australianeducator_autumn2024_7aee0639b1908e

Capital works // End the capital funding divide

Inspired to teach // Introducing four new educators

Truth telling // A critical role for schools

Micro innovation // Teacher-led innovation is vital

WORLD PROBLEMS

06 NEWS IN BRIEF

• 2024 Arthur Hamilton Award winner

• Supporting colleagues in Gaza

• Peace is union business

• Record frog counting through citizen science

• Learnings from the National Archives of Australia 08 FUNDING OVERVIEW

Landmark agreements in both WA and the NT will make life-changing improvements to public schools. 10 CAMPAIGN: CAPITAL WORKS

The federal government needs to step in to provide capital works funding to public schools.

14

TRUTH TELLING

Schools have an important role to play in telling the stories and histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

18 DISABILITY

An increase in children with complex needs and disability has not been matched by government funding. 22

FIRST NATIONS TEACHERS

The Albanese government's plan to increase First Nations teachers needs to tackle endemic racism.

26

NEW EDUCATORS

We follow four teachers throughout their teaching journey in 2024 .

WORLD VIEW

When teachers are given the time and support to innovate, students thrive. 35 TOOLKIT

A trans-led Australian organisation is fighting for justice and equality for trans and gender diverse people.

REGULARS

04 From the president

05 Know your union 38 Recess

Back to school

With the school year in full swing across the nation, it’s time to ask the question for teachers and students: do we have a schooling system that can meet all their needs?

The 2024 school year began with Western Australia committing to be the first state to fully fund public schools by 2026. It’s a great first step, but the reality is that it’s not a genuine commitment to 100 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS). WA schools will remain underfunded by four per cent unless the government removes the inclusion of costs not directly related to educating students, such as capital depreciation, transport and regulatory costs.

In March, the Northern Territory and federal governments announced their commitment to full funding of public schools in the NT with $1 billion investment to be delivered by 2029. The current funding situation is shameful. NT public schools receive the lowest proportion of SRS funding despite having the highest levels of student need. This investment is urgently needed and will be lifechanging for students and the teaching profession. However, as with WA, this commitment does not address the four per cent depreciation. Without fully funded public schools, how can we meet students' needs?

This too is echoed by the expert panel convened by education ministers, which reported in December that while schools deliver a great education for many students, there isn’t a level playing field that allows every child to succeed.

Too much depends on your background, where you live and what your parents earn. Children from lower socio-educational backgrounds are six times more likely to lack the support they need in secondary school.

On top of that, there has been a worrying decline in student wellbeing and mental health, affecting as many as one in five children.

The reliance on the extraordinary efforts of principals, teachers and support staff is unsustainable. Excessive workloads and uncompetitive salaries are also driving teachers from the profession, leading to shortages in nine out of 10 schools. Public schools in lower socioeconomic communities in NSW had more than double the vacancies of schools in higher socioeconomic communities last year and there were almost 10,000 lessons a day without a designated teacher. The expert panel was unequivocal in concluding that addressing these challenges starts with addressing the inequity in school funding. They said it was “urgent and critical” that all public schools were funded to the SRS that governments established over a decade ago.

Prime minister Anthony Albanese promised in opposition that he would work with the states and territories to fund all public schools at 100 per cent of the SRS.

Australian Education Union Federal Office, PO Box 1158 South Melbourne Victoria 3205

Tel: (03) 9693 1800

Fax: (03) 9693 1805

Email: aeu@aeufederal.org.au facebook.com/AEUfederal @AEUfederal

Editor Kevin Bates

Publisher Fiona Hardie

Account manager Christine Dixon

Managing editor Georgia Lejeune

Commissioning editor Tracey Evans

Subeditor Leanne Tolra

Design Dallas Budde & Natalie Lachina

The reliance on the extraordinary efforts of principals, teachers and support staff is unsustainable. Excessive workloads and uncompetitive salaries are also driving teachers from the profession, leading to shortages in nine out of 10 schools.

Know your union

With a federal office and branches or associated bodies in every state and territory, the AEU represents more than 195,000 members industrially and professionally.

AEU FEDERAL

120 Clarendon St, Southbank, VIC, 3006

Phone: +61 3 9693 1800

Email: aeu@aeufederal.org.au

Web: aeufederal.org.au

AEU ACT BRANCH

Branch president

Angela Burroughs

Branch secretary

Patrick Judge

40 Brisbane Avenue

Barton 2600

The opportunity to fix this exists now. The future funding of every public school will be determined by governments in new agreements this year. This is why the For Every Child campaign is so critical.

Full funding of public schools will have life-changing benefits. It will mean more individual support and small group tutoring for children who start school behind, or fall behind. Teachers will have more help to deal with the diverse and increasing complex needs of students and their escalating workloads.

Making workloads more manageable is an essential part of stopping the shortages and securing the teachers we need for the future.

In lower socio-educational regions, schools could provide more intensive support for students and more opportunities to learn. They could also address the barriers that stop children learning through integrated health and social supports such as speech therapy, counselling and nursing.

The prime minister says the guiding principle of his government is that no-one is left behind or held back. Now is his chance to make that real for our children.

Correna Haythorpe AEU federal president

Advertising manager

Kerri Spillane

Tel: (03) 8520 6444

Email: kerrispillane@ hardiegrant.com

Phone: 02 6272 7900

Email: aeuact@aeuact.org.au

Web: aeuact.org.au

AEU SA BRANCH

Branch president

Jennie-Marie Gorman

Branch secretary

Matthew Cherry

163 Greenhill Road Parkside 5063

Phone: 08 8172 6300

Email: aeusa@aeusa.asn.au

Web: aeusa.asn.au

AEU VIC BRANCH

Branch president

Meredith Peace

Branch secretary

Erin Aulich

126 Trenerry Crescent

Abbotsford 3067

Phone: 03 9417 2822

Email: melbourne@aeuvic.asn.au

Web: aeuvic.asn.au

NEW SOUTH WALES TEACHERS FEDERATION

President

Henry Rajendra

General secretary

Maxine Sharkey

23-33 Mary Street

Surry Hills 2010

Phone: 02 9217 2100

Email: mail@nswtf.org.au

Web: nswtf.org.au

Federal president

Correna Haythorpe

Federal secretary

Kevin Bates

AEU NT BRANCH

Branch president

Michelle Ayres

Branch secretary

Rachael Metcalfe

3/8 Totem Road

Coconut Grove 0811

Phone: 08 8948 5399

Email: admin@aeunt.org.au

Web: aeunt.org.au

AEU TAS BRANCH

Branch president

David Genford

Branch state manager

Brian Wightman

1/32 Patrick Street

Hobart 7000

Phone: 03 6234 9500

Email: support@aeutas.org.au

Web: aeutas.org.au

QUEENSLAND

TEACHERS’ UNION

President

Cresta Richardson

General secretary

Kate Ruttiman

21 Graham Street

Milton 4064

Phone: 07 3512 9000

Email: qtu@qtu.asn.au

Web: qtu.asn.au

STATE SCHOOL

TEACHERS UNION OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA

President

Matthew Jarman

General secretary

Mary Franklyn

1 West Street West Perth 6005

Phone: 08 9210 6000

Email: contact@sstuwa.org.au

Web: sstuwa.org.au

News in brief

2024 Arthur Hamilton Award

Eidsvold State School in Queensland has received the 2024 Arthur Hamilton Award. The award recognises the school’s commitment to quality education and its Wakka Wakka language revival program.

Arthur Hamilton was a Palawa man, educator and union activist who advocated for Aboriginal students and Torres Strait Islander students to be given access to high-quality public education. The annual award recognises his contribution by celebrating the success of educators who have followed in his footsteps.

Supporting colleagues in Gaza

Education International (EI), the global federation of teacher unions, has launched a call for solidarity in support of Palestinian teachers and their unions in Gaza and the West Bank.

“Due to the Hamas-Israel war, the people of Gaza are facing disastrous living conditions and lack the basic necessities: shelter, food, water, fuel, electricity, sanitation and health. Education facilities remain closed, denying more than 625,000 students access to education,” EI says.

“Loss of human life in both Israel and Gaza has left education communities and the whole world in shock.

EI immediately expressed our global solidarity with our members organisations in Israel and Palestine.”

EI member organisations in the West Bank have mobilised networks through the UN agencies UNRWA and UNICEF to meet the most urgent needs of teachers and students, including the distribution of blankets and food items, as well as books and toys for children.

EI, the General Union of Palestinian Teachers (GUPT) and the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Education have organised training sessions for

Science resources for schools

The CSIRO is working with schools and teachers to inspire the next generation of STEM professionals.

Noting that many teachers find themselves teaching out-of-field in STEM subjects, the CSIRO says it can help with free and curriculum-aligned education resources. It also provides a professional learning program for teachers. tinyurl.com/mrypzumu

Palestinian teachers to equip them with the skills to provide vital emotional support to students traumatised by ongoing war and mass displacement.

Thousands of students and more than 245 teachers have been killed in Gaza and almost 250 schools have been destroyed. In the West Bank, schools have been attacked and are unusable. Almost all learning is now online.

Teachers in both Gaza and the West Bank have not been paid for the last five months, yet continue to help their students despite the horrific conditions and constant threat of attack.

EI continues to advocate for an end to the war between Israel and Hamas, the release of all hostages, and an end to indiscriminate violence. EI also reiterates its call for an immediate United Nations enforced and guaranteed ceasefire, the establishment of humanitarian corridors to prevent further humanitarian catastrophe and loss of civilians and genuine efforts towards sustainable peace.

Read more and contribute to support your colleagues at tinyurl.com/yuav3ucf

Learning from the archives

The National Archives of Australia (NAA) has developed new online resources for teachers to put archival records into classrooms. Each resource features a video and curriculumaligned activities on subjects including history, science, visual art, civics and citizenship. The resources add to others for students and teachers, including teacher professional learning, a student research portal, and virtual excursions. naa.gov.au/students-and-teachers

Pictured: AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe presents Eidsvold’s acting principal Ange Graham and Wakka Wakka man Corey Appo, a culture and language teacher, with the Arthur Hamilton Award at the AEU federal conference.

