professional development

a serious young teacher near the board

Readiness to teach? That will take time and development

initial teacher education, teacher attrition, Teacher education, teacher workforce, teacher workload, , , , , , ,

When it comes to new teachers, there is an expectation that they are “classroom ready” from day one on the job.  

Yet there is mounting evidence that new teachers are being sent into schools that are short-staffed and where experienced teachers are leaving the profession, feeling high levels of stress and burn out.  

Clearly, even at the best of times, teaching is a complex profession. Developing proficiency to work in this kind of context requires time, experience, and supported opportunities for feedback and reflection.  

“Classroom readiness” has become a buzzword in education policy and teacher education; all initial teacher education providers need to assess graduates’ readiness through Teaching Performance Assessments. 

Given that it is so challenging to create workplaces that keep experienced teachers in the profession, our research looked at these expectations of new teachers.  We conducted a scoping review to examine what ‘classroom readiness’ means, and whether or not it can – or should – be assessed. 

Assessing new teachers’ classroom readiness 

We found that classroom readiness is conceptualised in three broad ways: as adherence to a set of regulations and standards; as a policy construct; and as a professional journey. 

Given the requirement that all initial education providers assess pre-service teachers through Teaching Performance Assessments according to teacher professional standards, it is not surprising that much of the literature defines classroom readiness according to these standards. There has been an ongoing discussion about the suitability of this approach for some time.  Back in 2009, Connell described teacher standards this way: 

What teachers do is decomposed into specific, auditable competencies and performances. The framework is not only specified in managerialist language. It embeds an individualised model of the teacher that is deeply problematic for a public education system. The arbitrariness of the dot-point lists means that any attempt to enforce them, on the practice of teachers or on teacher education programmes, will mean an arbitrary narrowing of practice. (p. 220) 

As a policy construct, classroom readiness is used by governments and regulatory bodies to justify reforms in teacher education, and to reassure the public that teacher educators are held to high standards. This approach has seen initial teacher education providers absorb the high costs associated with implementing and moderating teaching performance assessments.  

Finally, others describe readiness as an ongoing journey of growth and development rather than a fixed state that can be measured at a single point in time.  Even the best beginning teachers continue to learn and adapt as they encounter new challenges and contexts. This view argues that they should not be expected to be fully prepared from the start.  Authors in this final group instead advocate for adequate recognition of the complex and relational aspects of teaching that cannot be assessed in a TPA.  

The problem with “readiness”  

The first problem with the rhetoric of ‘readiness’ is that it has the potential to place unrealistic expectations on beginning teachers.  Assessing readiness through a narrow lens that has a focus on planning, teaching, assessment and reflection has the potential to gloss over the support that new teachers really need.   

Teachers’ work is primarily relational in nature and measuring classroom readiness overlooks aspects of teaching that are hard to quantify, but yet are foundational for teaching and learning. Teaching is complex and one assessment cannot capture the diverse contexts and level of adaptability and resilience required of beginning teachers.   

The second problem with readiness is that there is no agreement across the literature, or even in policy itself, about how it could be possible to assess whether a new teacher can do everything from supporting students experiencing complex trauma, through to managing excessive workloads. The OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018 indicates that Australian teachers report higher levels of stress than the OECD average and that 30% to 50% of all teachers leave the profession in the first five years.  This is the context into which new teachers find themselves.  A serious question is whether it is realistic for anyone to be ‘ready’ for these circumstances; and if so, how it would be possible to assess readiness to work in these conditions. 

It takes a system to support beginning teachers  

It is not realistic to expect that just because new teachers can plan and teach a lesson during a supervised placement, they are fully prepared for the complex schools where they are likely to work. In fact, expecting beginning teachers to work independently from day one, without sufficient ongoing mentoring, risks reinforcing the very conditions that push more experienced teachers out of the profession. 

It is undoubtedly important that ITE programs equip pre-service teachers with strong understandings of curriculum and assessment, teaching practices, and student diversity.  However, if we want beginning teachers to have long and rewarding careers, they must be met with appropriate support once they enter the profession. Recent research shows that beginning teachers need support that is specific to their context, which requires sustained government investment. 

This is not to say there are any easy solutions for how to support new teachers. Experienced teachers are already operating at their limits, particularly in hard-to-staff schools where teacher shortages and turnover have substantially increased the workload of experienced teachers. Without adequate resourcing for time release, reduced teaching loads, professional development and networking, mentor teachers themselves risk burnout, further compromising the support new teachers need.  

It is understandable that policy makers and systems want assurance that new teachers are ready to tackle the demands of the job from day one. However, the real-world complexities of teaching mean that no amount of preservice teacher preparation can full equip graduates for every situation they will encounter. What beginning teachers need are fair workloads, ongoing mentoring, opportunities for collaboration, and access to professional learning that is responsive to the evolving demands of their specific school context. 

A professional journey of growth

Rather than viewing classroom readiness around a set of standards to be achieved by the end of a degree, we should view it as the beginning of a professional journey of growth.  New teachers require time, support, mentorship and opportunities to reflect and learn as they navigate the demands of their early years in the classroom.

