Friday afternoon. Last period. A time when teachers lucky enough not to be on a scheduled class can attempt to tie up the loose ends which seem to grow even as you tie them up. One assessment task is set, distributed, completed, collected, marked… another is on the horizon. One student needs advice about subject choices or how to deal with an issue troubling them, you try to help them sort it, another one appears next week. As with so many workplaces whose prime focus is people, a teacher’s work is never truly done. Even at the end of a school year I never truly feel that “mission accomplished” feeling as there are so many could-haves and would-haves and might-have-beens.
Friday afternoon. Last period. After wrestling with a couple of loose … let’s call them loose middles rather than ends… I decided to bite the bullet and begin the pre-application phase of the NSW Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards’ (BOSTES) process for becoming a Professionally Accomplished teacher. For those outside of my home state and those outside of education, all teachers who have taught for the first time since 30 September 2004 are known as “New Scheme Teachers” – which surely needs to be changed soon as we’ll celebrate a decade of “new” scheme teachers this year – and need to both maintain ongoing professional development and complete reports on their progress every 5 years. (This is after 2 years of being a Graduate, then moving to Proficient level after a report is successfully submitted.)
As I’m coming to the end of my 5 year “maintenance period” my Assistant Principal and I decided it may be an idea to attempt to move through the process of becoming accredited at the higher standards of Professional Accomplishment (for me) and Professional Leadership (for him). These levels of teacher accreditation – in my eyes – reflect the requirements and responsibilities of our respective roles as indicated in the standards.
At this point I do feel the need to point out two things:
- Accreditation at higher levels is – at the moment of writing – not compulsory nor necessary for career advancement in the vast majority of schools in NSW. Some schools/systems are moving to a salary structure which requires similar forms of accreditation, but only within that school or system, not via BOSTES.
- Accreditation at these higher levels both reflects and requires demonstrable ability to complete a significant range of tasks as part of one’s practice. As I ticked boxes to indicate that, yes, I am able to apply a teaching program to my own practice (and so on) I was reminded on each page that I should have documented evidence available to prove it.
The first point annoys me. As a New Scheme Teacher, I am required – as all my colleagues since 2004 are – to go through significant administrative hoops to be employed and to be successful in the profession. Whilst I believe in raising the standards of teaching, I don’t think that a system based purely on documentation is either time efficient or of great value for the teacher. To ask an early career teacher to spend significant amounts of energy metadocumenting needs time and ongoing mentoring and support to be worth anything at all. Anecdotally, few early career teachers are part of a structured, supportive and time-generous program to assist them in completing this legally binding process. Naturally, it’s more annoying that noone who started teaching before 30 September 2004 has to do so. There are rumblings that this might change, but for now the situation is – to put it simply – unfair.
The second point confuses me slightly. If we are – in theory – required to achieve the accreditation level commensurate with our current role (say, a subject coordinator) but we already have that role.. why would we feel compelled to become accredited? We’re doing it already. On the other hand, if one requires to be accredited at a particular level before applying for a position of responsibility (and if some of those skills can only be genuinely demonstrated and reasonably expected whilst having that responsibility) how is it possible for the average teacher to qualify?
I can accept that many of the boxes I ticked yesterday – the majority in fact – reflect tasks most teachers would do as part of a typical fulltime load, there were some that did not. Some of them would in fact be the sole responsibility of those WITH responsibility. My point being, if teachers in their first 5 years as a “Proficient” teacher are not made aware of the kinds of tasks and abilities they will need to demonstrate to achieve higher accreditation, they will not be eligible to do so. Sure enough, it’s not usual for a teacher in their first 7 years of teaching to hold a position of responsibility so leaders need to give their teachers – all of them – the opportunity to mentor, train and/or support others in a range of areas so that when they, like me, are heading towards the end of their first 5 year Professional Competence / Proficient Teacher period, they are not disadvantaged simply for doing their job well and not realising they should be doing more.
So whilst I have no idea whether I will be told I am a suitable candidate for moving into the application process (yes – it costs $65 to potentially be told you aren’t suitable) I’m hoping that having a position of some responsibility in a school for just over a year will put me in a good position. But what about my amazing colleagues who are outstanding classroom practitioners but who don’t have the requirement, nor the allocated time, to act in a position of responsibility? Hopefully, I can be the guinea pig that reminds them to check out the standards and requirements well before they intend to move up in the brave new profession.
March 1, 2014 at 8:44 am
Thanks Matt! I hope the ‘right’ people read this! Good luck with it all!
