Published in NT Sun on October 30 2018

TRB AN IMPORTANT INSTITUTION

The NT Teachers Registration Board is an important institution playing a key role in ensuring the quality and competence of teachers in our schools.

These boards are part and parcel of the educational make up of every state and territory in Australia. It is behoven upon boards to ensure teachers appointed to our schools meet agreed standards in terms of qualification, competence and character.

Since its establishment in September 2004, the Northern Territory Teachers Registration Board has processed applications from hundreds of teachers. For the most part the board has done a most satisfactory job.

In recent times however, it has been reported that several teachers in our schools have slipped through the net and into our classrooms. That should have not happened. It only takes one or two slips like this to negatively impact on the board’s reputation.

In one case a person had a background that included quite a number of “aliases”. This would have made it difficult to accurately evaluate that person’s background and character. There have been other instances of people being registered when that was not the most appropriate option.

Systems need to safeguard our children and offer them the best possible education. While 99% of our teachers approved by the board fill the brief for appointment, no oversight can be excused.

Any failure will become general knowledge and sully the reputation of the board in the eyes of the public. What needs to be understood is that it can be extremely difficult to work around issues of alias names and identity issues of people who may be trying to hide past circumstances when seeking registration.

The fact that state and territory boards are separate entities only operating within their own boundaries, may be a weakness of the current registration system. We have a national curriculum and national testing program. Consideration should be given to nationalising teacher registration.

Unifying national registration might help overcome glitches that can occur when teachers move from one state or territory to another, requiring new registration. How thoroughly NT registration and police checks are able to explore the history of teachers seeking endorsement may be an issue. A national teacher registration board could also promote the idea of portability of teacher qualifications from one state and territory to another. This would facilitate nationwide teacher transfer.

To nationalise teacher registration would be a logical step in developing an Australia wide perspective on education. It may also help to overcome the likelihood of teachers inappropriately slipping past registration processes and into NT classrooms.

1 SUNS 3 2017 173

Published in ‘Suns’ newspaper January 2017. This issue is one with nationwide consequences, the matter being onbe that challenges Principals and staff in schools each year.

SETTING CLASSES IS A REAL CHALLENGE

Setting classes in schools for the start of each year, creates headaches for principals, teachers, parents and children. This is especially the case for primary schools. A highlight -and an anxiety – late every school year, is the publication of class lists for the following twelve months. Some schools do not release class groupings until a day or two before the new school year commences. There is always a worry about reaction and fallout.

In an ideal world, all parents will be happy with their children’s class teacher, their fellow class members and the physical location of the classroom. There would be no composite classes. All students in each class would be inclined toward work and learning. There would be no behavioural problems or discipline issues to distract teachers and children from work and learning.

This situation would also meet the expectations of teachers and principals. For teachers, an added satisfaction could be to enjoy classes of no more than 18 to 20 children in primary grades, around 15 in middle school years and no more than 12 in specialist subject areas for years 11 and 12. This is not possible in the NT because pupil to teacher ratios are set at a much higher level.

Most teachers hope that they will be allowed to teach within their areas of training expertise. However, the deployment of teachers within schools is at the discretion of principals.
‘Needs must’ often dictates why they teach unfamiliar subjects or grades. Schools have limited budgets for staff employment. This means unpalatable adjustments have to be made, in order not to overdraw the school’s salary account.

While school leaders do their best to meet parents requests on student placement, it is impossible for them to work miracles. The result can be that parents and primary caregivers, on learning about class placements for children, can become very upset. Unfortunately, these reactions are often shared with other parents and also with children. Pre-judgements can impact negatively upon the reputation of teachers. This can also mean that children start school with an uneasy attitude about how the year will unfold. It can even lead to them hating school.

Parents with concerns have every right to discuss these with school leaders. It is best that this is done by making an appointment and having a conversation with the principal or leadership team member. On most occasions this leads to issues being at least partially resolved.