Peace is union business

The AEU welcomed international guests to share their stories at the Federal Conference in February. Special guests included leaders of our sister unions in the Ukraine and Palestine.

Olha Chabaniuk, vice president and Kateryna Maliuta-Osaulova, international

secretary of TUESWU Ukraine and Saed Erzikat general secretary GUPT Palestine spoke about the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crises in their countries. For teachers and students on the ground, not only is their personal safety and security at risk but their access to education has been severely limited, with hundreds of schools destroyed. In visiting Federal Parliament after the conference, they met with members of parliament and raised the urgency of providing international support, calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to their respective wars.

The AEU condemns all acts of war and the impact that ongoing wars have on the teaching profession, students, their families and public education.

One giant leap for science

A national effort led by the Australian Museum to count and record frogs has just reached a new milestone – one million validated records.

Dr Jodi Rowley, the FrogID lead scientist, says the project began seven years ago and has provided a wealth of data on rare and threatened frog species. It has also documented the decline of native frog species and detecting invasive species. Citizen scientists contribute data through a mobile app, available to anyone.

“It is inspiring and encouraging to see such interest in our precious frogs,” Rowley says.

The FrogID platform provides teachers with classroom resources linked to the national curriculum, including the profiles of 249 native species, descriptions, pictures, an example of their call and their calling period, locations and their conservation status. The platform also illustrates how to build a frog pond and frog habitats. Schools, communities, and environmental groups can also participate in a leader board competition for prizes and recognition.

The one millionth frog record was of a Spalding’s Rocket frog near Cloncurry in Queensland. frogid.net.au

Spalding’s Rocket frog, one millionth frog

Pictured: The AEU welcomed guests of sister unions in the Ukraine and Palestine.

Life-changing funding deal signed

Momentum is building for significant improvements in public school funding after agreements were reached in two jurisdictions, including a significant deal for the Northern Territory.

IN SHORT

The federal government will spend an extra $737 million on Northern Territory public schools, doubling its contribution to 40 per cent of the benchmark Schooling Resource Standard (SRS). The NT government will fund the remaining 60 per cent under the National Schools Reform Agreement.

The deal between the Commonwealth and the NT government came hot on the heels of an agreement signed between the federal and WA governments to achieve fully funded public schools by 2026.

AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe welcomed both agreements saying they effectively reversed Coalition government policy, which left school systems in the dark, starved of resources.

“The NT agreement is particularly significant because of the shameful state of schooling in an area with the country’s most complex challenges. This agreement is life-changing for NT public schools,” she says.

However, Haythorpe cautioned that the federal government must ensure

that the funding agreements were not artificially inflated by four per cent through the inclusion of costs not directly related to students’ education such as capital depreciation, transport and regulatory costs.

“That four per cent of the SRS was worth $230 million for WA in 2023 and that money still needs to be delivered to WA public schools before schools are truly funded at 100 per cent of the SRS,” she says.

The pressure is now on for the remaining five states to complete negotiations for their funding arrangements with the Commonwealth.

“We need the Albanese government to work on a joint solution with the states to ensure full funding for public schools so that teachers have the resources to do their jobs and students reap the benefits,” says Haythorpe.

Federal education minister Jason

Clare told delegates at the AEU Federal Conference in February that he would work with every state and territory to make sure that all public schools reached 100 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard.

The SRS is an estimate of the minimum funding a school needs to meet its students' educational needs. Based on recommendations made by the 2011 Gonski review of school funding, the SRS amount includes a base amount and up to six needs-based loadings.

Only 1.3 per cent of public schools receive the SRS amount they are entitled to, compared with 98 per cent of private schools.

A review of school funding by the Productivity Commission found that funding for private schools has increased by almost twice as much as public schools. In the nine years prior to 2021-22,

The horrible truth is how much your parents earn matters. So does where you live. So does the colour of your skin.

// A landmark agreement will see the federal government double the funding for NT public schools.

// WA has also signed a deal with the Commonwealth to fully fund schools by 2026.

// Only 1.3 per cent of schools receive the funding they are entitled to.

Jason Clare Education minister

private school funding rose by 37 per cent, compared with an increase of 20.2 per cent for public schools.

The expert panel, appointed by minister Clare to inform a better and fairer education system, called for urgent action to achieve equity in school funding.

In its final report, Improving outcomes for all, the panel says the evidence shows that Australia’s schools perform well by world standards.

“However, the panel found that the uneven playing field and funding shortfalls the Gonski reviews sought to correct persist, and need to be addressed,” the report says.

“The call-to-action around reaching full funding for government schools –across all jurisdictions – is all the more urgent because of the full funding arrangements that already exist in the non-government sector,” it says.

The panel’s school visits were an “eye-opener”, revealing the effects of the lack of funding, says Finnish education expert and University of Melbourne professor Pasi Sahlberg, a member of the panel.

“It's very obvious when there's a shortage of specialists in the schools where they're needed the most to work with students with additional needs,” he says.

Workload was another sign of funding shortfalls.

“Teachers’ workloads are unbearable and preventing them from focussing on things that would make a difference when it comes to supporting their students,” says Sahlberg.

The workload issues and lack of resources were particularly noticeable in remote and rural areas, he says.

Only 1.3 per cent of public schools receive the SRS amount they are entitled to compared with 98 per cent of private schools.

Funding snapshot

Five states are yet to sign agreements with the Commonwealth to provide school funding for the next five years.

NT public schools will get an extra $737m in federal funding in a landmark agreement

likely to go on to TAFE or university. The same is true if you grow up in the bush or if you’re Indigenous,” he told the conference.

The expert panel reported that Australian schools have some of the highest levels of social segregation among OECD countries, and it’s a trend that’s worsening.

Haythorpe says that students from advantaged backgrounds are increasingly clustered together in over-resourced private schools while students from disadvantaged backgrounds are increasingly clustered together in under-resourced public schools.

WA’s funding deal with the federal government ensures public schools will be fully funded by 2026.

Concerns remain that the deals may be artificially inflated by 4%, thanks to a Morrison era loophole.

“The compounding effects of disadvantage are exacerbated by acute teacher shortages, under-funding, and declining student and teacher wellbeing,” she says.

The ACTU has called on prime minister Albanese to commit to full funding for all Australian public schools, saying the move would be a nationbuilding investment that would improve children’s education and deliver longterm social and economic benefits that outweighed the cost.

Clare says Australia has the best education system in the world “just not for everyone”.

“The horrible truth is how much your parents earn matters. So does where you live. So does the colour of your skin.

“If you're a child from a poor family, the fact is, you're less likely to go to a childcare, you're more likely to fall behind in primary school, you're more likely to not finish high school and you're less

Sahlberg says that funding public schools at their correct levels would provide the opportunity for innovation, making schools more “interesting, curious, engaging and inclusive places” for students.

For Jason Clare, fortnightly meetings with state education ministers continue as details of the bilateral agreements are discussed.

“This is a big year,” he says. “This is a year where we can really make our education system better and fairer, for every child.”

Jason Clare Education minister

Ending the capital funding divide

New research reveals some private schools are spending more on facilities than entire public school systems.

Elite boys-only Sydney school Cranbrook spent more on capital works in 2021 than 2,549 public schools combined. Together, the public schools educate 472,169 students. Cranbrook has 1599 students.

It’s just one of many jaw-dropping examples of the $30 billion gap between private and public school funding detailed in the AEU’s research report: Ending the capital funding divide in Australia’s schools

Public school buildings and facilities have been slowly deteriorating since the Turnbull government ended federal capital funding for public schools in 2017. At the same time, it increased funding for private schools.

The $1.9 billion Capital Grants Program for private schools was designed to “assist non-government primary and secondary school communities to improve capital infrastructure where they otherwise may not have access to sufficient capital resources”. But at least $42 million has gone to schools in the top 15 per cent of socio-economic status, including two of the richest in the country.

Loreto Normanhurst in New South Wales has annual school fees of more than $31,000 per student and an annual income of $50.6 million per year, but it received a capital works grant of $250,000. Newington College in NSW picked up a $150,000 capital works handout despite its $42,000 school fees, annual income of $79.3 million and assets of more than $265 million.

The disparity in funding perpetuates systemic inequities, widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots and deprives students of the quality education they deserve, says AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe.

The Albanese government’s $216 million grant for public school capital works projects was a welcome first step towards rectifying the fallout from the disastrous Turnbull decision, says Haythorpe.

“But let’s be clear, it’s only for one year and it’s not enough.”

The federal government must provide permanent capital works funding for public schools. “Private schools will get almost $1 billion in capital funding from the commonwealth in the next four years. Public schools will get nothing after this year unless the prime minister steps in,” Haythorpe says.

The best way to address the “staggering capital funding divide” is by adding capital funding to the bilateral agreements

Only

1.3 per cent of public schools are fully funded compared to 98 per cent of private schools and that inequity in recurrent funding is contributing to an unacceptable $30 billion divide in spending on new and upgraded schools.

Correna Haythorpe AEU federal president

between the federal government and each state and territory for recurrent school funding, says Haythorpe. These five-year agreements are being negotiated this year.

“Only 1.3 per cent of public schools are fully funded, compared to 98 per cent of private schools, and that inequity in recurrent funding is contributing to an unacceptable $30 billion divide in spending on new and upgraded schools.”

Private schools are receiving so much money in school fees and bonus government funding that they can afford to divert the funds they receive from the federal government for recurrent spending to ever more lavish facilities.

In addition to the consistently generous capital funding private schools receive, they also receive hundreds of millions of dollars a year, above their recurrent funding levels, based on the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS).

