longer period for collecting evidence. I’ve known teachers who’ve become fully registered within a year of teaching, but this isn’t the norm in all jurisdictions. If it is, think of it as an incentive to get going – you’ll earn more than a provisional teacher. In NSW, for example, you’ll need at least 160 full days of teaching as a provisional teacher to be able to apply for full registration, that is, with your folio of evidence. And, just in case you think you can relax once you achieve proficiency, not so fast. Teaching is about lifelong learning and that includes you, so expect to embed professional learning and development in your practice.
OVER
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Careers / Learning
44 • Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022
AU STR A LIA N -FIR ST COU R SE - HELP IS AT HA N D
New Graduate Certificate in Mental Health BY SARAH DUGGAN AS the research and anecdotal cries signal, we’re now rolling downhill from a ‘tipping point’ when it comes to the fraying state of teachers’ mental health. The statistics are indeed grim, Dr Debra Phillips from Australian Catholic University (ACU) says, and talent is being sucked from classrooms, as worn down and depressed educators withdraw from the job they once loved. The pandemic has only revved up the situation, the expert points out; teachers now face mounting expectations to care for students’ wellbeing as well as their academic learning. Add into the grisly mix fears over contracting the virus onsite, erratic shifts to online learning, escalating administrative workloads, plus the severing of social support networks
The ACU’s Dr Debra Phillips has developed this Australian-first postgraduate course to build educators’ ‘foundational knowledge’ behind the factors that impact upon their mental health and wellbeing over the different stages of their career.
thy, and it becomes that tipping point from depression into suicidality. “By reasserting the need for – and the benefits of having – good collegial professional relationships, you are not only strengthening your own mental health, but the mental health of your colleagues.” Teaching executives, school counsellors, youth justice workers and early childhood educators are expected to enrol alongside teachers. For school leaders, a dive into the mechanics of an effective school mental health policy and the social “structures” to establish on campus will be of great benefit, Phillips adds. “There are structures that build relationships through PD work, such as being able to have time in a timetable during the working day for teachers being able to discuss
“... a chunk of the course [looks at] how solid social connections can act as a robust buffer against burnout.”
“When the fire goes, the desire to do anything is no longer there because there is nothing left to give.”
and we’ve got a perfect storm on our hands, Phillips suggests. “What burnout is, especially for teachers, is work-induced depression. The World Health Organisation defines burnout as the imbalance between the demands of work and the knowledge and abilities of teachers, so you have this conflict happening here. “Burnout is the result and the demonstration of mental ill-health, because of the accumulation of overwhelming workplace stressors – [people] cannot give any more of their own selves.”
and plan… “It’s not about having this ‘carey-sharey’ disclosure around how dreadful the day has been – although that does happen.”
An Australian-first learning opportunity Enter ACU’s new offering, the Graduate Certificate in Mental Health for Teachers and Educators. Determined to respond to the ‘crisis’ at hand, Phillips developed the Australian-first postgraduate course to build educators’ ‘foundational knowledge’ behind the factors that impact upon their mental health and wellbeing over the different stages of their career. The fully online course will be available from this year. “There will be many teachers who wish to enrol in this who will have either experienced mental ill-health or have experienced burnout or are in that process, in a sense,” Phillips says. “So the (learning) units are developmental, they are sequential, they are written to ensure they reflect a teacher’s life and the possibility
“There will be many teachers who wish to enrol in this who will have either experienced mental illhealth or have experienced burnout or are in that process, in a sense,” Dr Phillips says.
that they can do some of the learning activities in their own time.” The power of collegial relationships It’s critical teachers can build and sustain positive collegial relationships, the expert says, and a chunk of the course is devoted to looking at how solid social connections can act as a robust buffer against burnout. “The most salient of preventatives for ill mental health is social networks, and when we look at what happens with teacher burnout, the thing that is eroded is that social network ... you have divorced yourself from your friends and colleagues because you no longer have the energy to engage. “That’s where there is a sense of isolation and abandonment, failure, the sense that you are not wor-
A ‘tipping’ point for teachers Brace yourself, here come the alarming statistics. “In 2019, there were more than 20 per cent of teachers surveyed (by Dr Peta Stapleton) who were clinically depressed,” Phillips says. “So with COVID, we have pushed that to a tipping point. The thing that is concerning – and this has also become part of the course – 17 per cent of those teachers who were part of the study screened positive for alcohol abuse.” This figure is around three times higher than that of the general population. “There’s a really big issue, and we do know that alcohol is one of those easy to access substances for selfmedication.” And in schools where burnout is rife, teachers’ creativity and innovation are extinguished. Students ultimately suffer too, Phillips says. “When the fire goes, the desire to do anything is no longer there because there is nothing left to give. You have lower staff morale in schools, and that feeds into the school climate… “Quality student outcomes are dependent on teachers’ robust mental health, and without it, student academic achievement can come undone.”
