educator_winter2024

Wraparound schools // School–community partnerships

Finding results // New teachers finding positive experiences

9629 public schools need full funding Australian

VET in schools // Boosting vocational pathways in schools

Ngarrngga project // First Nations curriculum and PD resources

• PM on National Public Education Day

• Teaching typing to children

• Union leaders visit Ramallah

• A national mental health and wellbeing initiative

States and territories are in consultation with the Commonwealth to provide full and fair funding to public schools.

The Early Childhood Eucation sector is set to receive a pay boost in this year’s budget.

A parliamentary inquiry into the need for an overhaul of VET in secondary schools.

New study looks at the rise of misogyny in schools.

Wraparound school services bring support for students into school grounds.

Resources for bringing Culture into the classroom. 36

A mid-year check in with four early career educators.

An international call for universal quality primary and secondary education by 2030.

UNBEACHING THE WHALE

A review of Dean Ashenden’s book on education reform.

04 From the president 05 Know your union 38 Recess

Celebrating public education

Quality public education offers a beacon of hope for children across Australia, and it’s time for governments to co-sign on their promise.

National Public Education Day on 23 May this year was celebrated around the country. In Sydney, a special lunch brought together members, AEU o icials and representatives from community organisations. Key figures in the New South Wales and federal governments, including prime minister Anthony Albanese, education minister Jason Clare and NSW deputy premier and education minister Prue Car also attended. On this day, Albanese became the first Prime Minister to address teachers at a National Public Education Day event. It is also testament to members’ hard work in campaigning for full funding, and acknowledgement that the For Every Child campaign is being heard.

Public Education Day is a time to recognise the central role that public schools, preschools, and TAFE play in strengthening the social, economic and cultural fabric of our society. Free public and secular education is the key to a vibrant, socially cohesive, multicultural and democratic Australia. This year, the call of #ProudToBePublic was heard around the country through thousands of posts on social media – and trended as the fourth-most-popular hashtag in Australia that week.

THE PROMISE

Public Education Day is also a time to reflect on the purpose of public education. The promise of public education can mean di erent things to di erent people, and has shifted over time; yet the etymology of public stems from “of the people”. For most democratic nations, public education was intended as a broader

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good – something for the betterment of society.

Public schools have traditionally been at the heart of communities, working hand-in-hand with a community for the benefit of its children. The promise has been the provision of equal access to education for all. Today, public schools remain community hubs, but they also are, and can be, much more.

Properly resourced schools can o er wraparound services that support the mental, emotional and physical wellbeing of students; they can be social places, knowledge places and places where music and arts can stand alongside sciences, English and sports. They can be places where students can learn local First Nations languages and about Culture and the histories of where they live and learn. A place where all families have access to quality education and places where their children have the facilities and support that they need to thrive.

Education builds hope. This is the promise of public education.

MEETING THAT PROMISE

Education is not merely a means to acquire knowledge, it is a powerful instrument of change – a force that can challenge prejudices, dismantle stereotypes, and foster inclusivity. As public education unionists we have a responsibility to build the skills, knowledge and understanding of our students and to help shape the world in which they live.

To deliver for our children, we need to invest and trust in teachers, principals and schools. We must allow teachers the time and space to teach

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curriculum that engages students, to collaborate and to innovate. To do this we must continue to demand that our governments look not just at economics, but the overarching purpose of public education and its place in society.

VALUING PUBLIC EDUCATION

When people discuss the value of public education, commonly they agree upon a multitude of benefits shared for both individuals and society. But the conversation comes down to one question: do you believe that every child has the right to a highquality education?

In the Prime Minister’s Public Education Day speech, he was clear about the value of public education in Australia, saying: “All Australians can proudly point to public education as one of our great strengths as a nation. A quality education system that is available to everyone regardless of their postcode, their wealth, faith or ethnicity. An education system that is an intrinsic and transformative part of our social fabric. An education system that does so much to ensure that our cherished values of equality and the fair go are also our day-today reality.”

So, what do we expect from the prime minister, to achieve this vision?

As a first step, we want fully funded public schools. We also want public schools to have state-of-the art infrastructure and technology, a full suite of fully qualified teachers and education support sta who are properly paid with sustainable workloads, and time to work together, to innovate and collaborate.

Fully funded schools must mean, for the first time, reduced workloads for members, fewer teacher shortages, and more opportunities and better support for our children. The term must mean a more equitable education system where postcodes, backgrounds or circumstances do not determine destiny.

Public education is a continuous journey from early childhood through schooling and tertiary education, which a ords the opportunity for lifelong learning.

As we continue to campaign For Every Child, let’s stand strong and campaign together for every child and the public education system that all Australians deserve.

Correna Haythorpe AEU federal president

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Knowyour 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 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

Public education is our strength: PM

Prime minister Anthony Albanese says public education is “one of the most potent forces for good that we have”.

“All Australians can proudly point to public education as one of our great strengths as a nation,” he told an AEU event celebrating Public Education Day.

Australia’s public education system does much to ensure that equality is part of our social fabric, the prime minister said.

He also acknowledged the generations of AEU members who have contributed to providing a quality education system, “the single most powerful weapon we have against disadvantage”.

All Australians can proudly point to public education as one of our great strengths as a nation.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese

Teaching typing

Children are using devices from a young age, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that children can write effectively on a keyboard.

But a study of 544 Year 2 students in 17 Western Australian primary schools has found that’s not necessarily the case.

The research team – professor Susan Ledger, dean of education, University of Newcastle, Deborah Pino Pasternak, associate professor in Early Childhood Education and Community, University of Canberra and Anabela Malpique, senior lecturer, Edith Cowan University – have published two recent studies investigating children’s handwriting andtyping.

They have concluded that students

need to be actively taught to type as well as to write on paper.

In the latest study, the team assessed how easily students wrote stories using paper and pencil compared to a laptop using 10 criteria including ideas, vocabulary, spelling and punctuation.

They found the students produced longer and higher-quality handwritten text – which echoed a meta-analysis of two decades of global studies.

The researchers point out that it’s important for students to write quickly and accurately using a keyboard so that the process becomes automatic, allowing them to concentrate on their content.

tinyurl.com/45chpnfj

Pictured (left to right): AEU federal secretary Kevin Bates, ACTU president Michele O’Neil, prime minister Anthony Albanese and Correna Haythorpe AEU federal president.

Union leaders visit Ramallah

Unions representing 200 million workers in more than 150 countries have emphasised their support for Palestinian workers.

The leaders of global union federations travelled to Ramallah to show their solidarity to unions in Gaza and the West Bank.

In a statement, the union leaders said:

“We are deeply concerned by the grave humanitarian crisis faced by the people of Gaza, and we stand with Palestinians, Israelis and people the world over calling for peace, equality and justice.”

They called for a permanent ceasefire, respect for international humanitarian law, immediate access to humanitarian assistance, the release of all hostages and the safe return of workers trapped by the conflict.

Use your voice

The visit was led by Education International general secretary David Edwards.

A national mental health and wellbeing initiative for education settings is calling for teachers to participate and share their knowledge and experience.

Be You is delivered by Beyond Blue and provides free, evidence-informed tools and resources in collaboration with Early Childhood Australia and headspace.

It’s looking for teachers to join with its educators, allied health professionals, preservice educators and leaders to develop

resources that support the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people.

“As an Education Voices member, you can connect with like-minded peers from across Australia, enhance your professional development, gain a deeper understanding of the signs of mental health issues in your learning community and how to support help-seeking behaviour,” says Be You. tinyurl.com/2rju29kf

Funding deals urgent

States and territories are deep in negotiations with the Commonwealth over the urgent need to secure full and fair funding for public schools. But time is running out for schools and their students.

BY TRACEY EVANS

Thirteen years after the Gonski Review handed down its recommendations for new school funding architecture in Australia, only 1.3 per cent of public schools are at the minimum benchmark, the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS), which was agreed to by all governments.

For teachers, education support personnel, parents and students, inequity in school funding is evident in public schools every day.