In 2023, private schools received $806

Principals on the classrooms they need

million more from the federal government than what the SRS dictated they should receive, and from 2023 to 2028 they will receive $2.4 billion more than their SRS recurrent funding entitlement, the AEU report says.

Recurrent overfunding of private schools allows them to transfer substantial amounts from the total pool of income towards capital projects.

CHANGING NEEDS

Apart from the historical shortfall in funds for school buildings and facilities and the

Source: AEU State of our Schools survey 2023

Essendon Keilor College

Building a fairer system

The AEU recommends the Commonwealth take the following urgent steps:

1

Provide a significant and immediate injection of capital investment of $1.25 billion to public schools, to equal commonwealth capital investment in private schools since 2017 and in recognition and partial rectification of the billions of dollars lost through the abandonment of commonwealth capital funding in 2017.

2 Create a permanent commonwealth capital fund of a minimum of $350 million a year, indexed in line with rising costs and enrolments, to ensure that all public schools have access to the funds to provide adequate and safe 21st century learning environments.

3

Negotiate a joint commitment in the bilateral funding agreements

to be negotiated this year with state and territory governments to invest in new and upgraded public schools and facilities to ensure that commonwealth capital funding for public schools also triggers increased investment from all governments.

4 Ensure that all public schools have access to funds to prioritise purpose-built learning spaces and school facilities including modified bathrooms and playgrounds that are accessible for students with disability.

5 Work with and incentivise state and territory governments to ensure that all growth suburbs have public primary and secondary schools that are open and accessible when residents arrive.

Every student deserves to feel proud of their school, and you’re not going to feel proud if you’ve got broken toilets and the place needs a good coat of paint.

Dyonne Anderson NATSIPA president

need to catch up, there is also a pressing need to redevelop schools as part of a strategy to relieve pressure on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), following the independent review into the NDIS.

The review recommended a stronger connection between the NDIS and schools and a system of “foundational supports” for children with disability. A significant number of extra school buildings will be required and existing buildings will need to be renovated to improve accessibility.

School building improvements are also required to facilitate the changing nature of schooling and student needs.

A NSW government submission last year to the Review to Inform a Better and Fairer Education System noted that the number of students with additional learning and support needs continues to grow “and many more have complex needs”.

“Capital funding remains a crucial lever to facilitate such supports, in alignment with a key recommendation from the Gonski Review. This must be considered in the next NSRA if we are to lift outcomes and create inclusive educational environments for students with disability,” the submission said.

TEMPORARY SOLUTIONS

In the 10 years to 2021, private schools spent more than double per student, on average, than public schools, the report says.

Governments would have had to spend an extra $31.8 billion just to match the investment per student private schools made in new and upgraded schools, the AEU report says.

Four out of 10 public school principals say they are in need of classroom space now and certainly don’t have enough to meet enrolment demands over the next three to five years, according to the AEU’s 2023 State of Our Schools survey. The proliferation of demountable classrooms has become a long-term solution for many.

In NSW, 12 per cent of all public school classrooms were in demountable buildings and more than 2000 were more than 20 years old. Department of education figures show there were 5093 on school grounds in 2022 – an average of 2.3 per school.

In Victoria, 35 schools had 20 or more demountable classrooms and 137 had more than 10. In 2023, there were an average of 5.1 demountables in each school.

One survey respondent, the principal of an inner city Brisbane school, says the school was intended as a temporary solution to accommodate the baby boom after World War II and is long overdue for complete replacement. It contains asbestos, the classrooms are small and inappropriate and the outdoor areas are in disrepair and dangerous.

The principal of a Sydney primary school says that, along with many old demountable classrooms, the school’s office, library and canteen are housed in 30-year-old demountable buildings. “Permanent, quality buildings are a must,” the principal says.

The principal of a remote school in the Northern Territory says staff and students contend with drop toilets, no air conditioning in classrooms, despite temperatures regularly exceeding 40°C and no classroom access for people with disability.

Githabal woman Dyonne Anderson, president of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Principals’ Association, was dismayed by the state of school infrastructure she found during a tour of schools around the country as part of her work on an expert panel to advise

education ministers.

“Some of the classrooms are so small and cluttered, sinks, taps and toilets don’t work, and windows are broken,” she says.

“Every student deserves to feel proud of their school, and you're not going to feel proud if you've got broken toilets and the place needs a good coat of paint.”

Anderson is keen to get the message across that, despite the challenges of rundown buildings and facilities, she’s seen that teachers are going “above and beyond” to ensure their students succeed.

“There’s a lot of positive work, hard work that teachers are investing in their students and school communities. That needs to be recognised.”

Haythorpe says the calls for capital funding are not about replicating the lavishness of private schools.

“This is about permanent classrooms, libraries and specialist learning spaces where the needs of every child can be met,” she says.

“If you have ever seen the faces of children as they walk through a new school for the first time you will know the sense of pride and excitement they feel.

“It is about schools where kids want to learn and teachers want to teach.” Average

The power of truth telling

Schools have a critical role to play in teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and perspectives and education departments should be initiating a decolonisation process within the sector.

BY JILLIAN MUNDY

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been truth telling for generations. Shouting it from the streets, debating it in parliament and media, writing it in petitions and books, recording it in royal commissions, depicting it in art and acting it out on stage and screen.

Education administered by colonisers has historically assimilated First Nations peoples, erased histories, cultures, languages and spirituality, and caused harm, suffering and conflict for

IN SHORT

// Teachers can play a role in incorporating in their curriculum truth telling of the histories, cultures, languages and stories of both Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

// Systemic change requires leaders to empower teachers to speak truthfully about First Nations histories despite it being uncomfortable.

generations. Bidjara/Birri Gubba Juru author, historian and activist Dr Jackie Huggins believes that the teaching profession must play a major role in preparing future generations for a more just and honest country.

“Teachers are a vessel for truth telling, and it’s their responsibility to take up the gauntlet, and tell the truth no matter how unpalatable it is,” she says.

“Australia is only at the beginning of the truth-telling journey.”

Like many others, she believes the solution is a compulsory and inclusive

Eidsvold P-12 State School in east-central Queensland runs a Wakka Wakka Yumbin language reclamation program.

curriculum that includes truth telling throughout school and in teacher training.

“Surely it’s as important as maths and English, in coming to terms with the history of our country, and where we all sit within that – where our soul is,” she says.

Aboriginal histories and Torres Strait Islander histories are not a key learning area and instead fall under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures cross-curriculum priority.

Some topics, including secondary students learning about Stolen Generations, are compulsory but, for the most part, teachers are expected to figure out how to integrate the priority.

Unless there is a systemic approach, teachers and school leaders are isolated in attempting to respond to this imperative. Despite the lack of systemic leadership, some schools excel, and such best practice can provide concrete guidance for all schools.

ACCEPTING WHAT’S UNCOMFORTABLE

Warumungu Luritja woman Dr Tracy Woodroffe, a senior lecturer and researcher at Charles Darwin University, and teacher for more than 30 years, says teachers need better education about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia, and professional development to ensure comfortable and, therefore respectful, teaching.

“For example, some people come to university not knowing about the degree of inequality that we have in Australia. When they learn the more uncomfortable truths about our history, they are quite distressed because it is so terrible,” says Woodroffe, who is the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education’s 2024 First Nations Fellow.

... Some people come to university not knowing about the degree of inequality that we have in Australia. When they learn the more uncomfortable truths about our history, they are quite distressed because it is so terrible.

Dr Tracy Woodroffe Senior lecturer and researcher, Charles Darwin University

“If they feel uncomfortable about delivering particular content, they’re going to steer away from it and choose a different topic to talk about because that’s the nature of our curriculum, there are many other things to choose.”

CURRICULUM FOCUS

Woodroffe believes learning about Australia’s First Peoples should be a foundation that the curriculum is developed around.

Wiradjuri woman Dr Christine Evans, an associate professor of practice at the

University of Sydney has worked on incorporating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representations into curriculum. She says while Aboriginal teachers and Torres Strait Islander teachers are often best placed to teach the subject area, it can create extra workload and there are simply not enough to take on the task.

“They bring with them the advantages of lived experience, they understand all too well the histories affecting their communities and themselves, the legacy of the colonial project,” she says.

“We need to support non-Indigenous teachers to feel safe to engage in this content, but need to recognise this material cannot be picked up quickly. Teachers are time-poor, overextended and largely under resourced, as we know.”

Evans says time and resources should be allocated strategically for additional professional development, led by Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

She encourages teachers to tap into the ever-growing, high-quality resources offered by organisations such as the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), Reconciliation Australia, the Australian Institute for Teaching, and School Leadership (AITSL).

They can also use the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies’ (AIATSIS) guide to evaluating and selecting education resources, and connect with their local Aboriginal community or Torres Strait Islander community.

The Ngarrngga Project (education. unimelb.edu.au/ngarrngga) is another source of support for primary and secondary teachers and provides culturally responsive resources for each

learning area. Another resource is the National Indigenous Youth Education Coalition (NIYEC).

CONNECTING TO HISTORY

NIYEC co-founder and CEO, Darumbal woman Hayley McQuire, says truth telling should be considered for its constant effect on the present, rather than treated as history content alone.

“I think one way that teachers can feel more at ease about approaching truth telling is starting with their own story and their own relationship to this place,” says McQuire.

“Building off that relationship and getting to know where you are in the history of your place, with a critical lens, that’s something that you can bring in.

“I see it more as an opportunity to be creative and to connect, rather than another task that has to be done.”

McQuire says that as Treaty discussions progress among some states, teachers will be critical in helping students become future Treaty partners. “We need school systems to be brave,” she says.

BUILDING COMMUNITY

NIYEC’s Learn Our Truth campaign encourages principals, school leaders and teachers to pledge to teach First Nations histories.