February 2022
LeadershipEd W RITE FO R U S
Do you have a leadership story to share? Email the editor via news@educationhq.com with your ideas.
Would you support a shorter working week? Researcher Jack Kellam says if the broader quest is to lift student achievement, we’re missing “really obvious and low hanging fruit” by not addressing the core issues driving the overwork predicament in schools.
BY SAR A H DUGGA N THERE’S a prevailing idea that lingers fretfully in many workplaces, despite mounting research that screams of its flawed logic: the more hours people work, the more productive and successful they are. According to Jack Kellam, a researcher with independent research company Autonomy UK, any culture which normalises overwork and burnout for its employees
“...we assume … hours devoted to a particular task equals more work done in that task. ” is ultimately campaigning against itself. Armed with statistics which speak to the ‘breaking point’ at which many teachers now find themselves – figures that mirror the situation here in Australia – Kellam and his team have been investigating how educators’ working hours can be curtailed.
They have a bold proposal for school leaders and policymakers that they want seriously considered: why not introduce a four-day week for teachers? “We know that like other public sector workers, teachers are actually often those most in need of a reduction in working time, even if sometimes [education is] presumed to be one of those difficult places to reduce it for various reasons,” Kellam tells Australian Teacher Magazine. Kellam says educators have shown “overwhelming support” for making the switch to a four-day week, with no reduction in pay. As Autonomy UK polling shows, almost three quarters of those surveyed gave it the (metaphorical) green tick, with many recognising the transformative effect shorter hours could have within the profession. He notes 61 per cent of teachers believed a four-day week would actually improve their teaching practice, while 69 per cent thought the change would make them more likely to remain in the job. The researcher says if the broader quest is to lift student achievement, we’re missing “really obvious and low hanging fruit” by not addressing the core issues driving the overwork predicament in schools.
“There’s a big work ethic, I think, ingrained in lots of our societies in which we assume … hours devoted to a particular task equals more work done in that task. We see that in a lot of work settings, what many call ‘presenteeism’ where people are there purely for the sake of being there and doing their job ...
often because they feel the need to be present in the workplace…” Kellam explains. Recently, the Grattan Institute – a public policy think tank – released a report for Australian school leaders which outlines practical steps they can take to reduce teacher workloads and allow staff to have more time to focus on ‘great teaching’. Recommendations include cancelling ‘unproductive’ meetings, limiting teachers’ extra-curricular and yard-duty responsibilities and ensuring teachers have access to a communal pool of high-quality resources that are shared across subjects and year levels. Kellam, however, says changing the structure of the school day to allow for a shorter working week would literally squash the breeding bureaucratic demands that bear down on teachers. He notes that one school, Forest Gate Community School in East London, has already made a move in this direction and switched to a four-and-a-half-day week. Only a small amount of instructional time in the classroom has been lost, he says, and the results have been tremendous. “…they saw some minor scepticism from some parents within the area before they moved to a shorter working week, but actually [now] it’s been incredibly supported by parents, local community and other stakeholders in the area – they’ve seen the beneficial effects…”
Kellam says now a bigger conversation really needs to take place around teacher status and how education fits in with our lives. “Anecdotally, having talked to teacher friends … even though they feel they would get benefit from a shorter working week, they are worried about how it would be perceived publicly. “For me, having grown up around overworked teachers, I’m really directly aware of how much work goes in...” Public judgement shouldn’t be a reason for school leaders not to try the solution on for size though, he adds. In short, a four-day work week is an ethical response to an issue we shouldn’t be accepting as the status quo, Kellam says. “…just from a sheer human side, it’s having a real significant toll on their mental and physical wellbeing and that’s something we should really care about and not tolerate.” If this policy were to take off, he says, it would rely on educators themselves driving the reform – there would be many practicalities to wade through. “I think we’re aware that often teaching suffers from people from the outside, presuming they know best about how to arrange the specifics of education and so on,” Kellam reflects. “We’d like any changes to be made by and for teachers themselves, rather than imposed.”