When a school system is denied essential funding, it is the teaching profession that carries the burden. In Australia, that is manifesting in a teacher workforce crisis with escalating and unsustainable workloads and teacher shortages.

Right now, the Commonwealth and state and territory governments are negotiating the parameters of the next national school funding agreement, one that will be set for five years and which must deliver the urgent funding needed for every school.

Quality public education relies on full funding for teachers, sta , specialists, resources and equipment, and teachers and students deserve to have state of the art buildings that are safe and comfortable.

In the Northern Territory, the federal government has signed a statement of intent to spend an extra $737 million in public schools, doubling its contribution to 40 per cent of the SRS.

And in Western Australia, the state and federal governments have agreed to deliver an additional 5 per cent, with a shortened timeline of 2026. Nonetheless, the NT and WA

The AEU is calling for full and fair funding for public schools.

Driving home the funding message

THE AEU STEPPED UP its For Every Child campaign during May, touring schools and communities in South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Speaking with teachers, education support personnel, principals, students and parents, they shared how full funding could make a di erence to their schools.

Hundreds of people signed up to the campaign to show their support and we made sure that public education was in the news with coverage by major media outlets in print, online, radio and television.

supporters were also encouraged to

Members, parents and community supporters were also encouraged to send a message to the prime minister about the importance of fully funded public schools for our children and teachers. Thousands have contacted him so far, with more pressure needed from the community.

You can email the PM by completing a form at www.foreverychild.au, the For Every Child campaign website.

Victoria’s 1560 schools have been underfunded by $1.8 billion this year while in South Australia, 508 public schools were underfunded by $337 million

Disability funding doesn’t measure up

Students with disability and the schools they attend are

facing a perfect storm.

THE NUMBER OF students with disability is increasing but changes to the way that the disability loading is delivered means that not all students are receiving the funding required to cater to their needs.

The AEU’s State of our Schools survey of more than 15,000 principals, teachers and support sta found that 89 per cent of principals say they are forced to shift funding from other areas of their already over-stretched budgets to provide the assistance students with disability need. Eight out of 10 principals and teachers say they have students with disability who are not eligible for federal government funding, despite needing it. Here’s what some of the survey respondents had to say:

“Integration funding is woefully inadequate to meet the needs of our students who qualify for this funding. However, this is often not enough.”

– Primary school, NSW

“We have a Prep student with high needs who will run out of the school and onto the road if not closely monitored. We receive no additional funding for him because he does not yet have a diagnosis. We allocate 25 hours a week of teacher aide time to this child.”

– Primary school, QLD

“Access to specialists for diagnosis for funding is VERY di icult.”

– Secondary school, WA

“[We’re] always trying to balance supporting teachers and students with funding from other areas of theschool.

– Primary school, SA

“Students with disabilities … never attract funding for full-time assistants. The school has to top up the funding. Rather than go without assistants, I have maintained a sta ing debt of approximately $300,000 per year for the past threeyears.”

– City school, ACT

“We spend budgets intended for maintenance on resources for teachers or teacher aide time to support these students to avoid WHS incidents and also to stop other children from being hurt.”

– Primary school, QLD

“For our students on extensive adjustments, they receive about $24,000 per year. They need full one-to-one support. A teacher assistant costs $46,000 per year. That is a shortfall per student of $22,000. The money provided for support does not cover what is actually required.”

– Primary school, Tas

“Our school is currently $500,000 in deficit due to having to fund extra support sta to assist students who are not funded.”

– Primary school, Vic

“We currently receive $261,739 Integration Funding Support. In order to meet the needs of children who require support to access the curriculum, or to be able to attend school safely we are currently budgeting $600,688.

This is only taking into account SLSO hours. This does not include specialist teacher needs or specialist equipment or casual days needed due to teacher health impacts or hours spent by leaders dealing with the issues.”

– School in major city, NSW

“Disability funding is entirely inadequate. We have wheelchairbound students requiring assistance with toileting every 20 minutes [but] not entitled to full time support.”

– Primary school, QLD

“Major learning issues such as dyslexia and dysgraphia are not recognised as funded diagnoses yet impact so heavily on children’s learning and social development. Children with ADHD and ODD and OCD are also discounted.”

– Secondary school, SA

agreements do not achieve full funding. Instead, schools will be funded to 96 per cent of the SRS under those agreements because the state/territory share is artificially inflated by 4 per cent through an added loophole that allowed inclusion of non-school costs not directly related to students’ education such as capital depreciation. What happens next for public school funding is in the hands of prime minister Anthony Albanese.

BEST INVESTMENT

When the prime minister addressed an AEU event celebrating Public Education Day in May, he noted that the negotiations for full and fair funding for public schools were continuing. He also acknowledged that education is “the single best investment” in Australia’s future.

However, the deal on the table from the federal government is for an additional 2.5 per cent to be matched by state governments. This unfortunately does not achieve 100 per cent of the SRS for all public schools across the nation.

New research shows the inadequacy of public school funding.

Australia’s 6,712 public schools are underfunded by $6.5 billion this year and by at least $6.2 billion every year to 2028 (a total of $31.7 billion over five years) while private schools are overfunded by the Commonwealth and state governments above their full funding level by $686 million this year and by a total of $2.1 billion to 2028.

This is why across Australia, teacher shortages are causing classes to be combined or run without a teacher, and full-time teachers are working an average of 52 hours per week, according to the AEU’s State of our Schools survey.

The public knows there is deep inequity in how public schools are funded compared with private schools and this decision just compounds that inequity.

Correna Haythorpe AEU federal president

NO BUDGET CAPITAL

Capital funding is another area of critical concern.

In 2017, the Coalition government cut capital funding for public schools while increasing it for private schools. Since then, private schools have received $1.25 billion while public schools have only had the benefit of federal funding for one year with $216 million for capital works in last year’s budget.

The 2024 Federal Budget should have delivered capital works funding but instead it was silent on the issue with the Albanese Government failing to continue even the modest $216 million.

AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe urged the government to reconsider its “unacceptable” decision to abandon this funding while at the same

time giving private schools $1 billion for new buildings and facilities over the next four years.

“The public knows there is deep inequity in how public schools are funded compared with private schools and this decision just compounds that inequity,” she says.

OVERCOMING THE CHALLENGES

Haythorpe says the challenges in schools have never been greater.

“There’s more diversity and complexity in student need, increasing wellbeing and mental health issues and acute shortages of teachers due to unsustainable workloads,” she says.

“Australia’s principals, teachers and education support sta are doing an extraordinary job, but they are being asked to do too much in an underfunded environment.”

Haythorpe has urged the states and the Australian Capital Territory to finalise the funding agreements with the Commonwealth, ensuring that the funding meets the 100per cent SRSbenchmark.

(Right) The AEU took the For Every Child campaign on the road during May.

Community partnerships boost learning

Full-service schools can bring the support services and activities that students need into the school grounds, but government support and funding is needed.

BY CHRISTINE LONG

Armadale Senior High School’s purpose-built hub provides support services to school aged young people in Armadale, WA.

The success of strong school–community partnerships has been evidenced for decades.

The concept of schools and other agencies working with parents and their community to address educational disadvantage has become known as full-service.

Under the one-stop-centre model, services can also extend to support for parents. Terry Cumming, Professor of Special Education in the School of Education at UNSW, says the services can take di erent forms, ranging from on-site access to Centrelink to child-raising classes for pregnant teenagers.

Cumming details some of the positive experiences in the US, where schools began exploring the concept in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

“There was a school in the US when I was a teacher where we had a demountable which was a nursery for students who had babies before they finished high school and wanted to finish their education. They were required to do a parenting course as one of their electives and spend any breaks and their lunch with their child,” Cumming says.

While the holistic model is more widespread in the US and the UK, it is gaining momentum in Australia.

It is expected that the impending National Schools Reform Agreement will have full service schools as a key reform initiative after an expert panel, established by all state and territory education ministers last year, strongly recommended an expansion of the program.