“You might have one or two really good champion teachers, but it really relies on good leadership, supporting and backing them to make it across the school,” she says.

“I think it’s the school leaders’ role to also be thinking about how they build relationships with their local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.

"There's an opportunity to really think about creative ways that Mob in local

I think one way that teachers can feel more at ease about approaching truth telling is starting with their own story and their own relationship to this place.

Hayley McQuire

NIYEC co-founder and CEO

communities can take charge of what they want truth telling to look like in their local schools."

To support this, she says NIYEC is building community relationships and developing a resource for schools on truth telling, which will be released later in 2024. Truth telling is essential in decolonising practice and processes in the education system.

Teachers need to understand how the colonial narrative informs their current practice. Reflective pedagogy and practice developed in initial teacher education and via ongoing professional development could address this.

Teachers make a difference

Dr Jackie Huggins, who is now in her late 60s, says her schooling did not include any reference to Aboriginal cultures, histories or perspectives, aside from one significant exception.

Her Grade 3 teacher, Mr East, asked everyone in the class who thought they were Australian to stand. He then told everyone but Huggins to sit back down.

“He said I was only the real Australian in the room, and I just remember the kids not reacting to that at all,” says Huggins.

“He built his whole history class around this story that we were the First People, that we’d been here for thousands of years, and that we cared for the environment. And I was so proud.

“The kids came up afterwards and patted me on the back and said ‘good on you Jackie’.

“So, thanks to that teacher who restored my faith in my identity. I think the power teachers can give to their students for the affirmation of identity and who they are can change their lives forever,” says Huggins.

Jillian Mundy is a Palawa woman from Nipaluna, a freelance writer and photographer who has been contributing to the Koori Mail for 19 years.

Full funding will boost opportunities for students with disability

A steady rise in the number of public school students with disability and complex needs has not been matched by an increase in funding.

BY NICOLE SMITH

Every classroom in every school has students with complex needs. They are taught by dedicated teachers and support staff who, for more than a decade, have not been backed with the resources they need to do their jobs well.

That has left public schools struggling to find the resources they needed for their students and has caused far-reaching consequences for schools, teachers and students.

Public schools, which educate the largest proportion of students with disability, have been forced to allocate funds from other areas of their budgets to make sure their students receive the support they need.

Fewer than one-in-five principals say they receive enough funding to meet the needs of students with disability, according to the AEU’s 2023 State of our Schools survey. Almost 90 per cent say they are taking money from other areas of the school budget to compensate. The survey found an average of more than $120,000 was redirected each year.

IN SHORT

// Public schools currently have a higher proportion of students with disability.

// Students with disability aren’t getting their needs met due to underfunding.

// Under-resourced teachers are struggling with workload due to the growing number of children with complex needs.

The increase in students with complex needs is adding further to the workloads of already stretched teachers and affecting teacher wellbeing.

But the number of students with disability and other special needs is steadily rising. The Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) reports that in 2023, 24.2 per cent of all students received disability support funding. That was up from 22.5 per cent in 2022 and 18 per cent in 2015.

The increase in students with complex needs is adding further to the workloads of already stretched teachers and affecting teacher wellbeing.

An AEU submission to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability acknowledges the extraordinary contribution made by teachers and education support staff to educate students with disability “in an underresourced system where workload pressures are immense”.

“A well-resourced public education system that values diversity, understands social and cognitive development, engages all learners through inclusive processes and is responsive to fundamental human needs, has the potential to develop actively engaged, resilient and connected individuals who lead lives as productive members of the wider community,” the AEU submission says.

FUNDING GAP

Students with disability who do not receive extra funding support are assessed at a level known as Quality Differentiated Teaching Practice. Their needs are expected to be met through active monitoring and low-level adjustment to teaching strategies. No government support is provided at this level.

Worse, some students with varying levels of disability may not have received

A rise in numbers

The number of students with disability and other special needs is steadily rising in public schools.

24.2% of all students received disability support funding.

22.5% In 2022 and

18% In 2015. In 2023

Source: The Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA)

Although we’re writing the same observational reports and making teaching adjustments, without a medical diagnosis it is often insufficient for the lowest level of funding.

a formal diagnosis at all because of a lack of access to health services in remote areas or the stigma surrounding disability, says one Northern Territory public school principal, who asked not to be named.

“Although we’re writing the same observational reports and making teaching adjustments, without a medical diagnosis it is often insufficient for the lowest level of funding,” the principal says.

Demonstrating the funding gap, an ACARA 2021 report found that, of 592,000 students with disability in public schools, 186,000 were left without any disability loading.

The consensus among teachers is that the amount of evidence they must provide for even a lower level of funding is bureaucratic and onerous, often taking up to 10 hours per student.

“It is often self-evident. For example, if there is a hearing-impaired student in the classroom, adjustments are being made to facilitate their learning. To have to continually write observational reports, often with the same information, seems redundant,” the NT principal says.

In a landmark deal, the commonwealth and the NT government have committed to full funding of public schools over the next four years.

AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe says the NT is currently receiving the lowest proportion of Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) funding despite having the highest levels of need.

“The Albanese government’s commitment to provide 40 per cent of the SRS funding for the NT is a just recognition of its superior revenue raising capacity and its responsibility to ensure every child across the nation gets the support they need to succeed,” she says.

The funding gap

Children with disability need to be a priority.

Of 592,000 students with disability in public schools,

186,000 students were left without any disability loading.

The evidence that teachers must provide for even a lower level of funding can take up to

10 hours per student.

Source: An ACARA 2021 report

“For a system that has been starved of resources, the new funding deal will be life changing for students and teachers alike. Given the high level of compound disadvantage experienced in the NT, students with disability are set to receive a significant injection of funding for their learning needs.”

The SRS is the minimum funding benchmark amount per student, supplemented by additional needs-based loadings to address disadvantage. It was designed by the 2011 Gonski Review to give every child the opportunity to achieve their potential. But in 2017, the Morrison government capped the commonwealth government’s contribution to public schools at just 20 per cent of the SRS. In contrast, the commonwealth funds 80 per cent of the SRS for private schools. Only 1.3 per cent of public schools in Australia are fully funded, based on the SRS.

The AEU is calling on the federal government to go a step further and remove a loophole in its funding agreements with states and territories that effectively reduces school funding by four per cent using tricky accounting.

Haythorpe says it is vitally important that schools can provide the learning support and additional help that students need, particularly for students with disability who may present with complex needs.

“Some students have health and wellbeing needs, and others may experience trauma and anxiety or behavioural concerns. If systems do not provide the funding for these students, then that impacts not only on their teachers in terms of unsustainable workloads, but also the students and their access to a full and inclusive education,” says Haythorpe.

Northern Territory public school principal

“Full funding of public schools is the only way to ensure every child gets every opportunity to succeed.”

In their December report, Improving Outcomes for All, an independent expert panel of the Review to Inform a Better and Fair Education System recommended full funding of every school under the SRS as a priority, and as soon as possible.

PROVIDING FULL SERVICES

A WA teacher, who asked not to be named, says most of their lesson preparation time is spent advocating for students to receive the therapies they need.

“Students are not going to miss out while I am their teacher, but it is tiring. Students are not going to be able to learn anything until their basic needs are met, and I’m not going to be able to teach. Without funding, teacher and aid time is spent doing all the individual behaviour management plans and escalation profiles,” the teacher says.

“I understand it’s not my job to sit in on NDIS meetings and meet with allied health professionals, but parents are overwhelmed."

Both the NDIS Review and the Improving Outcomes for All report mentioned the importance of wrap-around services and its independent, expert education panel recommends governments support schools to better connect students to a wide range of community and health services.

“The panel has seen the success of ‘full-service school’ models in connecting students to services and believes that such models must be more widely implemented to better meet the needs of students experiencing disadvantage,” the report says.

Early health screening and assessments by clinicians will assist in building the

Full funding of public schools is the only way to ensure every child gets every opportunity to succeed.

Correna Haythorpe AEU federal president

capacity of the student, helping them stay engaged and reach their potential, say teachers and principals.

“The expansion of public schools to operate as community hubs incorporating a broader suite of not only disability, but also allied and mental health services, should be fully investigated to understand what the staffing, capital and recurrent funding requirements would be,” the WA teacher says.

More funding creates an equal playing field for how students are supported. Teachers are doing their best with limited resources, but the workload is unsustainable. “At the moment, the kids who can manage their own behaviour are left behind because we don’t have adequate staffing. More funding would mean all students with disabilities are seen and heard, and become participating, independent members of society, as they deserve,” they say.

In the same way that every dollar invested in the NDIS sees $2.25 go back

into the economy, a 2023 report by the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work estimated that for every dollar invested in public schools, there would be a $2 to $4 return to the economy. Additionally, reducing the unemployment and labour force participation gap between people with and without disability by just one third would result in a cumulative increase of $43 billion in Australia, according to Deloitte Access Economics research.

The AEU’s For Every Child campaign is advocating for full funding for public schools to provide specialised training for existing staff, more teachers and improved access to professional development. The campaign also supports time for teachers to meet with students and their supports to make learning plans and classroom adjustments, and to meet with other staff members and allied health professionals.

Nicole Smith is a freelance writer and interviewer living with cerebral palsy.

More than tokenism

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education leaders say the Albanese government’s strategy to increase First Nations teachers needs to tackle endemic racism and be backed by fully funded public education.

BY MARGARET PATON

IN SHORT

// The federal government is in partnership with several First Nations organisations to design a national First Nations teachers' strategy.

// Meaningful change requires a broader investment.

// Teacher training needs to include Aboriginal studies and Torres Strait Islander studies.

The two per cent of educators who identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander are often called on for help and advice in schools, adding ‘cultural load’ to their extensive ‘to do’ list.

The federal government will this year partner with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education organisations Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Principals Association (NATSIPA), to design a new national First Nations teachers’ strategy.

