VOLUMe 5 • nUMBEr 4 • oCTOBER 2006 Professional Educator Judy King rates A-to-E reporting History: choose your own adventure Going bush at Warrego School ‘for the profession’ Join us at www.austcolled.com.au OCTOBER 2006 PROFESSIONAL EDUCATOR ABN 19 004 398 145 ISSN 1447-3607 PRINT POST APPROVED PP 255003/02630 Published for the Australian College of Educators by ACER Press EDITOR Dr Steve Holden [email protected] 03 9835 7466 JOURNALIST Rebecca Leech [email protected] 03 9835 7458 AUSTraLIAN COLLEGE OF EDUcaTOrs 2 EDITORIAL and LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ADVISORY COMMITTEE Prof Neil Dempster, Griffith University Dr Tom Karmel, NCVER 4 OPINION Prof Andrew Gonczi, UTS l Ian Broinowski on the astonishing impact of the Australian Quality Patrick Bourke, Gooseberry Hill PS, WA Training Framework Gail Rienstra, Earnshaw SC, QLD Peter Cole, Education Consultant l Ange Kenos explains why ‘those who can, teach’ Mike Horsley, University of Sydney prODUCTION Lesley Richardson 6 FEATURES [email protected] 03 9835 7470 Colin Baker tells the story behind the story of Warrego School Ralph Schubele [email protected] 03 9835 7469 NATIONAL MEDIA SALES Carolynn Brown 14 RESEARCH [email protected] 03 9835 7468 l StephenBillett reports on research into the use of students’ paid work ACER Press 347 Camberwell Road experiences to help them better understand post-school pathways (Private Bag 55), Camberwell VIC 3124 l Want to stop students who pretend they’re not really cheating? SUBSCRIPTIONS $87.00 4 issues per year BillvonHippelreports on research that may help you do just that Ph 03 9835 7470 Fax 03 9835 7425 [email protected] www.acer.edu.au/professionaleducator 24 THE PROFESSION – A-to-E reports ACE MEMBERSHIP JudyKing rates A-to-E reporting. Will she give it an A? [email protected] Chris Cameron www.austcolled.com.au 26 ISSUES AUSTRALIAN COLLEGE OF EDUCATORS l Joe Alexander explains why students who co-construct the curricu- James Darling House, lum become independent, self-directed and purposeful learners 42 Geils Court, Deakin ACT 2600 Ph 02 6281 1677 Fax 02 6285 1262 l ZofiaPawlaczek examines academic prose and discovers that it’s not just dead boring, it’s dead 36 TEACHING AND LEARNING SuzieVlaming looks at a new pilot program that may hold the key to boosting teacher retention rates in south-western Sydney 38 NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE and IN BRIEF 40 INTERVIEW – Andy Flouris All reasonable attempts have been made to trace copyright holders of material published. Material contained in Professional Educator is protected under the Commonwealth Copyright Act 1968. No 42 REVIEW material may be reproduced wholly or in part without written con- sent from the copyright holders. The views expressed in this publica- tion are not necessarily those of the Publisher or Editor and do not necessarily represent the views or policy of the Australian College of Educators or ACER. The Editor reserves the right to edit, abridge or 43 THE DIARY otherwise alter articles for publication. All photographs have been published on the understanding that appropriate compliance with privacy legislation has been obtained. The attention of advertisers is drawn to the Trade Practices Act 1974 and the provisions of the Act that apply to advertising. It is not possible for Professional Educator 44 AS I SEE IT... School concerts to ensure that advertisements published herein comply in all respects with the Act and the responsibility must therefore lie with the person, Thought you knew everything about DannyKatz? Think again company or agency submitting the advertisement for publication. PROFESSIONAL EDUCATOr • vOL 5, NO. 4 • oCTOBER 2006 1 EDITORIAL EDITORIAL Letters to the Editor World Teachers’ Day, on 27 October, is an opportunity PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS IN VICTORIA ARE HERE, NOW Fran Cosgrove, Acting Group Manager, Standards and Professional Learning Branch, for your students and school Victorian Institute of Teaching community to recognise and I was intrigued by a brief news item, ‘By the profession, for the profession,’ in the March edition of Professional Educator. (5(2): 29) While wholeheartedly endorsing celebrate your work, but the view that professional standards need to be determined by the profession for it’s also your opportunity to the profession, I was rather dismayed at the comment that this was a long way off call on all stakeholders to in Australia. During 2003 the Victorian Institute of Teaching undertook the development implement UNESCO’s 1966 of Standards of Professional Practice for Full Registration. This involved developing Recommendation on the Status draft standards through discussion with teachers and referencing existing profes- of Teachers – in fact, 146 sional standards including the original standards developed in Ontario as well as those for accomplished teachers developed by the Maths, Science, English and recommendations – such as Literacy teacher associations in Australia. the recommendation that the The draft standards, as well as the process to demonstrate that teachers had met them, were then trialled