“The panel believes governments should support schools to better connect students to a wide range of community and health services including allied health

The panel believes governments should support schools to better connect students to a wide range of community and health services including allied health services.

services,” says its Improving Outcomes for All report.

“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 ofstudents experiencing disadvantage.”

FULL SERVICE IN ACTION

Armadale Senior High School in Perth’s south-eastern suburbs is one example of a school that has implemented a full-service approach. It has a purposebuilt hub, which provides a range of youth and family support services to school-aged young people living in the Armadale, Byford, and Kelmscott areas who are pregnant or parenting, at risk of homelessness, or dealing with family or domestic violence.

The WA Department of Education annual report says that in 2022, 60 school-aged young people and their families were supported through services including counselling, employment and housing support, parent education, medical screening, youth outreach, pathway planning and alternative education pathways.

Other schools in metropolitan Perth began pursuing a full-service approach inthe late 1990s.

To meet the complex needs of students and their families, each school developed partnerships with government departments, not-forprofit agencies and businesses, and universities, to gain better support for students and their families.

Cumming points to Yudi Gunyi School in Sydney’s inner city as another example of how the concept is working.

Terry Cumming UNSW Professor of Special Education

In collaboration with health and allied health services, the school provides support for students aged 10 to 16 who need additional support with a range of behaviour and mental health needs. Students and their families have access to an occupational therapist, a physical therapist, a paediatrician, speech pathologist, social worker, art therapist and a psychologist.

The way that the full-service approach develops in a particular location often depends on context and capacity.

Kingston Community School’s remote location on South Australia’s Limestone Coast drove its development.

The school had the space to provide on-site services, such as a community library open after school hours, and its Gall Park Oval, which is shared with the local football and netball clubs after hours. More recently, a medical practitioner with psychology qualifications began working at the school (see A pathway to better mental health, page 13).

Principal Samantha Murdock says the shared spaces and services have many benefits. “It helps us build a lot more community connections than what we normally might be able to do.” Programs such as Baby Bounce and Wriggle and Read are run through the community library, which is jointly funded by the school and the local council.

“We’ve got the babies coming in with their mums and sometimes even dads and that gets them familiar with the site before they even start school,” Murdock says.

Parents have access to Zoom facilities for appointments in the library’s tele-hub facility. “They might do a Zoom meeting with an occupational therapist or a speech

pathologist or a mental health worker. We’ve had people come in and do Zoom meetings with lawyers sitting in Adelaide.”

The facility is important in a town where face-to-face appointments may require a four-hour round-trip to Mount Gambier, or a two-hour round-trip to Naracoorte.

As well as saving on time and fuel, it can mean shorter wait times to access specialists.

HOW TO MAKE IT WORK

AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe says full service schools can only be delivered if the required funding to support teaching and learning is in place.

That means the bilateral agreements between the Commonwealth and states and territories must provide 100 per cent of the benchmark Schooling Resource Standard (SRS), she says.

It’s also important that principals and teachers don’t end up carrying the extra workload of administration relating to management of additional services and the health and wellbeing professionals.

Successfully implementing full-service arrangements requires strong leadership, consultation and collaboration, and a commitment to ongoing communication. Principals generally need to be the driving force and that requires them to be knowledgeable about the services.

“They have to be able to pull the right people from the outside together,” says Cumming.

Part of the groundwork should include consulting parents on what they need. For example, she says, in Yudi Gunyi’s case there was significant consultation with Aboriginal Elders.

“To succeed requires buy-in from the community, from parents, from students,” she says. Success also requires the ability

Successfully implementing full-service arrangements requires strong leadership, consultation and collaboration.

Correna Haythorpe AEU federal president

to share information, which sometimes simply requires a basic consent form.

Collaboration between schools and agencies is going to work better if there is a shared vocabulary and roles and responsibilities are articulated and Murdock says it’s important to have those agreements “right from the beginning”.

“If you’ve got transient sta or leadership, it’s very di icult to make these things work because they take a few years to be implemented and actually functioning the way you want them to function.”

Having a designated wraparound or wellbeing liaison o icer can improve the e ectiveness of programs, Murdock says. “This is the tricky part because it costs money, but having one person that has the time and capacity to make those connections helps to make sure it’s working.”

Christine Long is a freelance writer.

(Pictured, clockwise from top left) Yudi Gunyi in Sydney, Armadale Senior High School located in Western Australia, Kingston Community School located on South Australia’s Limestone Coast.

A pathway to better mental health

An estimated one in seven children and adolescents experienced a mental illness in the last 12 months, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, showing the lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on wellbeing.

Close to half of all mental conditions emerge by the age of 14 years, according to a report by the national education initiative, Be You.

The report, Mentally Healthy Communities, says early life is a recognised critical period for developing skills and competencies that enable positive mental health. It’s also a period for identifying mental health disorders before they progress to become clinical disorders.

Schools often face the daunting task of helping students with mental health struggles while maintaining academic results and school readiness.

Some are introducing school-based programs to support student wellbeing.

At Kingston Community School in remote South Australia, having a medical practitioner with psychology qualifications working on-site has been a game-changer in the last 12 months, as some of its 320 students experience high levels of anxiety or depression.

The school had a wellbeing coordinator, but some students required more indepth support.

“We certainly did have post-COVID a number of kids who became disengaged and had poor attendance,” says principal Samantha Murdock.

“In the past, these students might have slipped through the system or their families would have had to travel to get them the support they needed.”

The medical practitioner is employed by the South Australian Department for Education, under the School Mental Health Service program, and is shared with a school in Bordertown, about 100km away. The program is designed to complement – not duplicate – the range of existing mental health and wellbeing services already in schools.

“Now support is available once a week, once a fortnight and it’s the same person, it’s on-site at the school, they don’t have to travel for it, and it’s a well-trained professional providing the support,” Murdoch says.

Kingston Community School also has a social worker on site twice a week.

The school is taking other steps to support student wellbeing. In 2022 sta undertook training and development in the Berry Street Model of Education, a trauma-informed education practice. And Murdock and the school wellbeing coordinator have taken further master classes in the training.

“We continue to work towards embedding that into the school,” she says.

Members of headspace visit, as do guest speakers from the Women’s Advisory Health Group, to talk about mental health – sometimes addressing students and sometimes their parents.

Murdock’s advice for other schools thinking of taking similar action is: “You’ve just got to be open to it and know that you’re supporting families and providing a service which means they don’t have to leave town to get the support they need.”

The Be You report, which reviewed the evidence for mentally healthy learning communities, found that a fullservice approach was one of the keys to success.

Other important elements included providing teachers and educators with the knowledge, skills and resources to

respond appropriately, and to ensure that the connections between families, schools and the community were clear to everyone.

INTERVENTION IMPROVES RESULTS

A recent study found school-based mental health and wellbeing programs have the potential to improve student academic outcomes in low- and middleincome countries.

The study was conducted by the Global Education Monitoring Centre, a partnership between the Australian Council for Educational Research and the Department of Foreign A airs and Trade.

Thirty-four school-based mental health programs were selected from lowand middle-income countries for the review. Another 56 interventions from high-income countries were assessed to compare the di erences in program aims and characteristics between their contexts.

It found strong, positive links between improvements in student mental health and wellbeing and improvements in academic readiness and achievement. Students involved in mental health programs also had improved socialemotional skills, increased behaviouralcognitive skills, and greater levels of physical activity and relaxation.

Ultimately, the study demonstrated the need for mental health programs to be evidence-based and tailored to need.

For example, in some contexts, where stigma still exists around mental health issues, the study said it was important that programs built awareness in schools and educated students about mental health issues.

You can find Be You’s online resources and professional learning for teachers and educators at beyou.edu.au

Quality resources can be a game-changer

The Australian Curriculum’s deeper engagement with Aboriginal histories and cultures and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures is a matter of national importance, writes professor Melitta Hogarth.

Education does not just impart information; it shapes who we are and who we might be.