The strategy is part of the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan’s goal to strengthen initial teacher education and increase teacher diversity.

But Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education leaders have met the move with cautious optimism. Some say it does not go far enough in centering First Nations cultural investment within the education system.

Other partners include the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Advisory Group, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Council and the Coalition of the Peaks.

The strategy will draw on lessons learned from the More Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Teachers Initiative (MATSITI), a successful program that ran for five years from 2011. Other existing programs such as the Pearl Duncan Teaching Scholarships and the Remote Area Teacher Education Program in Queensland will also be studied. Meanwhile there will be new pathways for Aboriginal education officers to become teachers.

Dja Dja Wurrung man and Indigenous Education lecturer at Deakin University, Dr Al Fricker, welcomes the new plan but calls it a “drop in the ocean”.

“It’s a bit disingenuous when the government wants to target First

Nation students to become teachers, but not adequately fund public education where most First Nation students are,” says Fricker.

“If you want meaningful change there must be a broader, system-wide investment and the plan doesn’t provide for that."

“There needs to be a focus on creating educational spaces, systems, pedagogies, content, curriculum reform and community engagement to decolonise schools as places and spaces that allow for First Nations contexts to be centred, celebrated and visible. The outcome is cultural safety where students can maintain their fundamental cultural self and experience success,” he says.

But Fricker applauds the federal government’s plan to use the learnings from MATSITI in designing the First Nations Teacher Strategy. Over its five years, MATSITI increased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teacher numbers by 16.5 per cent, yet the former Coalition government scrapped the program.

CULTURAL LOAD

Fricker says the system has come a long way since he was at high school in Victoria in the 1990s, and later worked as a teacher.

“It was a hugely isolating experience. There weren’t the Indigenous education strategies; we didn’t have Koori engagement support officers or a Koori team in the education department."

“When I taught in a community school, there were a handful of First Nations students and any time one had a meltdown, I was called on to deal with that, even if I wasn’t their teacher. This extra cultural load goes completely unrecognised in salary and workload allocation,” he says.

That continues today. The two per cent of educators who identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander are often called on for help and advice in schools, adding cultural load to their extensive to do list.

Fricker says if the education system tackled tokenism and incorporated Aboriginal perspectives and Torres Strait Islander perspectives, everyone would benefit.

Embracing a more First Nations centred approach to the decolonisation of the educational systems and structures that currently prevent the recruitment and employment of First Nations teachers in the Australian education workforce is essential for the success of any contemporary initiatives. And they must have a strong focus on building a sustainable First Nations teaching workforce. Recognition of lived cultural experience and knowledges as a qualification, particularly in the early recruitment process, is essential in any initiative hoping to achieve such an outcome.

“We have a neocolonial educational system specially designed by and for the benefit of Anglo Australians. When we decolonise that, we open up the opportunity to incorporate Aboriginal cultural knowledge and Torres Strait Islander cultural knowledge, contexts, pedagogies, assessment ideas, thoughts, feelings, and sense of community from the longest continuous culture in the world. We will then recognise we’re not seeking to educate young people for individual success, but for the collective good,” he says.

RETHINKING TEACHER TRAINING

Wakka Wakka Gooreng Gooreng woman Professor Jay Phillips agrees MATSITI

Dr Al Fricker Lecturer in Indigenous Education, Deakin University

was among the better in “five decades of policies, and strategies” to deal with the issue of low numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers.

Phillips, a former primary school teacher and head of school at Charles Sturt University’s School of Indigenous Australian Studies, says continuing focus and funding for such interventions is needed.

She says the current slew of government initiatives are missing one key element – revamping teacher training to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies.

“Teachers’ deficit discourses continue when it comes to assumptions about students, family, the communities and even about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in general. It’s not all teachers, but there are understandings that need to be addressed at initial teacher education level,” she says.

Phillips says training should expose preservice teachers to “think a bit differently as a teacher”.

“It can be really powerful for pre-service teachers to understand the impact of their own assumptions about Indigenous students,” she says.

“If there’s a negative discourse around who we are as Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, then young people can’t imagine going into a role as a teacher and contributing to that.”

Phillips says school leaders also must prioritise sustained, community-led professional development to shift deficit views of Aboriginal students and Torres Strait Islander students and families.

University of Queensland School of Education Indigenous research officer Ren Perkins, a Murri man with links to the Quandamooka people, says school leadership support helps build Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teacher retention.

In a survey as part of his recent PhD studies, Perkins heard from First Nations teachers of their frustration that some of the strengths they brought to the job weren’t recognised by their school or education departments.

“Things like their relationality, identity, culture, community links. Those were the things that helped teachers stay in the profession,” says Perkins.

He says the teachers he spoke to reported they often dealt with racism; “most of the time it was explicit and direct and from other staff, including leadership”.

BUGBEARS OF RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION

Yamatji and Noongar woman Donna Bridge, the principal of Brentwood Primary School in Western Australia, is also concerned about retention, saying the new national initiatives can “get more teachers in, but we won’t keep them”.

“The high attrition rate of early career teachers is universal, so we can’t afford that if Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islander Peoples are such a minority in the teaching workforce.

“Us older generations of educators weathered the storms, just sucked it up and did our work and shut out the outside world if it was too much. The younger ones coming into the profession are different – they will not put up with it; they’ll pack their bags and go,” says Bridge.

The challenge is the endemic racism that existed when she entered teaching in 1995 and continues to this day, she says.

“Often, it’s the judgement of your identity based on the colour of your skin;

if you’re blacker, you’re more cultural than those with fair skin. Australians have been colonised and indoctrinated to believe Aboriginal people are at the bottom of the totem pole. We’re fighting for a place in our country and it plays out in schools.”

Bridge sees a ready pool of would-be teachers who identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They’re either working as teaching assistants or considering switching careers from elsewhere but may not be moving forward to become teaches because of a lack of recognition of their expertise or the need for financial support.

She welcomes the Teacher Workforce Action Plan to offer 1000 scholarships each year for five years to encourage people to obtain teaching qualifications.

“It’s important because it’s expensive to study. It’s needed for mature-age people going into teaching who have family and financial responsibilities,” she says.

Bridge is also happy about the Workforce Action Plan’s new First Nations Language Education Program to support new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language teachers in primary schools across the country.

“We don’t have enough of them, but salary scales will consider them untrained even though they’ve done study and have expertise others can’t deliver,” she says.

This highlights the importance of a clear pathway for First Nations teacher training, which should not always be equated with the traditional understanding of attracting First Nations people to the education sector.

It can be really powerful for pre-service teachers to understand the impact of their own assumptions about Indigenous students.

Professor Jay Phillips

Former primary school teacher and head of school at Charles Sturt University School of Indigenous Australian Studies

Sydney University currently offers a Master of Indigenous Languages Education, a postgraduate degree that is completed in 12 months with block attendance every quarter. With the resurgence of First Languages in education this is an opportunity to attract undergraduates with or without a teaching degree into the education sector.

Non-teacher qualified graduates could obtain on-the-job teaching qualifications or choose to stay within the language and Aboriginal studies education environment.

MAINTAINING TRACTION

Overall, Perkins says, the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan’s initiatives to support and increase Aboriginal teachers and Torres Strait Islander teachers is headed in the right direction, but needs to be strengthened with more resources and a firm commitment to see it through.

“The Action Plan is fantastic, but it’s doing things piecemeal. It just needs an ongoing commitment across the federal government, all education jurisdictions,

three school sectors and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

“It should have ongoing initiatives until there’s parity between the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and teachers,” Perkins says.

Margaret Paton is a casual high-school teacher and freelance writer. She is also a PhD student researching out-of-field teaching.

As the health fund for the education community, we help over 370,000 members and their families navigate life’s ups and downs. So why not see what we can do for you?

To compare our cover visit teachershealth.com.au/compare or call 1300 764 288

Nancy, Teachers Health member

Inspired to teach

As a new teaching year gets underway, the four teachers we’ll follow throughout the year reflect on how they got their start.

BY MARGARET PATON

Year 4–5 teacher

Yubup Primary School, Melbourne

TERRIFIED, BUT EXCITED

Recent Canadian immigrant to Australia, Stephanie Accary recalls her teachermother’s advice to “do whatever you want, just don’t be a teacher”.

“Mum said, and I could see, it was a challenging job, but I really enjoyed it. That prompted me to disregard her advice,” says Accary.

She took her time getting into the classroom, wending her way through hospitality roles, including management, and later education assistant work. She obtained a master in primary teaching, specialising in mathematics and inclusive education, then did CRT teaching work. Accary, who is now based in Melbourne, is beginning her second year of teaching.

“I’m terrified, but excited. Even in the tricky times, I’ll find positivity,” she says.

“I’ve only been in the school three times so far and, with less than a week to the start of term, there’s no furniture in my classroom. I haven’t been able to put up things on the walls yet because they’re still

doing construction,” she says of Yubup Primary, a new school with a capacity for 650 students in Mickleham in Melbourne’s outskirts. The school, named after a Woiwurrung word meaning “parakeet”, opens with 400 students.

NEW SCHOOL, NEW YEAR

The school community is very invested in education and had a lot of voice and choice in how the school will run, says Accary.

She’s written lesson plans for the first three weeks and will set up structures and routines for her Year 4–5 composite class of 21 students. Curriculum leaders have written the scope and sequence for the school year, so she’ll work from those. The school embraces explicit teaching and a positive behaviour for learning approach. The latter is evidencebased, multi-tiered and supports positive outcomes for students’ social, emotional, and academic development.

“You can’t do the teaching if you don’t have happy, healthy learners, which is why our professional learning is focusing on behaviour management – to set us up on a good foot,” she says.

Her first goal is to establish positive relationships with her students.

“If they don’t like me, they will not learn from me. So, I’ll try to treat the first couple of weeks like summer camp, have fun and get to know each other,” she says.

