Know your standards

St Bernadette’s Primary School Castle Hill teachers Rhiarna Thomas and Stephanie Doherty have recently been through the accreditation process and have some great tips for early childhood teachers about to undergo the process.

Kindergarten teacher Stephanie is now in the maintenance phase after taking the full five years allowed to gain Proficient status.

“It is daunting at first because you feel like you need to cover every single thing with the evidence,” Stephanie said.

‘You think you’ve got to submit a lot of work when in fact it is a lot simpler than that. At the end of the day you may find that one piece of evidence covers several descriptors, rather than needing one piece of evidence for each descriptor.”

Rhiarna said it is really crucial to familiarise yourself with the Standards right from the start of the process.

“As you are going through your day you realise you are ticking off a Standard if you are already familiar with them. So you’re thinking ‘I’m doing this with the children today, that goes to that Standard’.

“It’s really hard if you teach the children and then look at the Standards later and try and see what fits in.

“If you already know its part of your daily routine and not an add-on, it’s much less work.”

Stephanie said sharing and talking with other teachers is a great help. Although this may be easier in a school than an early childhood setting, networking, attending IEU PIPS, joining groups and bulletin boards and online courses can help.

Rhiarna said: “Don’t feel like you have to do this all alone. I contacted my TAA and that was the best thing I ever did.

“The NESA website has lots of examples of what kind of evidence they are looking for and how to annotate it.

“You’re not inventing things for the evidence, it’s what you do every day, so it shouldn’t add too much time to your schedule.

“If you meet with a parent, document it. If you go to a professional development, bring things back from that for evidence. Take photos as evidence. I handed in a lot of photos for my evidence and annotated them.”

Stephanie said: “Early childhood teachers know their students, they know their behaviours, they know their parents, therefore it should be easy for them to come up with evidence to meet these Standards.”

Both women recommend working with others who have been through the experience.

But if that is not possible, the IEU can offer advice. Just email accreditation@ieu.asn.au.

Attending IEU PIPs on accreditation can also help.

Look for the PIPs calendar on the IEU website www.ieu.asn.au.

The standards are a set of common statements to provide teachers with ways to guide their pedagogy under knowledge, practice and engagement.

They are a baseline of performance and achievement that “recognises the depth of knowledge of teachers and celebrates creativity and innovation”. (NESA March 2017).

There are seven standards, each with four to seven descriptors.

Standard 1: Know the students and how they learn

– How do you plan for their differences and similarities?

– How do you implement differentiation and the variety of teaching strategies?

– How do you measure the various levels of student engagement?

– How do you reflect on whether or not student learning was improved?

Standard 2: Know the content and how to teach it

– How do you use the curriculum and/or syllabus to direct teaching and learning?

– How do you implement the syllabus: units of work/lessons?

– How do you measure what they know and how they’ve learned it against the syllabus?

– How do you reflect on whether or not student learning was improved and how will you use this information to assist in your future teaching activities?

Standard 3: Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning

– How do you plan for teaching and learning?

– How do you implement the lessons and learning sessions?

– How do you measure what you’ve done towards improving student learning?

– How do you reflect on whether or not student learning was improved and how will you use it to inform your future teaching and learning activities?

Standard 4: Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments

– How do you plan for managing behaviour?

– How do you implement the strategies and options for managing behaviour?

– How do you measure what you’ve done towards improving student behaviour?

– How do you reflect on whether or not student behaviour was improved and how will you use the information for future behavior management?

Standard 5: Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning

– How do you plan for the various forms of assessment, feedback to students and reporting to parents?

– How do you implement the strategies and options for assessment, feedback and reporting?

– How do you measure what you’ve done towards improving student assessment, feedback and reporting?

– How do you reflect on what improved student learning and how will you use it to inform future planning for learning?

Standard 6: Engage in professional learning

– How do you plan for professional learning and PD against the APST?

– How do you implement the PL/PD and what you’ve learned?

– How do you measure what you’ve learned to show improved personal and collegial practice?

– How do you reflect on the PL you’ve done and your future learning needs?

Standard 7: Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community

– How do you plan for engaging with colleagues, parents and others?

– How do you implement what you’ve learned through that engagement?

– How do you measure an improvement for students through this engagement?

– How do you reflect on your engagement with others and what might it look like in the future?

Members of the IEU NSW/ACT also have access to our PIPs about accreditation, either online or to be held in various venues across the state. Keep an eye on our website or email accreditation@ieu.asn.au for further information.