The casual shortage is impacting all classroom teachers. Last week I had a sick child and called the school at 3pm to let them know I wouldn’t be in the next day. Within the next hour I was sent an email to say that there were no casuals available and I had been requested by the principal and the assistant principal to split my class into three groups which ‘considered the dynamics of the class’ so students could be distributed around the school’ and to put a day’s worth of work onto Google Classroom.
I had to deal with a sick child yet felt I had to sit up until late at night planning a day’s worth of learning for my class. I am also expected to use a day of my sick leave when I basically planned and taught the whole day, exactly as we did during blended learning in Covid, and there was no casual replacing me.
At least once a week other teachers have an extra six or so students in their class for all or part of a day. This is so disruptive for classes and puts extra workload and stress on teachers.
I have also in the past missed relief from face-to-face teaching in a particular week due to casual shortage and had to cover classes.
Teachers are not getting the opportunity to attend PD because of the casual shortage and are having to stay on class as much as possible.
I know this is already on the union’s radar, hopefully some changes can come about.
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