Accary can empathise with struggling learners: “I couldn’t read until I was about 10 or 11 because I was made to fit in a mould and learn the same way as neurotypical children.”

Accary says that when her parents put her into another school, with small classes, and self-determined and experiential learning, “it changed my life”.

“It made me love school and want to be

Stephanie Accary

You can’t do the teaching if you don’t have happy, healthy learners, which is why our professional learning is focusing on behaviour management – to set us up on a good foot.

a teacher and help students have more agency in their lives.”

INCLUSIVE PRACTICES

Her mother, then a special education teacher, taught her “memory tricks” which helped with Accary’s preference to learn by hearing.

“Through university, I couldn’t really take notes. I’d just have to be an active listener, otherwise it just goes in one ear and out the other,” she says.

Once she’s settled into her new permanent role, Accary will ask the principal if she can run a staff meeting to set up a school sub-branch of the

In each issue of Australian Educator, we follow the challenges and achievements of new educators throughout the year.

union: “We will elect staff representatives and we’ll do the union training this year. I’m heading to the [AEU] Federal Conference in a few weeks as a new educator observer.”

In her short time in the profession, Accary says unionism has offered many opportunities.

“I’d encourage every new educator to get involved with the union because it’s a fun way to make friends, grow as a teacher and advance your career."

Accary sees herself in teaching for the long-term. “I definitely see myself in a leadership position, hopefully in five to 10 years,” she says.

Amy Herring

Year 6–10 teacher

Holland Street School, Geraldton, WA

HELPING STUDENTS BLOSSOM

Special needs teacher Amy Herring is thrilled to be starting 2024 in charge of her own class in Geraldton, 400km north of Perth.

She has been co-teaching for three years and says she is looking forward to making all the decisions to run her class.

It’s Herring’s twelfth year at special education school-designated Holland Street School; she began working there as an educational assistant. Before that, she notched up six years working as a manager at McDonald’s.

“I love learning and teaching people and seeing them at that ‘a-ha’ moment when they learn something new. I tried mainstream teaching, but can’t say it’s really for me,” she says.

Stephanie Accary

I love seeing learners blossom into amazing young people.

Amy Herring

Holland Street School has nine classes, 76 students, 14 teachers, more than 50 education assistants, three office staff and three leaders.

Herring, has the Year 6 to 10 class. Most of her students are non-verbal or have complex communication and learning needs.

She describes herself as her students’ communication partner, working closely with them and their families and designing individual learning plans.

“I love seeing learners blossom into amazing young people,” she says.

TEACHING TOOLS

Assistive technology is a vital part of teaching at Holland Street.

“Our school works hard to help organise, through the NDIS, speech pathology and an electronic communication device that is suited to each student,” says Herring.

Those devices give her students a voice.

Herring uses an iPad while working around the room with students, modelling how to use her communication device and speech for the students.

She uses verbal communication as well as sign language (Auslan) and, for some students, images.

“I use the TD SNAP app for my lessons to project from my iPad to a smartboard to show students our learning pathway for the day,” she says.

Teachers at Holland Street follow their students as they progress through the year levels, which Herring says helps to create a bond between students, families and allied health professionals.

“Having had the same students for three years, I know where they’re at with their letters, sounds, behaviours, their triggers and how to keep them in a calm state,” she says.

“We still have students with tier-three behaviours across the school, but we support behaviour needs as much as we support curriculum needs, we individualise and adjust for the student in front of us.”

THE YEAR AHEAD

One of Herring’s goals for this term is to be “the best communication partner I can be” for a new student with complex needs.

“They’ll be in Year 7 and haven’t had any early intervention to meet their learning needs, so I’m hoping an education assistant who’s worked with our primary school year levels for 20 years can guide me.”

And while last year she had nine students and five EAs, this year it’s seven students and three EAs.

“Staffing is a constant challenge for the school to manage. Not everyone is suited to working in disability. Classes are staffed according to student need, ability, age etc,” she says. “Staffing shortages are well known at the moment across the state, but the education department is trying hard to be creative with recruitment.”

In Herring’s role as the State School Teachers Union Western Australia (SSTUWA) delegate, and as a member of the SSTUWA women’s committee, she will continue to speak out about the different challenges in special education.

Rachel Wallis

High-school English and society and culture teacher

Woolgoolga High School, NSW

INSPIRED TO TEACH

First Nations woman Rachel Wallis has begun her seventh year as a teacher, inspired to enter the profession by the “great” teachers who taught her. Her grandmother is a Wiradjuri woman and a member of the Stolen Generations.

Wallis feels a strong link to the Gumbaynggirr Country on which she teaches at Woolgoolga High School, north of Coffs Harbour on the NSW coast. It’s the same school she attended.

She teaches society and culture to senior students and junior history and geography classes, but it’s a compulsory class that’s a highlight –she team-teaches the Gumbaynggirr language and culture to Year 7 students.

“One of our tasks is to have students write an Acknowledgement or Welcome to Country in English and Language,” says Wallis.

Teaching isn’t her first profession. For three years, she was a conveyancing paralegal, before moving to Western Australia to work as a mine and export administrator.

“I only did it for a year as I found I was spending a lot of my time and money returning home,” she says.

She moved back to Coffs Harbour, aged 21, bought a block of land, built a house, and began a full-time teaching degree, while also returning to full-time conveyancing work.

“Legal work is very process driven and there’s not much change day-to-day. What I love about teaching is that two days are never the same,” she says.

“I love the relationships I build with students and their smiles on their first day back when they get their timetables and see Mrs Wallis on there and get excited.”

TEACHERS SUPPORTING EACH OTHER

Towards the end of her degree, Wallis completed a six-month internship through the Great Teaching Inspired Learning

“That’s always been a highlight at school knowing that teachers trust me to chat about a work issue and I work with the school executive to reach a good resolution,” she says.

During her work for the NSWTF, she visited schools across Sydney, including some with up to 2000 students.

“So many newer teachers are thrown into the deep end. I talk to them about how the union is like a handbook in a teacher’s back pocket. For example, if a principal asks me to do something I’m concerned about, I can call or email professional support,” says Wallis.

PUTTING THE FUN INTO TEACHING

When not at school, Wallis writes and revises Human Society and Environment (HSIE) textbooks for publisher Jacaranda and keeps active.

“I play AFL and my husband and I are getting into hiking and being more outdoorsy as we have a 30-acre hobby farm,” she says.

Bringing fun and the real world into teaching, like a bushtucker walk with a local Elder sharing their knowledge or explaining the thousands-of-years-old stories behind landmarks, helps students better remember and understand

Tom Hermes

English and history high school teacher Laynhapuy Homelands School, Arnhem Land, Northern Territory

THE LANGUAGE OF LEARNING

Tom Hermes had an inkling of what remote teaching in East Arnhem Land would involve before he began his latest role. He was born in the Northern Territory, grew up in the Australian Capital Territory and regularly visited friends in the NT with his parents.

Rachel Wallis

Paraprofessional program run by the NSW Department of Education. That was in addition to her 10-week practicum.

“I spent so much time with experienced teachers on the program. My mentor really took me under his wing and helped me finally get the job I’m in now,” Wallis says.

She’s a NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) councillor, a member of her school’s Aboriginal Education Committee and has been the NSWTF representative for her school. For six months last year, Wallis worked as a NSWTF project officer.

It’s about bringing more fun and local connections into her life, and that’s her approach to teaching too: “Over the years in my teaching career, I’ve been trying to make instruction more engaging to help kids have fun.

“Bringing fun and the real world into teaching, like a bushtucker walk with a local Elder sharing their knowledge or explaining the thousands-of-yearsold stories behind landmarks, helps students better remember and understand.”

Now, as he begins his third year of teaching, his week-to-week reality is fly-in, fly-out from his home at Yirrkala, bunk down in a boarding school for three nights, participate in traditional ceremonies, and teach students (who may already speak three or four languages) English. His teaching contract allows him two return flights per year from the nearby Gove airport to Darwin.

“It’s a unique teaching environment and I have the perks of not paying rent, power, or water bills. I live in a ‘dry’ community and teach at Garrthalala (119km from Yirrkala) Tuesdays to Fridays. Students from nine homeland communities in the region board there during the week,” he says.

“After school, I umpire the footy on the airstrip and we’ll go on hunting trips to get mud mussels, fish or stingrays.”

There are three visiting teachers, two Yolŋu educators, two other staff,

New starts and community members who act as house parents and help with after-hours supervision and cooking.

Last year Hermes moved from provision to full registration thanks to support from his mentor teacher.

“The process seemed like a lot of work on top of my role. I was pretty lucky, I had part of Mondays when I worked in the office to chip away at it, but I understand other teachers have to do it over the weekends,” he says.

Other 2023 highlights were building his teaching confidence to pace his instruction more consistently. He also designed the English scope and sequence for the senior school.

“I was really happy with the way it worked. I chose short texts about the local Yolŋu culture that students found accessible and engaging because they were familiar with the content. The focus was on practising reading and comprehension, and we supplemented that with short videos.”

and supporting kids' love of reading until they're ready to fly.

The boarding school has unreliable internet, so Hermes always has non-tech back-up plans.

“Not having the internet always on is a nice factor because students aren’t getting so hung up on having access."

"The students have a lot of pride in their culture, engaging in ceremonies and hunting, and speaking in multiple dialects. They only use English at school because, for them, English is like a foreign language,” Hermes says.

He’s managed to pick up words and phrases in the local Dhuwaya dialect, but he lacks options to learn it formally.

This year, Hermes will continue to teach English, mathematics, and an accessible version of Aboriginal studies called community connections to students in Years 9 to 12.

KEEPING COOL

The extreme temperatures and humidity can be challenging for students and teachers, and the lack of air conditioning

in the main classroom doesn’t help, says Hermes.

“It gets very hot, especially in the wet season. It’s too hot to go outside because of the humidity, but if there’s a breeze, we’ll sometimes take the class out onto the deck.”