Since 2010, the Australian Curriculum has included a cross-curriculum priority across all learning areas for the histories and cultures of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples. As a result, and beginning in every classroom, education in the knowledge systems, histories and cultures of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples has the potential to be a nation-building exercise.

IN SHORT

// Education in the histories and cultures of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples could be a nationbuilding exercise.

// The Ngarrngga project at the University of Melbourne's faculty of education has identified three guiding principles for teachers of Aboriginal students and Torres Strait Islander students.

Beyond bricks and mortar, documents such as the Australian Curriculum inform institutions that shape our society.

However, some teachers say they feel fearful of making mistakes or appearing tokenistic, and are underprepared to confidently showcase Indigenous knowledge in their classrooms.

A Monash University study, The Australian Teachers’ Survey 2023, found that over half (51 per cent) of teachers aged 35 years and over felt unprepared to teach the histories and cultures of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait

Islander peoples, and accommodate for student diversity.

These shortfalls are echoed in the recently released Improving outcomes for all: Australian government summary report of the review to inform a better and fairer education system, which highlights the lack of understanding and confidence of educators when engaging with the knowledge, systems and structures of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

This lack of confidence also exists when teaching Aboriginal students and Torres Strait Islander students. There is an urgent need for schools and governments to work with both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stakeholders to ensure educators provide culturally responsive learning environments and assessments for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

At Ngarrngga (pronounced “Naan-gah”, a Taungurung word meaning to know, to hear and to understand), an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led project housed at the University of Melbourne’s faculty of education, we have learned that many teachers would love to include Aboriginal peoples' and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ cultural practices such as dance, art and storytelling in their classes.

However, they are unsure of where and under what circumstances this can be acceptable. This level of fear and uncertainty often leaves many teachers frozen and perpetuates the silencing of knowledge.

TARGETED RESOURCES

Ngarrngga’s focus groups with classroom teachers from across the nation have highlighted the need for targeted support and resources for teachers to ensure a

We have identified three guiding principles to inform how we approach this work and believe these principles should apply to anyone working with Aboriginal knowledge, Torres Strait Islander knowledge and First Nations knowledge holders, and anyone teaching Aboriginal students and Torres Strait Islander students.

including time, budget constraints and lack of school and collegial support.

Ngarrngga aims to remove these barriers by making available curriculum and professional development resources produced by teachers for teachers.

We have partnered with schools to design, test and refine our resources, to support teachers to be confident in showcasing the knowledge of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples in their teaching and learning.

We have identified three guiding principles to inform how we approach this work and believe these principles should apply to anyone working with Aboriginal knowledge, Torres Strait Islander knowledge and First Nations knowledge holders, and anyone teaching Aboriginal students and Torres Strait Islander students.

Professor Melitta Hogarth

Kamilaroi woman; associate dean (Indigenous) and principal research fellow, faculty of education, University of Melbourne

more consistent and inclusive integration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content across all school year levels.

Teachers reported strong concerns about the quality of relevant content at all career stages. They also identified other barriers to engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge

The guiding principles (see box) cover recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural and intellectual property, reparative justice and connectedness.

These principles and the thinking behind them should form the foundations of our understanding of the knowledge and intellect of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It also means that teachers and schools must be supported in building relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and colleagues.

Without connection with, and involvement from the respective communities, educators run the risk of attempting to teach culture that does not belong to them.

With Ngarrngga, we are putting these principles into action. The project is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led and supported by an expert advisory

Resources

Resources and information are available at ngarrngga.org

panel with most members being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander descent. These Aboriginal voices and Torres Strait Islander voices represent a breadth of lived experiences, including Aboriginal Elders and Torres Strait Islander Elders with representation from multiple communities.

We recognise this project is just a small piece in the larger puzzle. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge, cultures and histories are a conceptual tapestry – expansive, abstract, universal, timeless and interwoven.

This transcends the limitations of the Australian Curriculum’s isolated content descriptors, colloquially known as the “curriculum dot-points”. We want teachers to view these descriptors as the starting point for learning, not the end point.

The new cross-curriculum priority in the Australian Curriculum should be nation-defining, so it is vital that Ngarrngga and other groups support educators by illuminating the depth and complexity of Aboriginal knowledge and Torres Strait Islander knowledge, something that is currently missing in the Australian Curriculum.

This is an opportunity for all Australians to truly know, hear and understand the remarkable achievements and invaluable contributions of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples to our country.

This is an edited extract of an article was first published in Pursuit (pursuit.unimelb.edu.au).

Professor Melitta Hogarth is a Kamilaroi woman; associate dean (Indigenous) and principal research fellow, faculty of education, University of Melbourne.

Connecting with Culture

The Ngarrngga project aims to connect all Australian students with the knowledge, histories and cultures of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The project, a collaboration between the University of Melbourne’s faculty of education, Indigenous Studies Union and the Indigenous Knowledge Institute, provides free curriculum resources and professional development modules for all subject areas from Year 3–10.

Its guiding principles are to:

Recognise Indigenous cultural and intellectual property

By recognising Indigenous cultural and intellectual property, we create space to equalise the imbalance between Indigenous knowledge and the assumed authority of Western knowledge systems.

This both improves educators’ capacity and agency to better

engage with and know their Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander child or student and empowers teachers to engage with Indigenous content respectively.

Encourage reparative justice

We must acknowledge and address past injustices and understand how they persist in people’s lives.

E orts must be made to redress the injustices experienced by Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples by amplifying their voices and collaborating with all teachers to build knowledge, foster critical thinking and promote understanding of diverse perspectives in their classrooms.

Promote relationality

Relationality – the idea that everything is connected – is intrinsic to Aboriginal peoples' and Torres Strait Islander peoples' ways of being, knowing and doing, and extends beyond human connections to encompass relationships with Country, kinship and ideas, serving as both a way of being and knowing.

Joining the First Nations Workers Alliance is a powerful way to show you believe in a better future for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers.

Membership is open to all Australian union members, and by joining you’ll not just be showing solidarity – you’ll also get access to our exclusive member portal with resources and education about indigenous and union history.

POWERED BY THE ACTU

Moving towards wage justice

A fairer pay deal may finally be on the way for early childhood teachers and educators.

Early childhood teachers and educators are expected to get a long overdue pay boost this year.

The federal government has committed to funding wage increases for the undervalued and feminised workforces, including the early childhood sector.

Minister for Early Childhood Education

Dr Anne Aly says the commitment is an important step to properly valuing and recognising early childhood teachers and educators.

It’s also critical to the attraction and retention of workers, she says.

“It is absolutely clear that this is a professional workforce that loves and values what they do. But as one educator told me, ‘love doesn't pay the bills’. And it is a workforce that is under increasing financial stress because the remuneration doesn't reflect the professionalism and doesn't reflect the work that they do.”

The Fair Work Commission, which recently increased minimum and award wages by 3.75 per cent, has acknowledged that workers in feminised industries and occupations have been undervalued.

The Commission says its gender equity research project has identified priority areas for attention including early childhood education and care workers, disability home care workers and other social and community services workers, dental assistants, medical technicians, psychologists, other health professionals and pharmacists.

The Commission’s research, undertaken by the University of New South Wales Social Policy Research Centre, considered large, highly feminised occupations in feminised industries employing more than 1.1 million workers.

It found more than 97 per cent of early childhood teachers and educators were women.

Hearings to examine “gender undervaluation” will commence shortly, the Commission says.

LONG DAY CARE BARGAINING

Meanwhile, negotiations are continuing to win a 25 per cent pay rise for employees in early learning centres.

Negotiations began last year after the Commission’s historic decision to authorise the AEU, the Independent

Education union and the United Workers Union to negotiate an enterprise agreement with 65 employers.

Chair of the AEU’s federal Early Childhood committee Cara Nightingale says that the negotiations cover only about 15,000 of the more than 200,000 teachers and educators employed in the centres, but the final result will set a benchmark for wages in long day care centres across the country.

