NSW early childhood teachers working in ACECQA approved services received accreditation at Proficient from 18 July 2016 onwards, IEU NSW/ACT Professional Officer Amy Cotton writes.
This is part of a longer IEU campaign for recognition of early childhood teachers as professionals alongside their K-12 colleagues. The next step is seeking pay parity.
Maintaining that Proficient accreditation is not complicated. Early childhood teachers are deeply reflective about their practice, and it’s just a matter of using the maintenance process to formalise what you’re already doing. The key is not to overburden yourself with unnecessary logging of PD and practice. The idea of accreditation is that it helps a teacher reflect on their professional practice. If it is becoming cumbersome or difficult, the process is being misapplied. Members who feel that way are encouraged to seek guidance from IEU’s accreditation team (accreditation@ieu.asn.au). We can make sense of the requirements for you, and suggest strategies to meet them that are practical and useful.
Teacher Identified PD
These are teacher based learning opportunities that aren’t QTC registered. In early childhood settings, PD often involves Certificate III and Diploma educators as well. That’s fine, but your logs must reflect that you were undertaking professional development as a teacher or delivering to other teachers, not educators.
Peer observations of teachers or preservice teachers are a great way to start a reflective conversation on practice, from which both parties benefit. A peer observation might focus on one Descriptor (say 4.1.2 – establish and implement inclusive and positive interactions to engage and support all children in learning activities) and last only 10-15 minutes. The observation (10 minutes) plus discussion (20 minutes) about why and how certain teaching strategies were used is 30 minutes of Teacher Identified PD for both teachers.
Professional readings (such as Bedrock, journal articles, books or blog posts) can be read individually and then discussed either online or in small meetings (such as network meetings or staff meetings). If the article took 20 minutes to read, and the discussion lasted 30 minutes, there’s 50 minutes of Teacher Identified PD.
Engaging with the local Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community is an example of how to engage with 1.4.2 and 2.4.2. Discussions with elders might include finding out more about the histories, cultural settings and linguistic backgrounds of the children in the area, as well as tips for effective teaching strategies and ways to engage parents.
First aid, anaphylaxis, CPR and asthma training might be QTC registered, but often aren’t. 4.4.2 is about children’s wellbeing and safety and 7.2.2 is about relevant legislative, administrative, organisation and professional requirements. Count safety/health PD against those Descriptors. All PD must be logged on the BOSTES website. A guide is in September 2016 issue of Newsmonth, and an information leaflet is available from accreditation@ieu.asn.au.
Maintenance report
In the six months before your maintenance period ends, you need to submit a maintenance report. This is where you reflect upon your teaching practice (not just PD). Programing, children’s portfolios, information nights, excursions, committee work, volunteering with teaching associations, researching and differentiation are just some examples of what you can include. This report can be filled in progressively over the years (IEU recommends once a year so that the task isn’t as hard in the final year). The report is read by your Teacher Accreditation Authority, which for most early childhood teachers is currently BOSTES.
IEU hosts Pedagogy in Practice sessions called Maintenance of Accreditation where this information is discussed (http://www.ieu.asn.au/pd-meetings/) and will also look at draft maintenance reports for members (accreditation@ieu.asn.au).
The requirements
IEU negotiated a ratio of hours specifically for early childhood teachers for the first maintenance period.
- 20 hours must be Quality Teaching Council (QTC) Registered PD (like what the IEU runs in its PD program)
- 80 additional hours can be eitherQTC Registered or Teacher Identified PD.
- Over the 100 hours, the PD must meet at least:
- one Descriptor each from Standards 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7, and all Descriptors from Standard 6.
Recruiting a non member to the IEU
There are over 6000 early childhood teachers in NSW, but only about 20% of these are IEU members. Majority IEU membership of the teaching workforce is essential for progressing pay parity arguments. Their non membership affects not only them, but you.
Have a conversation with a non union colleague. Ask them to join the Union for the below reasons:
- pay parity and retirement/superannuation
- industrial support
- accreditation assistance, and
- access to IEU’s QTC Registered PD.
Letter to the editor
Meg Liston, early childhood teacher at Glen Innes Preschool recently undertook an accredited PIP through the IEU.
Here’s what she wrote about it:
My director and I attended the IEU Pedagogy in Practice Maintenance of Accreditation workshop. Our minds have really been set at ease regarding maintaining our accreditation. We now know things which are clearly set out on the BOSTES website. For the first five years we have to have 20 hours of QTC registered PD. The other 80 hours are Teacher Identified. By attending the workshop we can log two hours already.
Using another example, my director had been to a two hour meeting the day before with a local service which is running an Indigenous program with us. Now she will be able to log that on as teacher identified hours. So therefore four hours of PD are ‘ticked’ in less than 24 hours.
The Teacher Identified PD can be things like first aid, professional readings, listening to podcasts and staff development sessions. For example when someone attends an inservice which everyone can’t get to, we have a staff development within our staff meeting . . . that half hour or so can be added to your Teacher Identified PD.
We came away from that workshop knowing that we will be able to log those 100 hours over four years doing pretty much what we are doing now, with no added cost to our PD budget. We also know how to log into our BOSTES account to keep our course and program participation list up to date. Hints such as keeping the details in a word document and then pasting it into the BOSTES log were so helpful. I know that it is all there on the BOSTES website but the meeting was fantastic. I would strongly recommend that people attend. The fact that this great training was so accessible for regional and remote teachers was an added bonus.