Teachers’ take on a four-day working week
75%
61%
69%
support the policy
think it would improve their practice
would be less likely to quit
LeadershipEd
46 • Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022
N U RTU R IN G MEA N IN GFU L COMMU N ICATION
Creatively two-way linking with CALD parents BY MA RGA RET RYA N HOW does school leadership help bridge the gap between teachers and the parents of students from a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) community? Oakey State High School, about a half hour’s drive north-west of Toowoomba in Queensland, has about six per cent Portuguesespeaking Brazilian students, as well as Filipinos and Indigenous backgrounds among its student cohort – and its story is one worth noting. “While the town of Oakey has a population of 4000, the school should be called Oakey District because nine buses bring students here and some travel over an hour in those buses,” principal Danny Keenan says of the regional school. Oakey High has tapped into the communities’ stories for classroom learning, employed a local Brazilian-Australian as a youth worker cultural broker, and a clincher was a school leadership
“Hardly a week went by when staff said they couldn’t get onto the parents, who put in hard, long days...” meeting with students’ parents at the latter’s workplace. Meaningful two-way communication with parents is now the go. Student attendance across the school hovers at 89 per cent, but the English as a second language students achieve 94 per cent, which Keenan says beats the state average. The latest school community opinion survey ranked Oakey at almost 92 per cent, which also exceeds the state average for public schools. Connecting with students’ families It’s been quite a journey for Keenan since he arrived at the school in 2016. At that time there were just 450 students under his charge. “Hardly a week went by when staff said they couldn’t get onto the parents, who start work early and put in hard long days. If there was a full-on emergency, management would do their best to get a message to people on the line, though.” It meant teachers felt they “weren’t doing all that they could for the CALD students”. Those parents weren’t engaging with the school in other ways either, such as through the English-language school newsletter. So, the school began a concerted effort with its ‘EALD project’, part-
nering with one of the local meatworks, Oakey Beef. “One of our staff members knew a manager at Oakey Beef, so they put us onto his management. It took a couple of months to work out when we’d meet with the parents there, but I was adamant it had to be in their work time.” This was in 2019, pre-COVID, but due to health and safety rules, Keenan and school leadership had to don “hairnets, blue scrubs, masks and shoe protectors” to meet about seven parents at their workplace. More conversations followed. “Soon after, teachers felt better empowered to meet the needs of their EALD students and communication is now far more two-way with parents. Teachers are more aware of the complexities of having EALD students in their class and the range of strategies to use. They were getting affirmation that the approaches we had been putting in place were productive and tallied with the evidence-based research.” Tapping into ‘home stories’ The evidence-based strategies also prompted the school to embrace ‘home stories’ and link them to the history, civics and geography curricula. This came to life once teachers asked students, ‘what would make
you feel more part of the class?’ “It’s just as important for EALD kids to share their stories about life in Brazil, the Pacific nations, the Philippines, as it is ATSI stories. Teachers draw on that, but understand not to dig too deep if a student isn’t keen to share stories, because there may be trauma involved,” Keenan says.
“Teachers are more aware of the complexities of having EALD students in their class...” Dealing with the language barrier Oakey has an ICSEA of less than 1000, so is entitled to a fractional youth support co-ordinator, but Keenan allocated extra funds to make it a full-time role. They’ve hired a former student, Fernando Fermino, who spoke no English when he arrived in Australia at age 17 and graduated from the school in 2017.
“He worked at the abattoir, got a Certificate IV as a personal trainer, tried that in Brisbane and Ipswich, but came back to Oakey. He is the right person. Fernando really bridges any gap between the community and us. He knows the vibe of the community and is a local. He’ll also sit in on planning reviews for Grade 10 and 11 students to help talk about their pathways to work and careers,” Keenan explains. “Much of our success would not be possible without his cultural brokerage skills. Having him on board legitimised to our school community that we wanted to work with them and we value them.” The principal says he consults with him “about a whole bunch of stuff – Fernando is a leader in this school”. Oakey High translates some parts and editions of its newsletters throughout the year, but this isn’t a simple ‘tick the box’ task. “Some people who speak English as a second language can get a bit protective around their language level. They may have a perception they speak and read really well, and there’s a big continuum of ability. Fernando guides us because we don’t want to be patronising,” Keenan says. The school leader says there’s a misguided perception in the wider region that his school doesn’t pro-
duce academic results. That’s despite about a fifth of Oakey’s students going directly onto tertiary education and students at the school having won best schoolbased state trainee/apprentice twice. The school’s other success, an EALD project, has offered a big learning experience. “It reinforced what a privilege it is to have diverse cultural backgrounds at our school. It’s fantastic. The more we hear their stories, the better. “The challenge is to keep the spirit alive because there’s so many different foci for schools. We have to be consistent and ensure the EALD project isn’t a flash in the pan. We embed it in our ways of working and implementing our goal that every student at Oakey has a chance to be a surgeon, a great planner, work in the cattle industry, etc.” To other schools with EALD student cohorts, Keenan says the biggest mistake is not valuing them. “Pretending such groups don’t exist is a risk. It can be scary to bridge the gap, but there’s lots of professional help on board.”