Hermes is the school’s AEU sub-branch president and, at last year’s NT AEU Conference, he proposed a motion, which called for every NT classroom to have air conditioning, internet access, and basic resources. While most classrooms across the Territory already meet this standard, a number – such as Laynhapuy Homelands School – still don’t. Hermes says it would make a big difference for teachers and students.

Margaret Paton is a casual high-school teacher and freelance writer. She is also a PhD student researching out-of-field teaching.

Enhance Your Practice With

Cool+ is a premium resource subscription designed by Cool.org. It's for teachers who value evidence-based resources that generate deeper student engagement with the curriculum.

98% of teachers said using

96% of teachers said they saw their students’ critical thinking skills improve.

Teachers need innovation, not more innovations

We’re in a global fight for the future of the teaching profession. One place where the forces are tussling it out is around the importance of educational innovation, writes author and academic Andy Hargreaves.

Many people leave teaching because they don’t like how the job feels. Educators want more opportunity to innovate in their own schools, with the students they know best. We need bigger, stronger cultures of teacher-driven innovation running through all of our schools. But what we’re often seeing instead is restriction of innovation by top-down bureaucracies and too much testing. Elsewhere, unwanted innovations are imposed on teachers from the outside.

THE PROMISE OF INNOVATION

When schools are allowed to innovate, students thrive and so do their teachers. I have seen this up close.

In 2023, I spent a week in almost every month in classrooms all over Canada as part of a network of 41 schools developed by our team at the University of Ottawa (CPSN 2023). The schools use innovations in play-based learning to increase engagement and wellbeing among vulnerable and marginalised groups of middle school students, post COVID-19. Teachers have developed and advanced an incredible array of innovations (Hollweck, Cotnam-Kappel, Hargreaves & Boultif, 2023). Some are digital and involve things such as coding, film editing, or playing Minecraft. Some have more machine-like or makerspace elements such as robotics, mapping with drones, constructing murals, building calming spaces for younger children, or creating electronic cardboard arcades.

Many teachers are pulling back from innovations that add more indoor screen time to focus instead on “green” innovations outside. These include building outdoor trails and gardens, constructing wooden grow towers to

When schools are allowed to innovate, students thrive and so do their teachers. I have seen this up close.

cultivate food during the winter, or linking indigenous learning on the land to the seasons.

Other innovations involve activities such as writing stories, or learning to cook, knit, play board games with children’s parents, or perform magic tricks.

Everywhere there are compelling stories about the uplifting impact of teachers’ innovative efforts.

In one Canadian school, a student with very poor attendance started to come in only on project days so he could build

a bridge that little “ozobots”, dressed in costumes, would travel across as they became protagonists in a story that he and his fellow students had written.

In another, a Grade 7 student who had been excluded from school for several weeks for fighting, built a wooden tower with his dad, in their garage, to grow food indoors.

He then led other students to the school’s atrium in building more towers so they could provide fruit and vegetables for their low-income community year-round.

Everywhere there are compelling stories about the uplifting impact of teachers’ innovative efforts.

THE PERILS OF INNOVATION

Sadly, innovation is the exception, not the rule in most schools today. It may prosper in early childhood classrooms before “real school” begins but in most schools, the demands of test preparation, top-down accountability, standardisation, overbearing bureaucracy, and successions of externally imposed and unwanted reforms, squeeze the life out of teaching and learning. This is one reason why so many teachers leave. They can’t pursue the passions that brought them into the

profession in the first place. They have no autonomy to use their professional judgement. Their inability to fulfil their own purpose de-moralises them.

DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION

Some governments, many EdTech companies, and a lot of consultants are trying to bust open this iron cage of educational inflexibility with what the business community calls disruptive innovation (Christensen, Johnson & Horn, 2008). They want to disrupt the

basic organisation and assumptions of schooling with technologies that mean students can, in different ways, access learning from anyone, everywhere, at any time they choose, with or without a teacher. The spread of digital technology during COVID-19 (Vaillancourt et al, 2021) has emboldened them.

Some are genuinely enthusiastic about the possibilities of moving more learning towards learners and giving them greater self-determination in their learning (Wehmeyer & Zhao, 2020). Others have more suspect motives – to replace teachers with technology, limit them to being supplementary coaches or facilitators, increase profits for Edtech, and cut back on the costs of public education.

Digital tools and platforms have, since COVID-19, undoubtedly expanded the ways in which teachers can do their work and engage their students more effectively. But, as UNESCO (2021) point out, the purpose of technological innovation should be human centred to improve human purposes and processes, not replace them or dominate them.

As we saw during COVID-19, and even before it, hasty introductions of too much technology reduce rather than enhance everyone’s humanity. Excess screen time damages mental health (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2020). It limits the opportunities for students to engage with each other or to learn outdoors (Nature Canada, 2018; Louv, 2008). In-school, smart phone use creates distraction, impedes many students’ learning, and increases student anxiety (UNESCO, 2023). Digital engagement presumes that young people can already self-regulate their learning when many of our most vulnerable and marginalised students

Teachers need whole cultures of dependable micro innovation in which passionate teaching and engaging learning can flourish.

clearly cannot. Online learning and interaction may be cognitively as good as and sometimes even better than in-person learning, but emotional learning, humour, inspiration, moral, and ethical reflection, interpersonal caring, ability to “read” how people are feeling and responding, and sheer senses of awe are dealt with far better within in-person environments.

Our best resource is not our technology but our teachers. Teachers working together, as partners in innovation, without hindrance from high stakes testing and standardisation, and without the distractions of digital quick fixes, should be an overarching priority now.

DEPENDABLE INNOVATION

We do need to bust open the rusty iron cage of schooling that is making many teachers disheartened with their profession (Hess, 2013). What our students and their teachers especially need, though, is more innovation that is driven and developed by teachers in their own classrooms with their own students that they know best.

Teachers and schools need to get out of implementing other people’s innovations. Instead, they need to build on the bond of the teacher-student relationship and develop reliable, dependable innovations of their own, collaboratively, as a school or as an entire profession, that strengthen that bond, not weaken it.

Dependable innovation is not recklessly disruptive. It develops and refines ways of teaching, learning, and assessing through constant inquiry and testing by teachers working together so that it is effective, meaningful and does no harm to the people affected by it. Dependable innovation leads to genuine improvements. It gets teachers out of bed every morning. It may use digital

technology but is not driven or dominated by that technology. It does not have serious side effects. Dependable microinnovations can be used effectively by ordinary educators everywhere (Hatch, Corson & Van den Berg, 2021).

Teachers need whole cultures of dependable micro innovation in which passionate teaching and engaging learning can flourish. Dependable innovation supports teachers’ autonomy to create new ways of serving their students. It relies on cultures of collaborative professionalism among teachers as communities within and beyond their schools (Hargreaves & O’Connor, 2018; Campbell, 2018). It draws on the research of outside evidence, and the insight of in-school inquiry. It stimulates teachers to share what they are creating and learning with other teachers elsewhere. And in doing all this, in addition to inspiring their students, it engages them more deeply in their own teaching.

Cultures of dependable innovation that spread across entire systems of schools are not a distant dream. I have engaged with them, supported them, and seen the evidence of their impact on teacher motivation and engagement, in large and long-lasting networks in Canada, the United States, Uruguay, Mexico, South Korea, Colombia, and the United Kingdom, among other places (Hargreaves, 2023). What will it take to create and sustain such thriving cultures of innovation in other schools and systems today?

My expert paper on Leadership and Innovation for the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession includes the following eight recommendations on how to create and sustain widespread cultures of dependable innovation.

1

community, and society.

2 Invest in system-wide collaborative cultures of teacher innovation.

3 Remove the barriers to teacher innovation such as highstakes testing.

4 Ensure innovation budgets are driven by educational needs for equity and excellence, not by outside corporate interests.

5 Avoid disruptive transformation, embrace dependable innovation.

6 Infuse an equity imperative into all innovation efforts.

7 Use place-based innovation to bring about collaborative inclusion and equity in communities.

8 Preserve and protect the contributions that teachers outside grade-level and subject-based classroom roles make to innovation.

The battle for the status and sustainability of the teaching profession is also a battle for the soul of the world and for the young people who will define its future. Our best resource is not our technology but our teachers. Teachers working together, as partners in innovation, without hindrance from high-stakes testing and standardisation, and without the distractions of digital quick fixes, should be an overarching priority now.

This is an edited extract of an article first published on Education international’s Worlds of Education. Andy Hargreaves is research professor at Boston College, visiting professor at the University of Ottawa, distinguished visiting professor at Hong Kong University, professor II at the University of Stavanger, and honorary professor at Swansea University.

Backing trans rights, freedom and safety

A new trans-led Australian organisation is building a movement to fight for justice and equality for trans and gender diverse people.

BY CHRISTINE LONG

Anti-trans abuse, harassment and violence is escalating rapidly in Australia, according to an investigation by the Trans Justice Project and the Victorian Pride Lobby.

The investigation surveyed more than 3000 people last year about “anti-trans hate”, asking about abuse, harassment, vilification and violence.

In the previous 12 months, 90 per cent of those surveyed had seen anti-trans hate online, 50 per cent of trans participants had experienced anti-trans hate and 10 per cent of trans people surveyed had experienced anti-trans violence.

In Australia, anti-trans lobbying and disinformation escalated during the 2022 federal election campaign, mimicking events in the US since Trump’s presidency.

The rapid rise in anti-trans legislation and disinformation in the US has seen more than 20 states recently pass laws limiting or prohibiting gender-affirming medical care, and more than 510 new laws have been proposed across the country, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Jackie Turner, Trans Justice Project director, says the developments in the US are putting the safety and wellbeing of school children and the rights of teachers at risk.