“There are serious inequities in pay and conditions between those working in sessional kindergartens and those

The more hours we get with the children, the greater level of connection we have and the greater opportunities to support and guide outcomes.

Early childhood education and care costs can be up to 20% of disposable income for poorer families

1 in 5 centres charge fees above the daily Child Care Subsidy rate cap

Early childhood teachers skills and qualifications need to be reflected by pay increases.

“For example, Victoria is probably the most advanced where two years of free kinder is o ered to all three-year-olds and four-year-olds.” Looking further into the future, Victoria says that by 2036, all children will have access to 600 hours of kindergarten for three-year-olds and 1200 hours of pre-prep.

Al Milsted Kindergarten Director, Mount Pleasant Road Primary School

employed to run kinder programs within long day care services,” says Nightingale.

She says the log of claims shows that the top issues for early childhood members include a wage increase, professional development, additional planning time and delegates rights.

UNIVERSAL ACCESS

While there is progress on pay and conditions in the sector, there is unfinished business when it comes to the calls for funding two years of universal access in preschools and early learning centres.

Nightingale says it’s all about where you live.

1 in 5 centres charge fees above the daily Child Care Subsidy rate cap 50% of families in regional Australia live in ‘childcare deserts’

In South Australia, the state government has recently announced an investment of $715 million over five years to implement universal preschool for three-year-olds from 2026 and other key recommendations from the Royal Commission into Early Childhood and Care.

In the ACT, three-year-olds can access 300 free preschool hours and NSW has begun a rollout

A childcare desert is an area where there are 3+ children for every available position

Your 2024 budget breakdown

Federally funded Early Childhood Educator Worker wage increases

Funding to strengthen fraud and non-compliance activities

Increased Early Childhood Educator Inclusion support Universal Preschool access

At Mount Pleasant Road Primary School in Victoria, kindergarten director Al Milsted says the waiting list for the 15 hours of free kindergarten for three-year-olds is “through the roof”.

“If we could put on a second class we would,” Milsted says.

He says three-year-old kindergarten has been a positive move and “amazing”.

“The more hours we get with the children, the greater level of connection we have and the greater opportunities to support and guide outcomes.”

He says the children are more settled and have a sense of belonging.

“They have a trusting relationship with sta . They're able to let go of their parents and have less separation anxiety. The improvement in their socialisation and communication skills is incredible,” Milsted says.

Sources: Australian Competition and Consumer Commission 2023; ACCC June 2023 Interim Report; 2022 Mitchell Institute report Deserts and oases: How accessible is childcare? Authorised by Kevin Bates, AEU Melbourne

Pictured:

Calls to boost vocational pathways in schools

A parliamentary inquiry has strongly recommended an overhaul of vocational education and training (VET) in secondary schools.

BY MARGARET PATON

The 2024 federal budget’s $600 million investment in skills and training will go some way towards repairing a VET sector that has been seriously undermined by a lack of funding and negative perceptions.

AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe says the funding, along with the National Skills Agreement, the establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia and the VET Workforce Blueprint Strategy will also help to rebuild the capacity of TAFE after years of neglect by the previous Coalition government.

A parliamentary inquiry, in a report delivered earlier this year, has emphasised

VET’s important contribution in providing skills pathways to students and its critical importance to Australia’s economic security.

“Evidence indicates that approximately 51 per cent of all current jobs require a VET qualification. Over the next 10 years, around 44 per cent of all new jobs will require a VET qualification, and 48 per cent will require a bachelor’s degree or higher,” according to the House Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training’s Inquiry into the Perceptions and Status of Vocational Education and Training.

When it comes to VET programs o ered in schools, the inquiry called for “much more promotion” of VET to students including providing relevant, accessible information on VET and associated industries and careers and promoting VET and university as equally valid.

Proportion of Australia’s VET in schools FTE enrolments

Source: TBC

It is essential

that young people from all locations across Australia and from all backgrounds have access to all available post school pathways so that they are able to explore all options and choose the most

appropriate

one

for

them, without restriction.

As the AEU points out in its submission to the inquiry: “It is essential that young people from all locations across Australia and from all backgrounds have access to all available post school pathways so that they are able to explore all options and choose the most appropriate one for them, without restriction”.

The AEU submission called for vocational education to be introduced in schools from Year 10.

It says that, while the total amount of VET taught in schools has increased slightly in recent years, there has been a significant decline in the level of qualifications taught.

systems prevents public school and TAFE partnerships from being able to provide the full breadth of certificate level qualifications and increases the potential for significant narrowing of the pathways and options available to public school students engaged in VET while at school, according to the submission.

The AEU says ensuring public school funding is at 100 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) and reinstating public TAFE as the provider of VET in schools would overcome a number of systemic issues.

AEU submission to the Inquiry into the Perceptions and Status of Vocational Education and Training.

“Non-accredited training package qualifications still comprise the vast majority of VET program enrolments at more than 93 per cent of VET taught in public schools,” the AEU submission says.

A systemic and chronic lack of resources available in public school

“It is essential that VET in Schools should be funded from a specific budget directed to TAFE for that purpose rather than provided by for profit RTOs diverting resources from public schools, and/ or requiring students to fund provision themselves through additional charges,” the AEU submission says.

The inquiry agreed that “fit-for-purpose

regulatory, funding and governance arrangements” are necessary and recommended that all Australian schools be funded to 100 per cent of the SRS.

It also recommended cooperative arrangements between secondary schools, TAFEs and industry to underpin the design and delivery of VET in schools.

A workforce shortage is a worrying threat to the sector. The inquiry found that ensuring a ready supply of well-qualified VET teachers is now urgent.

It called for better pay and conditions among other initiatives to improve attraction and retention of teachers.

QUALITY CRITICAL

The quality of VET delivered in schools is critical to the perceptions of VET, the inquiry found.

Its report called for “real changes” to ensure the sector delivers the highquality education and training needed to respond to current and emerging skill requirements.

In Victoria, recent reforms are helping to dispel the negative perceptions, according to Louise Speirs-Bridge, learning specialist – applied and vocational education, at Wurun Senior Campus (a senior campus for Collingwood College & Fitzroy High School).

“Essentially, now in Victoria there are three ways senior secondary school students can go – the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE), the VCE with a vocational major specialisation (VCE VM), or a Victorian Pathways Certificate (VPC),” she says.

“I’m a massive fan of the reforms because the narrative is changing; each pathway is being valued and validated as the best pathway options for each individual.”

I’m a massive fan of the reforms because the narrative is changing; each pathway is being valued and validated as the best pathway options for each individual.

Speirs-Bridge says the VCE VM and VPC subject program, introduced in early 2023, o er more genuine opportunities for student voice and agency in meeting the prescribed outcomes of the curriculum.

This means more opportunity for realworld connections and the development of capabilities such as creative thinking and communication that are critical to success in further study, training, and employment, she says.

Louise

Spiers-Bridge Collingwood College and Fitzroy High School

Speirs-Bridge leads a team of 10 vocational education teachers and support sta who hold high expectations of students in applied and vocational pathways, while maintaining a focus on applied learning approaches and studentcentred delivery.

VCE VM integrates VET for careers, while the flexible VPC allows for customisation. Both can include academic subjects, with VET optional for VPC and General VCE.

Speirs-Bridge says from a teaching perspective, there’s a revised study design aligned with the VCE (via the VCE VM), which gives an opportunity to refine practice and improve perceptions of applied and vocational pathways.

As well, the school provides access to 20-plus VET programs on its innerMelbourne site or externally through TAFE or registered training providers.

QLD LEADS THE WAY

Queensland is a hot spot for growth in VET in schools, says Queensland Teachers’ Union (QTU) president Cresta Richardson.

“Our state has consistently maintained its position of providing the greatest proportional share o Australia’s VET in Schools full-time enrolments, reaching 39 per cent in 2022, up six percent from 2018,” she says.

However, that growth comes despite a suite of barriers that need to be “addressed urgently”.