What will you give up to save the $65?!!
March 1, 2014 at 8:49 am
Well that’s nothing on the $540 it costs to actually start the application process Rob! At the moment I’m giving up a couple of takeaway dinners.. Next step makes me give up a bit more!
March 1, 2014 at 9:30 am
I did the pre-application tool and told I was completely lacking… luckily I ignored them and continued doing it anyway, and became “Accomplished” (Thanks, Miss Bennett!) and then “Professional Excellent” (I’m still waiting for Awesome) last year. The process is hard, but I found it one of the best, if not THE best professional learning experience of my career. I had people coming into my classroom (more than usual), I had referees’ affirmations which were really heartening, and the chance to reflect on my practice at a really deep and authentic level. I agree that all teachers undergoing accreditation should have a structure in place to support them (some schools have this, some don’t), but as we move towards the NPSI appraisal system, we are going to see schools engaging with this process more siginficantly.
Good luck with the accreditation – and let me know if you want to know more info or ideas… it can be a little daunting, but as one person said “Oh well, Anne, if you can do it, I guess anyone can!”.
March 2, 2014 at 6:55 am
You’re an inspiration Anne!
What were your motivations for starting the process? Did these change as you moved along? Do you think the support structure is in place now that you are Highly Accomplished?
Thanks for the comment!
March 2, 2014 at 6:55 am
Good luck with it. I did it when it was Professional Excellence through ISTAA back in 2008, then it became Professional Accomplishment… and now I find I am “Highly Skilled”. I think the idea was that it was an incentive to keep those skilled teachers in the classroom rather than having them undertake leadership roles.
It was a pretty mammoth undertaking back then and it was great to have the support of colleagues within my school. I think I ended up writing something akin to a 60,000 word thesis by the end of it.
I suspect you will walk it in with all the things you do for the teaching community. Again… good luck.
March 2, 2014 at 7:05 am
Hi Dave thanks for your thoughts. It is interesting that different sectors and even different schools within sectors now have different expectations about the accreditation process. Apparently in WA you need to do higher levels to get positions of responsibility (or be willing to do the process) and also financial incentives like with ISTAA. I worry that the balance will tip one way or the other: either too far to the non-New Scheme Teachers where it’s not with NSTs doing it at all, or too far towards NSTs and thus undermining the experience and work of those who have been teaching well for years. Lots to think about!
And 60,000 words… can I count it towards my research degree?? 😉
March 2, 2014 at 7:23 am
Thanks for sharing! I have been thinking about this process but haven’t had Friday afternoon off to do anything constructive about it. Seriously, good luck and I would love to know how you go with the next step in the process. You may just be the inspiration I need to start as I am also a little cynical of some of the procedures and extra documentation involved. Good luck and I look forward to reading about your progress.
March 2, 2014 at 7:51 am
I’ll admit it Kristy – it wasn’t an afternoon off, I was procrastinating my way through the last 30 mins of the day! I’m a bit skeptical too, but I’m doing it in partnership with my Assistant Principal who will go for Lead level and thus we’ll each be a guinea pig for our colleagues who might like to go for the levels after us. As Anne says, it will hopefully be a very valuable process of self-reflection and critical analysis of my practice.
March 2, 2014 at 10:42 pm
Hi Matt, I read this with great interest and I take your point about “those who trained & came into teaching before 2004” as it’s been quite a “messy” process for a while. However, being at the whim of governments policies in this area of accreditation (now Australia wide of course) makes it more complicated. Now it’s BOSTES yet the two sites are not yet in sync. Anyway, change appears to be like this! Why I am interested is that I work for BOSTES – the NSWIT part – as an external observer in K-6 and have been trained with a number of currently teaching professionals to carry out the task of the inSchool day of observation. It’s a HUGE but most(ly) fulfilling day for those who have prepared well and I have found almost all of my 10 experiences an absolutely great professional privilege. I certainly work hard before hand, speaking to the candidate, emailing back & forth to establish the day’s plan for observation & I write copiously on the day and turn my work into a report with 24 hours! I get paid one casual day rate. I’ve been all over NSW & would happily chat with you about how it is from this side of the fence! Denyse
March 2, 2014 at 11:18 pm
Hi Denyse, thank you for the kind offer! I feel humbled to know people like you and despite my whingy tone I do know a few people who have/do work either in the NSWIT or as part of the process (in addition to your good self!) so I understand there is a reality behind the face we see on the website. It will be an ongoing process with increasing scrutiny dare I say it! Thanks again and will definitely take you up on it 🙂