Anti-trans hate

A study of 3000 people in 2023 found... in the previous 12 months of those surveyed had seen anti-trans hate online of trans participants had experienced anti-trans hate of trans people surveyed had experienced anti-trans violence.

Resources

Teachers wanting to support students and navigate conversations with parents can find TransHub (transhub.org.au) useful.

You can sign the Statement of Solidarity with the trans community at transjustice.org.au/standwithus

“In the red [Republican] states we have seen bills put forward to remove trans and gender-diverse children from supportive families and to support the bullying and mistreatment of these children while they are at school. Additionally, a number of bills are threatening to force the outing of children to their parents if they talk with an educator about being transgender, gender-diverse, or are even just questioning,” Turner says.

The Trans Justice Project, formed just over a year ago and funded by Amplify Pride Fund, trains people to help identify anti-trans disinformation and to advocate for trans justice. More than 200 organisations have signed the organisation’s statement of solidarity, including the AEU.

The AEU has pledged to stand with transgender and gender-diverse members and students in the face of the increasing anti-trans lobbying and disinformation.

AEU federal secretary Kevin Bates says it’s important that the trans community has allies to provide support at a time when information is being distorted and politicised, particularly when Australia’s pathway is tracking so similarly to what’s happening in the US.

“From the AEU’s perspective, we won’t be silent when the threat of attacks is evident,” says Bates. “Teachers and students have a right to a safe environment in which to work and learn.”

Turner says organisations producing “fake science” about trans healthcare are the same in the US, the UK, and Australia and often the same experts are witnesses in cases involving proposed bans on gender-affirming care.

The Trans Justice Project monitors mainstream social media channels as well as alternative platforms such as

In the red [Republican] states we have seen bills put forward to remove trans and gender-diverse children from supportive families and to support the bullying and mistreatment of these children while they are at school.

Telegram, Rumble, and BitChute and works with a collective of LGBTQIA+ civil society organisations, unions, educators, journalists, lawyers, medical professionals, peak bodies, and grassroots activists.

“We know that these attacks on our community are only going to escalate so we plan to expand this campaign to get local governments and community organisations across the country to have these conversations internally and show their support,” says Turner.

Ensuring schools are safe and inclusive for trans and gender-diverse students and educators also means addressing gaps in policy, procedures, and awareness, says Turner.

The project is planning a global meeting of leading anti-trans disinformation researchers to share learnings and to discuss ways to arrest the spread of disinformation, particularly about genderaffirming medical care.

Jackie Turner Trans Justice Project director

Access to safe medical care can be even more difficult for intersectional LGBTQIA+ people, such as transgender Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples, who not

only must contend with documented systemic racism in healthcare services, but who may also face transphobia.

Wiradjuri man and Victorian Commissioner for LGBTIQ+ Communities Todd Fernando says his research into health services and queer First Nations peoples shows: “Australian health systems have been designed with a pervasive culture that privileges straight cisgender people. Because of this, accessing culturally safe health care in a communitycontrolled context can be fraught with homophobic, biphobic and transphobic experiences that reject central parts of our identity.

“When health service design and delivery is built to meet the needs of only one part of a person, it not only fails to address their intersectionality, it breaches their human rights because, ultimately, equity in health service delivery is a human rights issue,” he says.

Emerson Zerafa-Payne, the Queensland Teachers’ Union’s acting First Nations officer says people may not be aware that Australia is one of the only western countries where medical transition is not covered, or is only intermittently covered, by Medicare, and that provision for gender affirmation leave remains uncommon.

“Not only do brotherboys and sistergirls have to deal with the exorbitant costs of medically transitioning but a lot of First Nations peoples also experience intergenerational poverty. So that just compounds the need to have an adequately funded medical transitioning system in Australia,” he says.

Zerafa-Payne says that in Queensland the enterprise bargaining agreement doesn’t include gender affirmation leave, which means medically transitioning teachers must use their sick leave.

I think teachers and principals want to do the right thing, but they need support from their departments to ensure schools remain safe.

Rowan Richardson

Trans teacher and AEU Tasmania Southern and new educator organiser

POLICIES NEEDED

In Tasmania, trans teacher and AEU Tasmania Southern and new educator organiser Rowan Richardson says it’s vital that education departments have stronger protections, policies and procedures for trans and gender-diverse students to protect them from community backlash.

“I think teachers and principals want to do the right thing, but they need support from their departments to ensure schools remain safe,” says Richardson, who says one vocal person fearmongering and spreading misinformation can create dangerous situations for students and schools.

“You can see that in NSW, where Mark Latham is naming public schools that are actively supporting trans students. Although those stories are not necessarily happening in Tasmania, they still can incite fear of a community backlash within principals.

“Ultimately, the worst-case scenario is what we’re seeing in the US, where they’ve made anti-trans policies and legislation to undermine teachers and principals.”

The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership professional standards for teachers are also missing the mark, says Richardson. Currently, there are elaborations for student diversity under Know Students and How They Learn, but none refer to supporting LGBTQIA+ students.

“(The standards) say nothing about trans and gender-diverse students or any type of rainbow students that you can find in the classroom.”

Diversity clubs can help foster a safe and inclusive environment for all students.

Richardson cites a 2014 Canadian study, School-based strategies to reduce suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and

discrimination among sexual minority and heterosexual adolescents in Western Canada, on diversity clubs, involving 21,000 students.

Richardson says the study shows that diversity clubs are better for every student not only trans and gender-diverse students: “Obviously, the trans and genderdiverse students [benefited] but also the instances of self-harm and suicidal ideation were halved in straight cisgender boys at schools with diversity clubs.”

Bates acknowledges the positive impact of student-led pride groups in schools.

“But where that is absent, or where that is not possible, there’s a role for teachers to ensure that the information available can be shared widely in the community to counteract fear and misinformation.”

Christine Long is a freelance writer.

Positive prognosis for wellbeing

A learning leader with a passion for wellbeing has found her dream role at Sydney Children's Hopsital School.

BY PHILIPA TLASKAL

Australia’s 25 hospital schools have operated for more than one hundred years and learning leader Rachael Roseberg is keen to dispel the myths.

"We are not tutors, we are teachers. We deliver the K–12 curriculum to all the sick children who come to us, and we need to tick all the boxes like any other school,” she says.

But, unlike most other schools, the student population is transient. “We could have a handful of students or a full class of 15 or so. They could be enrolled for three days, or two weeks or even up to a year or more. Siblings may also be enrolled while family members undergo treatment,” says Roseberg.

“I want to normalise our students’ learning and minimise the gaps as they flow through our structured system before returning to their origin schools.”

Roseberg spent nearly a decade teaching in mainstream schools before taking the role of head teacher at Sydney Children’s Hospital School (SCHS).

“It allows me to combine my love of wellbeing with English teaching,” she says.

FLEXIBILITY IMPORTANT

Mindful of the stresses and challenges the students face, Roseberg says it is important to be flexible.

“We are dealing with students who are going through emotional highs and lows; they might have gone through a procedure in the morning that affects their learning in the afternoon, and it is up to me to keep their mood up and take their minds off the physical and into what their brains can still do,” she says.

“There are so many variables with our students, and we don’t want chaos.

We are not tutors, we are teachers. We deliver the K-12 curriculum to all the sick children who come to us, and we need to tick all the boxes like any other school.

Rachael Roseberg

Head Teacher – teaching and learning

Sydney Children’s Hospital School, Randwick,

NSW

I hold case management meetings with the teachers to ensure that students are well-supported through personalised learning and support plans and provide the help a teacher requires to manage their caseload.”

There are 12 teaching staff at SCHS including seven with secondary program

Why do you teach?

We want to hear your tips for engaging young minds. Email educator@hardiegrant.com if you have something to share. You can provide a written piece or we’d love to interview you.

teaching or multidisciplinary team roles.

Roseberg says that in the high school, a teacher delivers two collaborative lessons a day, as part of a five- or 10-week unit, just like in a mainstream school. Students access the lessons either in the classroom or remotely, or from home or specialised wards. The Emotional Disturbance Support Class is one of the four support classes at the school in which students with mental health concerns present with acute behaviours. These classes are attached to adolescent mental health units at SCHS and The Forensic Hospital in Malabar.

“We are here to empower every student to control what they can in their situation,” says Roseberg who maintains high expectations of her students. She says she will often tell them: “Your health comes first, and your feelings come first, but today we need to focus on Macbeth, or this essay.”

When asked what advice she would give to teachers who may wish to work in a hospital school Roseberg is overwhelmingly encouraging, despite the extra compliance responsibilities required.

“It can be emotionally draining, because of the medical challenges SCHS students go through, but when that lightbulb moment goes off for a child who may be hooked up to a drip or has a leg in a cast, it just makes my day.

“And if you can work with a small team in your discipline and a supportive executive, and student wellbeing is everything for you, this could be your ideal role. I know it is mine.”

Philipa Tlaskal is a freelance writer and a secondary school teacher.

This year, we celebrate our 40th anniversary of building union power and global justice. Solidarity with workers and social movements has been key for bringing about change amidst societies torn apart by war, authoritarianism and exploitation.

The call for global solidarity has never been more urgent.

We invite you to join us and contribute to our collective impact by becoming a member today. Let’s keep up the fight for another 40 years.

Over the next month, if you:

• become a new member or,

• upgrade your current monthly donation you get a FREE exclusive 40th-anniversary t-shirt design by Workers Art Collective member Judy Kuo or a book with our history, you choose!

Act fast, as these are limited-edition shirts, make sure you don't miss out. Offer valid until May 1st.

Helping teachers plan for retirement

You spend your days helping others grow, so let us help grow your retirement nest egg. Whether retirement is 2 or 20 years away, Aware Super can help you maximise your savings and get retirement ready.

Our digital Retirement Guide has plenty of tips, advice and real member stories, plus a helpful checklist to guide you every step of the way. With super advice and super returns Aware Super is super helpful.