Better together.

Changes to how we belong to this profession will keep kids safe.

This week, a politician running for election told Australia that, in his opinion, people in schools are underemployed. This week, a teacher friend of mine supported 48 students to sit a major exam on Wednesday. She started her 30 hour marking session on Wednesday evening for a turn around of papers before Friday’s last day of school. She also taught 12 classes and attended a PD in that time.

I’m no mathematician, but the numbers don’t quite add up there. And the narrative is most certainly flawed.

We know teachers have a few things. 1. Passion in spades. 2. A pretty taxing job & 3. The best job in the world. What they haven’t had for too long is systems that support the operations of their work, or the deep professionalisation that allows them to lead and share their work across systems. This is a fundamental part of being part of a profession; connection, collaboration and belonging. These elements lift everyone up as part of the fraternity.

The truth is, it’s not only the general busyness that is a problem, it’s the amount that falls through and between the cracks of state/territory lines that frustrates educators and ultimately lets our kids down.

There has been progress within our profession, with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers established in the early 2000’s. We saw for the first time professional educators working to established benchmarks, proving practice and impact. We moved to some jurisdictions recognising practice beyond these levels with the Highly Accomplished and Lead Teacher statuses introduced, and a new generation of education leaders born. Concurrently, we saw some jurisdictions lagging behind, and some of our brightest system leaders awkwardly being invited to prove basic proficiency. This lack of connectedness has very nearly undermined the good deeds of certification and registration even in the most supportive of systems.

And then a good news story broke this week.

The National Review of Teacher Registration has been released. Towards the goal; that teachers want to be considered part of one profession. This newly proposed Federal model is the next iteration of the deep professionalisation of teachers and principals across Australia. And it will change the way educators confer to bring about deep change for an education worth having for every young Australian.

The Expert Panel has made 17 recommendations that seek to provide a way forward to achieve a stronger teaching profession and better outcomes for children and young people across Australia.

At the core, there will be streamlined processes around the transferability of registration across state/territory lines and in actually accessing the process of certification. And when it boils down, these changes serve to keep children safe and engaged in learning. It’s that simple.

How will this keep kids safe?

> reduced risk for knowledge of those working in schools to fall between the cracks of borders.

> provisions to support the right people with the right skills to be in classrooms and schools

> greater opportunities to share and develop best practice across a wider network of teachers more easily.

This helps teachers get back time lost to admin. Any measure that can do this, and have a profound impact on children deserves our support.

Supporting good people to do good work can only result in good things. You can find out more about the One Teaching Profession plan here from my good buddies at AITSL and check out the work of the team at CompliSpace. I'm working with their Learning and Development team on something pretty amazing that supports you not only in exceeding your obligations in protecting children, but also supports you and your professional career path. Watch this space for more on CompliLearn.

This article was originally published at https://medium.com/@EduSum/better-together-72cda587b0d6