“VET in schools teachers often must do extra duties, but schools don’t have the funds to release them to maintain their industry currency and do extra work, such as internal course reviews. Plus, their spread of hours increases when they supervise students doing industry placements.”

The QTU is among stakeholders the

Queensland Government has consulted to develop a new QVET strategy. The union is calling for government funding to support professional development, curriculum development and implementation, and equipment for VET in schools programs.

As well, Richardson argues schools should “form equitable partnerships” with the main beneficiaries of VET in schoolsQueensland industry – but not commercial or sponsorship arrangements. She also advocates for school VET programs to

partner with their local TAFE.

“Schools should facilitate young people’s transition to a broad range of post-school options and pathways. As part of this, VET in schools should be a curriculum option available in all Queensland state high schools and state colleges.”

Complete the questionnaire between 1 July and 15 September 2024, to go in the draw to win one of five $500 e-gift cards.

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

Rise in toxic masculinity

As gendered violence spirals, researchers are looking at the impact of the resurgence of sexism and misogyny in schools.

BY SAMANTHA ALLEMANN

Some social media influencers are feeding toxic masculinity by goading their followers into extreme notions of masculinity and by promoting regressive, sexist ideas about women, says a Monash University study released in April.

The research paper, led by Dr Stephanie Westcott from the university’s faculty of education found a disturbing pattern of sustained sexual harassment, sexism and misogyny, signalling a worrying shift in gender dynamics.

IN SHORT

// A worrying shift in gender dynamics has grown since the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic.

// Schoolwide change can happen when staff form a united front and call out all forms of toxic masculinity.

Interviews with 30 upper primary and secondary women teachers pinpointed the return from COVID-19 lockdown and remote schooling as the beginning of a discernible shift in some boys’ attitudes and behaviour towards them. This timeline coincides with the rise in the popularity of controversial social media influencers and self-proclaimed misogynists, says Patty Kinnersly, CEO of Our Watch.

Kinnersly says the Monash study sounds the alarm that a new generation of young men is being exposed to and shaped by male influencers via social media.

“This can be dangerous, as overwhelming evidence shows that men who hold rigid views about masculinity — such as that men must be strong, stoic, hide their feelings, be dominant or aggressive – are 17 times more likely to say they have hit an intimate partner,” she says.

INCREASED ENTITLEMENT AND NEGATIVE BEHAVIOUR

Wescott, who authored the study with Professor Steven Roberts, says the findings were alarming yet not completely unexpected. What was surprising was the brazen and overt nature of boys’ behaviour towards their teachers, she says.

Many of the teachers surveyed said that there was an increasing trend where some male students were becoming more demanding of women teachers, demonstrating entitlement in classrooms, and engaging in behaviours that were belittling and patronising of girls and women.

SYSTEM-WIDE RESPONSIBILITY

Roberts says the study reveals the crucial importance of a systemic response to sexism and misogyny. While it is vital that men working in schools are aware of what is happening and the impact it is having on their colleagues, it is also crucial that Departments of Education have strong policies and support mechanisms in place.

“The importance of male colleagues listening to women in their schools and believing them cannot be underestimated,” he says.

“The other important thing for men to do is to call it (toxic masculinity) out and report it when they see or hear it, and to treat it as a serious incident.”

The other important thing for men to do is to call it (toxic masculinity) out and report it when they see or hear it, and to treat it as a serious incident.

Dr

Stephanie Westcott Faculty of Education, Monash University

“We know that teachers are already having impactful conversations on these topics in their classrooms, but it shouldn’t only be the responsibility of individual teachers to take on this issue,” says Roberts.

“Cohort-wide or school-wide cultural change begins with conversations about what will or will not be tolerated in school settings, and the right to safety at school needs to be taken seriously,” Wescott says. “This should be a consistent message that comes from all sta .”

Kinnersly says that while Respectful Relationships education is in the national curriculum, it is not enough.

“It is only part of a handful of lessons; we need a ‘whole-of’ approach so that teachers receive adequate support and training through their school policies and leadership,” she says. “Teachers deserve to feel safe at work.”

The AEU has long advocated for a strong systemic response to support school communities. Principals and teachers need to be backed by their respective education departments with relevant policy settings, resources, ongoing professional development and a proactive plan to address the rise of toxic masculinity at a system level. It is unreasonable to expect school leadership and teachers to manage this in isolation.

Wescott and Roberts say that schools have an opportunity to lead community responses to gender-based violence and, as sites of early intervention, can model the attitudinal and behavioural changes needed in broader society to intervene in this problem.

Samantha Allemann is a freelance writer.

Positive results

There’s a lot to take in during the early years of a teaching career, but these new educators are finding plenty of good vibes.

BY MARGARET PATON

Amy Herring

Year 6-10 teacher

Holland Street School, Geraldton, WA

PRACTICAL ROAD TO PROGRESS

New educator Amy Herring is celebrating progress in her quest to be the best communication partner possible for a student with complex needs.

“We’re making the classroom more functional for him, setting up a separate learning area if he’s overwhelmed, and having rotations rather than whole-class learning. There’s less noise and stimulus in the environment, so we’ve seen a big positive change in him,” she says.

FOCUS ON THE POSITIVES

This year, Herring is enjoying having her own class rather than team teaching. Her eight high-school-age students are mostly non-verbal, and function at pre-Foundation level, each with individual learning plans.

But there’s a challenge. While receptive to feedback, Herring says she is her own worst critic: “I'm always thinking, that didn't work. Why? What did I do wrong? I sometimes forget to focus on the positives, on what went well.”

Many of her students are going through puberty, and Herring has found it necessary to adapt to the changes.

“What worked for them before won’t work now. I’ve had these students for three years, but I’m still learning about them.” One solution she’s found e ective is to take her class outdoors for a brain break.

I work with my students every day knowing I’m making a difference. I’m part of something magical, ultimately because I care about my students a lot.

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

TRAUMA CONSIDERED

This term Herring has been learning more about trauma-informed positive behaviour support and working closely with a specialist who takes three students out of her class for support.

“It’s helping me understand trauma, the e ects of neurobiology on behaviour and to consider the learner as a whole, not just where they should be in the curriculum. I’m learning about the di erent skills and strategies needed to integrate this knowledge,” she says.

In Herring's class, students have multiple ways to communicate their

needs, including visual cues, devices, and a shared vocabulary for self-regulation that extends across the school.

IN THE LIMELIGHT

WA education minister Dr Tony Buti recently visited the school and observed Herring's personalised approach. It underscored the unique value o ered by her specialised classroom.

As Herring ponders her ideal version of a teacher, she begins by narrowing it down: “I’m not a psychiatrist, not a correctional o icer, not an etiquette coach, and not a babysitter.

“I work with my students every day knowing I’m making a di erence. I’m part of something magical.”

That magic is being tested though. In April, WA public school teachers took industrial action, walking o the job in support of improved pay and conditions.

“We’re overworked, underfunded and over it,” she says.

In the meantime, she’s trying to ensure that her weekends are a break from teaching. On Friday nights she works as a volunteer ambulance o icer and uses the time between callouts to plan for the next school week, to leave her weekend free.

Amy Herring

It’s so beautiful to hear language filtering through the school back to me, like darrundang for thank you.

Rachel Wallis

High school English and society and culture teacher

Woolgoolga High School, NSW

SIMPLE STRATEGIES DELIVER REWARDS

Returning to the classroom after six months of union recruitment work last year has brought new understandings for Rachel Wallis. She has realised her passion for teaching comes from her interactions with students.

“It might be moments in the classroom, while on yard duty, or at our dance party for wellbeing day. Those happy moments fill my cup,” says Wallis, who’s also the Year 10 Adviser at Woolgoolga High School, north of Co s Harbour.

In Term 1, Wallis was part of the wellbeing team that ran a whole-school event, including a colour fun run, ninja obstacle course, and cross-country run.

“I was the announcer and during a break from events, we had an impromptu school community dance party, doing the Macarena and Nutbush [dances] just in the playground,” she says. “It was incredibly heartwarming.”