by 900 principals, first year teachers and their mentors work of teachers ‘should be during 2003. We worked intensively with these teachers to ensure that the stand- so organised and assisted as ards were relevant, practical, consistent and reflective of teachers’ professionalism. to avoid waste of...time and The feedback provided by teachers working with the standards in school contexts allowed us to revise the standards, which were then offered to the entire profession energy,’ and that teachers’ for comment at the end of 2003. salaries should ‘compare We received over 10,000 responses from teachers to the questionnaire regarding the draft standards and it was from these responses that the final standards were favourably with salaries developed and approved by the Victorian Minister for Education. Since then the paid in other occupations standards have been used by over 15,000 provisionally-registered teachers and their requiring similar or equivalent mentors, and have received strong support. In the context of a Professional Learning Framework, our Council has approved qualification.’ The guiding generic standards and these are the professional standards currently being used in principle? ‘Advance in developing guidelines for the accreditation of pre-service teacher training courses in Victoria and the policy for components of the renewal of registration. We education depends largely on are at the tail end of a statewide consultation process regarding the renewal of the qualifications and ability registration and have received over 12,000 individual and collective responses to of the teaching staff in general our questionnaire, have conducted twenty-eight consultation forums in regional and metropolitan locations to over 2,000 teachers and have met with all key and on the human, pedagogical stakeholder groups. A consultation for the Future Teachers Project is currently and technical qualities of the in progress and also offers opportunities for teachers to provide feedback to the Institute. During 2005 the Code of Ethics was developed following a compre- individual teachers.’ Forty years hensive consultation process and the Code of Conduct is currently undergoing a on, these things still need to be similar process. addressed. World Teachers’ This activity clearly indicates the commitment of the Institute to consultation with teachers in all aspects of our legislated functions. I realise that the reference Day might just be the right day to profession-wide consultation in the news item may have been with regard to the on which to address them. development of national professional standards for teachers, but this was not made explicit and it is concerning to think that the education community is unaware of the extensive work we have undertaken in this area. LINKS: www.ei-ie.org/ worldteachersday LINKS: for more on the Victorian Institute of Teaching’s work on professional standards, visit http://www.vit.vic.edu.au/content.asp?Document_ID=1 2 AUSTRALIAN COLLEGE OF EDUCATORs • aCER LETTERS TO THE EDITOR EDUCATORS SHOW SOLIDARITY IN REJECTING A-TO-E REPORTS Wendy Currie, Research Officer, New South Wales Teachers Federation In a display of solidarity, about 1,300 public schools in New South Wales have already determined that they ‘cannot and will not implement the government’s unacceptable reporting requirements.’ The NSW Teachers Federation congratulates those schools, applauds their strength and determination, and urges other schools to continue the debate. It puts the lie to departmental officials who’ve told individual schools they are the only ones not implementing the reports. The last few weeks have also seen some movement from principals’ organisa- tions in their position on A-to-E reports as well as a fair amount of media coverage, all of which is putting pressure on the NSW government to listen to teachers on an issue that is so fundamentally an educational one. The Commonwealth Education Minister Julie Bishop has made two announce- ments. On the one hand, she made it clear that the NSW government has taken a literal interpretation of the requirement to report students’ achievement using A-to-E indicators, and that descriptive alternatives are indeed acceptable, thus supporting the position the Teachers Federation has taken from the beginning of this debate. On the other hand, she wrote to the state government rejecting its Congratulations to proposal to remove Years One and Two from the requirements in key learning Fran Cosgrove, who wins areas (KLAs) other than English and mathematics. The letter is such an astonish- a voucher valued at $100 ing display of arrogance towards her state counterpart, NSW Education Minister courtesy of Allen and Unwin in Carmel Tebbutt, that it beggars belief. It demanded that Tebbutt account for how the state government would meet the Commonwealth government’s requirements association with Professional by 5 October. Educator. When it comes to the Unfortunately, while the NSW Department of Education and Training key educational issues we want (DET) has at last been negotiating with the Teachers Federation, it lodged a to know your opinion.