There’s more to this story online
edhq.co/3ucEbTv
Careers / Leadership Australian Teacher Magazine • February 2022 • 47
DEB B IE MA RTEN S
Top ACT principal always up for a challenge best staff in the world, I think here - really positive people who were prepared to go from what was a pretty dire situation in 2019, to now build it into a really, really positive place to work. “We were having parents coming on a daily basis and abusing us and really, really angry and upset. And now they’re coming telling us what a great school it is and how happy their kids are…” Martens’ efforts, particularly during these difficult two Covid years, saw her honoured late last year as the 2021 ACT Public Schools School Leader of the Year, “for approaching every role in her career with passion, fairness, honesty, and a fantastic sense of humour”. It was a wonderful achievement and all the more meritorious
Martens has been honoured as the 2021 ACT Public Schools School Leader of the Year.
BY G R ANT QUA RRY ‘TROUBLESHOOTER’ is not a term ACT principal Debbie Martens would use to describe herself, but in the last decade it would, somewhat clumsily, probably most accurately sum her up. Across a distinguished 19-year career that has variously included teaching, mentoring early career principals, partaking in numerous principal advisory groups and taking a particular interest in literacy, Martens has forged a formidable reputation for turning disadvantaged and downtrodden schools into sparkling success stories. Bringing a bubbly, encouraging and empowering vibe with her wherever she has worked, her contagious positivity and warmth have been a big part of the success wherever she has applied her energies. Canberra born and bred, after leaving uni, Martens worked across primary schools in Richardson, Rivett, Majura, Calwell, spent a period as a Literacy Field Officer in the ACT Education Directorate for a year, and later a two-year stint in the You Can Read program at the University of Canberra. She loved the program, where parents would bring in their children, who’d “experienced failure after failure trying to read and not making progress”, and they’d work together - as a team - to build strategies to help them learn to read. Keen to get back into primary schools, she proceeded to land a deputy principal role at Charnwood-Dunlop School, where
six months after her arrival, her principal announced she was retiring – leaving Martens in the hot seat. In a low socio-economic area, with a range of complex behaviour issues and high percentage of refugee students, the small, 300-student school provided a huge challenge for the young leader. “Early days in my time there, a lot of teachers were not actually focused on the academic side of students, because they felt like ‘we just need to look after them, care for them and love them’,” she says. “And I said, ‘Yes, we need to do that. But actually, the best way to help children is to give them a really good start to life academically and make sure that they have those runs on the board as well... “So it was definitely a two pronged approach, and I actively sought out a deputy who was very strong in social emotional learnings. “He basically ran the PBL program and the wellbeing side of things, and I ran the academic vision of the school, and it worked beautifully...” The school’s major issue was racism. It was addressed mainly through cultural diversity programs and lessons - for everybody – and across eight years, Martens integrated a range of programs and initiatives, which gradually, methodically turned the school around. “…it was a very challenging school, the one that is in my heart forever because when you are at challenging schools like that, and you do feel like you’re making a dif-
ference, it’s really, really rewarding,” she says. In late 2019, the Deputy Director General of ACT’s department, mindful of Martens’ success and passion approached her to consider taking on the leadership of Theodore Primary, another low socio-economic school of similar size to Charnwood-Dunlop, and equally in desperate need of stability, vision and strength. “The media got hold of the school because a few parents went to them to say there was a huge bullying issue at the school, and it wasn’t being addressed. “So it was in a bit of a crisis when I came here, and I was asked to come and help out because of my reputa-
tion at Charnwood...” Martens’ biggest challenge was clearly getting a disillusioned school community back on board. A strong group of very vocal parents had lost faith somehow in education, “rightly or wrongly”, and there was a need to re-establish their trust in the school. “Pretty much anyone in the community now will say what a great school this is and how happy their children are,” she says proudly. Martens credits her staff for much of Theodore’s re-emergence. “It happens with a lot of hard work, and particularly with building relationships,” she says. “The teachers have done that brilliantly. I’m just so lucky to have the
“We have a good laugh - and I think that helps break down those barriers of that tiered approach... ” given the quality of the outstanding shortlist of 17 other leaders she outpointed for the award. She says a distributive approach to leadership is a key to any success she has had. “I’m not the top of the tree, I think we all have our strengths. “I definitely am quite visionary in what I want to happen and how to achieve it, but I use the strengths within my team to say, ‘Oh, well you’re really good at this, so why don’t you lead that, and you’re really good at this to lead that.’” Another of her strengths, she says, is a sense of humour and allowing school to be fun for her staff. “We have a good laugh - and I think that helps breaks down those barriers of that tiered approach and the leader sitting at the top,” she says. “I think if you have a sense of humour, and want to have a laugh with the staff, they feel more comfortable.” And while Martens says she is humbled and grateful for such prestigious award recognition, she just is not one for the spotlight. “To be honest, I don’t really necessarily need public acclamations,” she says. “For me, what was more important was that it was my leadership team, (deputy principal) Nathan (Pepper) and the leadership team here, that nominated me. “For me, that actually means more than the winning of the award - because I feel as though my staff value who I am and what I’m doing.”
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