Now in her seventh year of teaching, Wallis has found another reason to celebrate her career. It is the support she receives from her husband, Brenton, a full-time teaching assistant at her school.

“He’s yet to join one of my classes but it’s good to have someone who understands the highs and lows of school, and we get to enjoy holidays together.”

STEP-BY-STEP SUCCESS

Meanwhile, Wallis is putting her professional learning about high-impact Higher School Certificate (HSC) exam strategies to good use. She plans to introduce writing skills and exam-style responses throughout the year for Year 11 society and culture students to lift their HSC band levels.

She’s found simple strategies can be powerful, but there’s one (a change in seating plan) that she delayed implementing for her history class.

“I know the students well because I have them for two subjects and there are some big conversational players in there, as well as some low-level behaviour,” she says.

“By week six of Term 1, I knew the class needed a seating plan, but I put it o until week eight.”

After minimal pushback, the plan made “all the di erence”.

FOSTERING FIRST NATIONS CULTURE

Wallis runs two compulsory Year 7 Gumbaynggirr language and culture classes at Woolgoolga High. The school will subsidise a Yarrawarra Cultural Centre excursion this term, making it more accessible for all Year 7 students.

“It’s so beautiful to hear language filtering through the school back to me, like darrundang for thank you. One student also created classroom posters for me to print out to encourage people to use language more.”

Wallis also held professional learning for teachers to share simple command words such as “stop” or “no”.

THE RIGHT BALANCE

Wallis uses lists to manage her workload at school and at home. Short camping breaks with her husband help her recharge away from technology and commitments.

“Work-life balance is so delicate. Sometimes, I’ll think about what can be pushed back on my list, so I can put aside an hour or two to read a book or do whatever. I have to be realistic in how much I can do,” she says.

Rachel Wallis

Stephanie Accary

Year 4–5 teacher

Yubup Primary School, outer Melbourne

RAPID GROWTH AT NEW SCHOOL

Stephanie Accary has come a long way since the start of the school year in a newly opened school.

“We had just 15 students and nothing but tables, chairs and a tiny whiteboard for the first three weeks,” she says.

As word gets out about the school, enrolments increase and Accary’s class has been taking on one newcomer each fortnight.

She’s encouraging a handful of new international students to find their voice in an Australian classroom.

“These children have very di erent social norms about what schools look like. They’re used to a very strict classroom, so when they come into an Australian one, it feels too relaxed,” she says.

One student told her that school in Australia is “much easier” than in India and then became quite noisy in class.

“He wasn’t used to the freedom, so I had to rein him in a bit by o ering gentle redirection to get him to reflect,” she says.

SUPPORTING CULTURE

Cultural Education is a priority for Accary. She begins each day with an Acknowledgement of Country and incorporates First Nations perspectives in lessons.

While one of her Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students privately told her he did not want to discuss his heritage, he has since settled in and become more comfortable sharing his First Nations identity, she says.

...the school’s leadership and admin teams have done a good job to help beat “newness fatigue”.

Stephanie Accary

“On Harmony Day, he showed up wearing a big beautiful Aboriginal flag,” she says.

Professionally, Accary says the school’s leadership and admin teams have done a good job to help beat “newness fatigue”.

Teachers have three extra curriculum planning days because it’s a new school and have been collaborating on scope and sequence documentation, building anarchive from scratch.

Tom Hermes

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

PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL CHALLENGES

Top End teacher Tom Hermes is making a determined e ort to ensure he teaches “very relevant” content to his Year 9–12 students, many of whom have experienced significant gaps in their schooling.

Hermes, teaching at the remote Laynhapuy Homelands School, aims to share relatable concepts.

“In first term, our main project was a shopping trip to town, calculating distances and time, putting together a shopping list, working out quantities and costs, and how much petrol we needed to drive there and back,” says Hermes.

SPACED LEARNING

Timing has been another challenge. He plans to pace out the main externally marked projects for Year 12 students over the year.

“Last year we had a high Year 12 completion rate but comparing what those students produced for a pass grade with what some other schools passed, we realised we over assessed,” he says.

“This year, we’re spending more class time for fundamental skill development in English and maths that will help the students after they leave school.”

Hermes continues to fly out to the boarding school at Garrthalala to work four days a week and has one pupilfree day at the o ice. He also teaches

Aboriginal studies to Year 9–12 students. They’re tackling a Yolŋu history project that covers pre-colonisation and focuses on Aboriginal peoples’ sea trade with Indonesians.

Well into his third year of teaching, Hermes says he’s loving the work.

“I got lucky with this school because the students are just so warm and keen to learn. You set them a writing task and the whole room will be quiet and on task.”

Other drawcards are various events across the NT. They include the immersive Barunga Festival in Katherine, Arnhem Sports, Swim, and Survive training, and a trip to Kakadu.

“I got lucky with this school because the students are just so warm and keen to learn. You set them a writing task and the whole room will be quiet  and on task.”

Tom Hermes

He’ll also be mentoring a student teacher from Melbourne during the term. “It’s the first time I’ve done that,” he says.

Hermes considers his role at the Laynhapuy school as a year-byyear decision.

“If I did move on, it would be more about the social factors of living in an isolated area, a long way from my family and friends in the ACT and Melbourne,” he says.

PET PLUSES

However, he has tapped into a group oflike-minded teachers of the same age in the Northern Territory and he’s adopted a six-month-old Chihuahua thathis students have named Tom after him.

“I take him to work with me for my o ice day in Yirrkala and he’s become the mascot. Dog Tom is definitely more popular than human Tom. I’ve been invited to a lot more dinner parties on the proviso I bring my dog along,” he laughs.

Meanwhile, Hermes hopes to contribute to lasting change with his union work and submitted seven motions for the AEU NT conference in May. He’s calling for more NT government funding for the boarding school, and for his school to get a “very remote” classification.

“The principal has been passionately advocating for this, and I’m adding to her voice. Our boarding school is in the bush, there are no healthcare, shops, or services. We want more recognition of the nature of this work,” he says.

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

Nancy, Teachers Health member

International call for education action

More urgent action is needed to ensure universal quality primary and secondary education by 2030.

BY LEANNE TOLRA

In Australia, for the first time in the profession’s history, there are more teachers leaving the profession during their career than there are teachers due to retire.

Governments around the world have been called upon to implement the 59 recommendations of the United Nations High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession to ensure every child across the globe is taught by a qualified teacher every day.

The recommendations, supported by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the International Labour Organisation

(ILO), launched in April, recognise that the future of humanity depends on e ective public education delivered by a strong and valued education workforce.

Education International president and panel member Susan Hopgood says the recommendations are a call to action for governments to redress the growing and alarming worldwide shortage of 44 million teachers needed to ensure universal primary and secondary education by 2030.

“The challenges may vary from country to country, and they include the massive global shortage of teachers, insu icient funding, teachers being overworked and underpaid, not enough qualified teachers and a push in some countries to reduce the qualifications of teachers,” Hopgood says.

“In some countries international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), are forcing governments to

Education International president, Susan Hopgood

Susan Hopgood Education International president

put limits on teacher payrolls and reduce salaries as a condition for loans. And increasingly teachers around the world face precarious employment conditions, including contracts and casual work.”

The UN panel included ministers of education, former presidents, academics, representatives from civil society, teachers and student unions. The recommendations aim to achieve United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.

The recommendations can be grouped into six themes:

• Pay, conditions and job security

• Professional practice

• Gender, equity and diversity

• Technology and the future of work

• Social dialogue and collective bargaining

• Financing.

IT’S UP TO US

Hopgood says one important recommendation proposes that governments establish national commissions that include relevant financial institutions, teacher unions and other stakeholders to assess and tackle shortages of properly qualified and trained teachers.

She says the declining status of and respect for the teaching profession has resulted in people of all ages not wanting to join the teaching profession. The increasing and unmanageable workload and work intensification issues are causing people to leave the profession.