Nerida Spina is an associate professor at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia. Nerida’s research expertise is teaching and leadership for equity and social justice. Rebecca Spooner-Lane is an associate professor at the Queensland University of Technology. Her research explores the professional development and career progression of teachers from graduate to lead teacher. You can find her on LinkedIn. Elizabeth Briant is an associate lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology. Her research explores contemporary social conditions that shape the growing use of private tutoring in Australia. Julia Mascadri is a senior lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology. Her research interests include pedagogical practice in early childhood education, educational leadership, and assessment in initial teacher education. You can find her on  LinkedIn

Professional development announcement by Prue Car

Professional development: The minister claims she trusts teachers. But does she really? 

Minister for Education, professional development of teachers, , , , , , , ,

The NSW Minister for Education Prue Car has just announced important changes to professional development for registered teachers in NSW. Among them, ‘accredited’ PD has been dumped, along with the constraints of ‘mandatory priority areas’ introduced in 2021, and removing some time-consuming documentation and evaluation. The changes were announced directly to teachers last week via email. In an earnest talking head video, Prue Car vigorously defended the need to trust teachers, as “the architects of learning” and “the experts in identifying the tools and the resources …[they] need”.  

While this focus on trust is admirable, the changes raise some serious questions. 

What counts as teacher professional development?

The Minister emphasised that teachers will be trusted to “choose the professional development that suits their needs”. But when we look at the fine print, there are professional development activities currently highly valued by teachers that are either not included in the Government’s new framework, or explicitly excluded. This includes professional reading, collaborative planning, and the moderation of student assessment – core professional activities at the heart of good teaching practice. Furthermore, while research shows that ‘home grown’, school-based, teacher-led activities are highly effective in supporting teacher development, there is a disturbing pervasive idea that PD is something “delivered” to teachers by a “provider”.

Curiously, “compliance training” is, for the first time, explicitly included as professional development. First aid and child protection updates are undeniably important in maintaining teachers’ fitness to practice. But it is questionable whether they meet the benchmarks of high quality teacher professional development we should be aspiring to. 

Who decides what teachers will do?

The second question is, who decides? While the Minister emphasised that the changes will “ensure that every hour of professional development that you do is relevant and valuable to you and your practice”, the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) website also states that employers “may choose areas of priority for their staff”, decisions which can be made at both a school and “system level”. There has been a trend toward NSW Department of Education ‘control and command’ approaches to dictating the focus and form of professional development activities for public school teachers. This suggests that teachers may continue to have little say in the kind of PD that matters to them. 

The shift from ‘accredited providers’ to ‘recognised providers’ seems at odds with the Minister’s messaging, by reinforcing the idea that teachers are not best placed to decide which PD to engage with. The list of recognised providers will be “overseen by an expert advisory panel”, whose membership is as yet unclear. The use of the term ‘providers’ again suggests a view of PD as something ‘‘delivered’ to teachers rather than something they actively engage with and have ownership over.  

Will teachers’ professional development be monitored?

Finally, while there does seem to be a reduction in administrative compliance work as part of this change, particularly for ‘providers’, teachers will still have to log their hours and be subject to an ‘audit process’ described by the Minister as “an annual review of the PD teachers have recorded so that the 100 hours of appropriate PD can be verified if needed”. This monitoring signals the continuation of “appropriate” teacher professional learning being defined by ‘experts’ (rather than by teachers themselves), which does not include many of the professional learning activities teachers may value the most.

Good teacher professional development is not measured in hours. If, in the words of the Minister, PD has “always been at the heart of [teachers’] practice… it was simply what teachers did”, then why is an auditable log of hours required? It hardly illustrates the ‘trust’ the Minister was at pains to express for teachers.

Increasing trust in teachers is a worthy and much-needed objective. But these changes make little meaningful progress toward it. While teacher PD continues to be framed as a set number of auditable ‘hours’ that are ‘delivered’ by ‘providers’, we will miss an opportunity to genuinely support teachers to do what they value and sustain them in the profession.


From left to right: Nicole Mockler is professor of education within the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. She has a background in secondary school teaching and teacher professional learning. Meghan Stacey is a senior lecturer in the UNSW School of Education, with a particular interest in teachers’ work. She has a background in teaching English and drama in public secondary schools. Claire Golledge is a lecturer in education and the co-ordinator of HSIE Curriculum (Secondary) in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. She worked as a secondary teacher of humanities. Helen Watt is professor of educational psychology at the University of Sydney, initiator of the Network Gender & STEM (www.genderandSTEM.com) and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.

Header image of Prue Car from the Minister’s Facebook page.

The government must fix the childcare desert now

Early Childhood, Early childhood education and care, , , , , , ,

Marg Rogers, Navjot Bhullar and Laura K Doan ask: How far will the Budget’s funds stretch to fix educator professional development and ‘childcare desert’ communities?

The Federal Government’s Budget announcement of $18 million of funding to be available as grants for providers is welcome. Providers will be able to apply for up to $900,000 to build more services in ‘childcare desert’ areas. These are normally in regional, rural and remote areas, and exacerbate disadvantage because children in the area miss out on early learning, and their parents miss out on working. However, this is not going to go very far since the problem is so great.

