Mark this one in your diaries: 18 July 2016 is a date that will change the recognition of early childhood teachers forever in NSW, NSW/ACT IEU Professional Officer Amy Cotton writes.
It’s the date that teachers will be accredited alongside their primary and secondary colleagues, and the date that the profession will finally be considered just that – a profession.
Background
The IEU’s Teachers are Teachers campaign sought professional recognition of early childhood teachers alongside their primary and secondary colleagues.
In NSW, the IEU worked for years to convince the former Institute of Teachers (now BOSTES) and successive ministers for education that early childhood teachers should have accreditation as teachers. Following a detailed submission outlining how legislation could be changed to recognise current practice of early childhood teachers, the NSW Government released Great Teaching, Inspired Learning (GTIL). This is a blueprint for action over the next few years.
Section 10.2 of GTIL refers to the future consideration of inclusion of early childhood teachers into the accreditation scheme. The IEU made a submission calling for this change – it was time our state recognised early childhood teachers as professionals.
In 2014 the Teacher Accreditation Act was amended to specifically reference early childhood teachers.
In 2015 lengthy stakeholder consultations occurred regarding how accreditation of early childhood teachers would be undertaken. The IEU was a key stakeholder negotiating for the easiest way in for our members: accreditation will be granted to any early childhood teacher who had been engaged in an approved service in the five years up to 1 October 2016. The due date for registration was set: 18 July 2016.
These negotiations are ongoing, with the IEU at the forefront of making things sensible and beneficial to our teacher members.
Bumps on the road
Although accreditation will occur on 18 July 2016, there are still issues to be negotiated with BOSTES.
Teacher Accreditation Authorities (TAA) in schools are usually the employer represented by a teacher. In primary and secondary schools, this might be the principal or someone at head office (in a system). In systems of early childhood services, it’s likely it will be someone at head office. But standalone services don’t have the capac ity to be a TAA.
The role of a TAA is to oversee the accreditation of teachers in that service. This means monitoring their progress as they maintain accreditation, as well as mentoring beginning teachers from provisional to Proficient accreditation.
TAAs are unable to accredit themselves, so in a single teacher service, there lies a conflict of interest.
The IEU is seeking that BOSTES act at the TAA in the interim for standalone services. BOSTES has struggled to communicate with early childhood teachers. Early in 2016 they sent a package to all services in NSW with information, a mouse pad and lanyards. The slow take up rate of registration so far means that many teachers have not realised that registration is mandatory.
The IEU ran a series of workshops around NSW and online in late 2015. We are continuing to run Pedagogy in Practice courses on accreditation in 2016. For more information, click here: http://www.ieu.asn.au/pd-meetings
The IEU is emailing its members and their services regularly to try and spread the word.
Early intervention and inclusion support teachers
Recently the IEU negotiated with BOSTES that early intervention (EI) and inclusion support teachers (IS) should be able to seek accreditation on 18 July 2016. To qualify, EI and IS teachers must have been engaged at an approved service in the five years up to 1 October 2016.
Fees
The IEU negotiated with BOSTES to have the 2016 fee waived. Teachers will be invoiced by BOSTES in late November 2016 for the 2017 year. The annual fee is $100.