“In Australia, for the first time in the profession’s history, there are more teachers leaving the profession during their career than there are teachers due to retire,” she says.

It’s up to us to make sure that the panel’s recommendations are implemented. It gives unions and governments a good basis for arguing that there is evidence and agreement around what needs to change...

Hopgood Education International President

“And there are fewer, and not enough, people coming into the profession. If that continues, we can’t possibly meet our needs. There is a shortage now and it is not going to improve.

“It’s up to us to make sure that the panel’s recommendations are implemented. It gives unions and governments a good basis for arguing that there is evidence and agreement around what needs to change if we are going to address the challenges that we are facing in education, focusing on the teaching profession.”

Leanne Tolra is Australian Educator’s sub editor and a freelance writer.

The recommendations and a summary of the report can be downloaded at: tinyurl.com/82vddf9n

Key recommendations

The key recommendations of the United Nations High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession include:

Enabling the transformation of the teaching profession

Investing in teachers

Promoting equity, diversity and inclusion

Elevating the status and dignity of the teaching profession

Improving quality and fostering innovation in teaching through training and lifelong learning

Ensuring sustainability, peace and democracy

Fostering humanity in teaching through decent work

Developing leadership in teaching

Advancing human-centred education technology

Transforming teaching through a new social contract for education and social dialogue.

Susan

Time to get the education whale back in the water

Education reform must consider new ways of thinking about schooling and start with what students need to learn and grow.

BY LEANNE TOLRA

Teachers and students are being let down by failed government education transformation attempts and paying for it in the classroom, says the author of a new book that analyses and critiques decades of government education reform.

Dean Ashenden, an honorary senior fellow at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, puts years of government policy and change – the 1960s and the so-called education revolution of the Rudd/ Gillard years – under the microscope, and says attempts have collectively failed to create an e ective, workable system that benefits students.

In his book, Unbeaching the whale: can Australia’s schooling be reformed?, Ashenden argues that “the whale of schooling is beached” and current e orts to get it moving are not working and will not work. He says finding a di erent way of thinking about schooling and structural reform is essential.

Ashenden says that “in the absence of structural reform, it is the teachers in the classroom who are being landed with the problem of adjusting learning programs for students with very di erent needs and working out how to o er them a broader experience at school”.

“They are being asked to do what reforms have failed to do.”

Ashenden says the Australian education system requires an urgent overhaul approaching the scale of Medicare and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

“Teacher organisations will play a crucial role in determining whether we get the kind and scale of reform now needed,” he says.

“The overhaul must come from the ground up; from the organisation of the

daily work of students and teachers to the structure of the system and its governance.”

He writes that: “There is now no entity, national or other, no government, state/ territory or federal, and no stakeholder or combination of stakeholders with a span of responsibility and authority and a relationship between brain and body close enough to conceive and drive change of the kind and scale required.”

The organisation of Australia’s 9500 schools needs change as much as daily life in the schools, Ashenden says, and thinking should start not with teachers’ work, but students’ work.

“The NDIS wasn’t designed around provider needs, but around what people with disabilities need.

“Just as that required a reorganised system, so do we need to reorganise what schools provide – classes, lessons, subjects and space – so that every student can make real intellectual progress and grow, personally and socially,” he says.

Ashenden says there are “breakthroughs in the rigorous assessment of learning and growth” by a wide range of schools in the University of Melbourne’s New Metrics Project. There are also breakthroughs in re-organising teaching and learning for a wide range of students in schools like the Big Picture Academies in NSW and WA, he says.

“What they get is certainly not mainstream,” he writes, but rather “personal learning plans shaped by their passions and interests” and framed around goals such as “empirical reasoning, quantitative reasoning, social reasoning, communication, personal qualities and knowing how to learn”.

A NEW PERSPECTIVE

Ashenden says Australia has spent “three or four decades of fiddling with curriculum” and that the concept of a national curriculum is flawed and will never work e ectively within a multisectored, multi-governed schooling model.

“The government and non-government sectors, including the faith-based/ secular divide, are here to stay, but the relationship between them must change,” Ashenden says.

“The two non-government sectors feed o government schools, taking students and families, resources and prestige as well as a lot of very capable teachers and school leaders.

“It’s time to work out how to level the playing field – putting all schools, or as many as possible, on a broadly common basis of funding, governed by broadly common rules about choice and selection of schools.”

Responsibility needs to be pushed back into the states/territories and much closer to the schools, he says.

“The state/territories must develop cross-sector, arm’s length forms of governance that are capable of encouraging and supporting a long-term reform strategy.

“What we now need is a much larger view of what schools can and should do, and reforms that act on it – we should be aiming to give every student 13 safe, happy and worthwhile years, and achieving this within a generation.

“Reform is simply changing whatever needs to be changed to deliver the objective. That is much easier to say than to do, of course, but it is possible – and it is certainly needed,” Ashenden says.

Resources

Unbeaching the Whale: Can Australia’s schooling be reformed? is available in ebook and paperback at cse.edu.au

The government and non-government sectors, including the faith-based/secular divide, are here to stay, but the relationship between them must change.

Dean Ashenden

Leanne Tolra is Australian Educator’s sub-editor and a freelance writer.

Honorary senior fellow Melbourne Graduate School of Education

Art for learning’s sake

Creativity, inspiration and collaboration are important learning inputs, says drama teacher Ann Clarke.

BY CHRISTINE LONG

Playing a role in Broken Hill Repertory’s production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a six-year-old was all it took to make Ann Clarke fall in love with the theatre.

It’s a passion that still enlivens her days as a drama teacher and year level coordinator at Seaton High School in Adelaide’s western suburbs.

“I’ve always been involved in the arts as a hobby,” says Clarke. “I loved what it did for me and how it made me feel and then I transitioned that into helping other young people have those same experiences and develop that confidence.”

The 830-student high school is one of five in South Australia fostering the next generation of entrepreneurs and Clarke believes the arts has a significant role to play in that process.

But she’s concerned that the arts are often overshadowed by the narrow focus on literacy and numeracy skills.

“Learning and participating in the arts is important to literacy and numeracy. The arts contributes to a happy and healthy society, it fosters creativity and helps people become problem solvers and more collaborative. All of those skills work in conjunction with literacy and numeracy,” she says.

“The creativity you learn in the arts can help you be a better scientist because you are willing to think outside the box and try di erent ideas or you’re less worried about failure because you’ve [tried] things in the arts and you know it’s not the end of the world when it doesn’t work out.”

She says the arts can also help students develop confidence and mental resilience.

To encourage a broader vision of the arts, Clarke and the school’s dance teacher, Emma Hosie, have developed the

Learning and participating in the arts is important to literacy and numeracy. The arts contributes to a happy and healthy society.

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.

Performers and performing arts groups are brought in to give students insight into the diverse pathways into the arts and the “hustle” that’s required to succeed in the industry.

A lot of them have forged a self-made route, says Clarke. “They didn’t audition and get into a company. They made their own company, they volunteered, or they created something that has grown, and they’ve been able to move it into a more professional endeavour.”

“I think it helps the kids to see that there’s no straight line to the end. You can go o and do di erent things and you can keep that passion at your core, and you can end up putting your skills into the passion that you have.”

Clarke’s own career path took a di erent turn when she accepted a role as an AEU organiser in 2015.

Ann

Clarke

Drama Teacher and Year Level Coordinator, Seaton High School, Adelaide, SA

Performing Arts Industry program.

Now in its third year, the program shows students they can use their skills in the arts even if they never plan to don dance shoes or pick up a guitar. They might use tech, engineering, accounting, or physiotherapy skills to contribute to the arts.

“I just wanted to explore other ways to contribute to education,” she says, “I think working at the union and getting that five years of in-depth training for how to work collectively has definitely helped me come back and be a better teacher and leader at my school.”

Ultimately, it was the students who drew her back to the classroom. “I’d missed being with the kids and that creative energy that I get from them,” she says, herpassion for teaching never subsiding.

Christine Long is a

freelance writer.