The Government has promised to support 6000 existing educators to upskill and support them to backfill positions that are vacant. It has also pledged $72.4 million over 5 years to support up to 75,000 educators’ professional development for those in regional and remote communities is welcome. 

Educators in these areas often act as more than educators, and face increased pressures. They often plug the gaps for other services that are missing in these communities, such as mental health services, family support and early intervention. Sometimes they are unable to attend further professional development because they do not have the casual staff to cover their teaching load.

Throughout the sector, many early childhood services are scrambling to run effectively. The sector has chronic staff shortages and high levels of burnout.

This has led to alarming rates of staff absenteeism due to increased workload and stress. The impact of this level of disruption and stress on children’s wellbeing and learning is still unfolding.

Despite welcome reforms to reduce the cost of early childhood education for families, staff shortages have increased during COVID as educator burnout has increased. Currently, there are over 6800 advertised positions for educators in Australia, double since the pandemic began. So, how did we get into such a mess?

To find out more about the challenges educators face, our international study explored educators’ work in five different countries. We also wanted to learn from other countries to improve policies and practices.

Australian educators’ experiences

In Australia, 51 surveyed educators told us about their experiences working in a sector in crisis. Additional data were collected from publicly available forums related to the publication of these findings. Predictably, most roads lead to gender. 

Women make up 92% of this workforce. As part of the feminised care sector, it features: 

–financial abuse

“Educators were pushed to provide high quality … with minimal budget. I spent over $4,000 of my own money – not one cent reimbursed”.

“Book week, pirate day, Halloween – …centres force this onto staff. They want photo ops to market themselves on Facebook but expect staff to pay for …costumes. Unpaid overtime setting the rooms up”.

–extremely low pay

“One day I found one of them (educators) crying in the other room… she told me …she works double shifts and so tired but gets paid #%!@ all”.

–low status

“Traditionally ‘women’s work’ so it’s undervalued”.

“Quality education begins with quality educators…(who) are valued”.

–invisibility

“There is a lot of pressure on educators to meet the needs of others resulting in their own health being overlooked”.

-never being good enough

“Early childhood teacher’s and educator’s… qualifications are far less valued”.

–unpaid hours

“Too much work ‘from the love of your heart’”.

-chronic overwork

“So stressful due to the admin and recording”.

“Obscene documentation requirement from the government”.

-high stress

“It can be stressful to try and achieve all the goals and outcomes … in these frameworks”.

“All of us have stressful days… managing behavioural issues, parent’s demands and a lot of routine tasks”.

-poor staff morale

“Very low, strained and tired”.

-forced to conform to others’ ideals

“Educators … are … pressured to conform early education to one box”.

What could we learn from Canada?

Clearly, our highly privatised Australian system needs urgent reform. In the meantime, to support educators’ wellbeing, we might be able to learn from other countries.

Up to 50% of educators in British Columbia were leaving the sector in their first five years. To address this, an evaluated, funded peer support program is nurturing the wellbeing of educators. Unsurprisingly, this is reducing attrition.

Potentially, this research-based Peer Mentoring Program (PMP) could be adapted for Australia. It involves peer-mentoring within Community of Practice (CoP) groups.

Why is it so effective?

The program works because it:

-Gives educators a voice

The groups create a safe space for educators to discuss their professional and private lives without judgement or recrimination. An educator in the program said:

“It’s creating a safe place for vulnerability”.

-Supports educator health and wellbeing (self-care)

This is a major focus for the individual groups as educators explore ways to sustain their practice.  

“Our time together ‘filled my cup’, each sip of tea warming my insides … I felt refreshed mentally”.

-Creates a nurturing, connected community

The groups build a sense of belonging with like minded individuals, with mentoring from experienced educators. 

“I would describe the PMP program as going home, being with a group of people who … allow you to be the best version of yourself…”.

-Addresses invisibility

The program focuses on educators’ needs, not the needs of children and families.

“I’m educated … experienced … fulltime … as a woman, why is it okay that I’m at poverty level”?

“We have nothing to give if our OWN cups are empty”.

Post-pandemic bread and butter budget

So, how do we convince governments to fund such a program?

Now, Australian governments and early childhood services are spending a lot to attract, train and induct educators. Some of this money could be better spent supporting the wellbeing of educators in our existing workforce so we can retain them.

What Australia needs to change to keep educators

To reform the sector, Australians and our Government need to take a long hard look at the following: 

Do we value young children’s education and care during the critical first five years? Do we value those in the feminised care sectors enough to give them a fair go? If so, let’s address this crisis by making the necessary policy reforms to nurture, value and keep our educators. The 2023 Budget only partially addresses this.

Dr Marg Rogers is a senior lecturer in early childhood education at the University of New England. Professor Navjot Bhullar is a research-focused professor of Psychology (wellbeing focus) at Edith Cowan University. She is in the top 250 most cited researchers in Australia. Associate Professor Laura K. Doan is an associate professor of early childhood at Thompson Rivers University in Canada.

Header image from Anne Aly’s Facebook page