This new CPL course offers participants an exciting new way to integrate peace studies into the syllabuses they teach. In this course you participate in theory-based learning about current academic research about peace. Participants will also develop the knowledge and skills to feel confident to undertake the teaching of peace studies as well as investigating programming approaches and strategies in order to apply what they learn to the NSW syllabuses.
Teachers interested in implementing peace studies in their classrooms. Primary, Secondary and TAFE teachers are encouraged to apply to attend this course.
Margaret Vos
Margaret Vos is the Director of the Centre for Professional Learning and the Centre for Public Education Research.
Theo Bougatsas
Theo Bougatsas is a NSW Teachers Federation organiser. A long-time advocate for peace education, Theo heads the Sam Lewis Peace Prize committee.
Assoicate Professor Jake Lynch
Jake Lynch is Associate Professor in the Discipline of Sociology and Criminology. He has spent the past 20 years researching, developing, teaching and training in Peace Journalism. For this work, he was recognised with the award of the 2017 Luxembourg Peace Prize, by the Schengen Peace Foundation.
Scholarly publications include several books and over 50 book chapters and refereed articles. Jake’s latest monograph, A Global Standard for Reporting Conflict presents results from his Australian Research Council Linkage Project, with partnership by the International Federation of Journalists and the aid agency, Act for Peace. It includes data from original fieldwork in Australia, the Philippines, South Africa and Mexico. Jake served for nine years on the Executive Committee of the Sydney Peace Foundation, and for two years as Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association.
Before taking up an academic post, Jake enjoyed a 20-year career in journalism. He was a Political Correspondent for Sky News, at Westminster, and the Sydney Correspondent for the Independent newspaper, culminating in a role as an on-air presenter (anchor) for BBC World Television News.
Jake’s new novel, Mind Over Murder, is the first crime fiction to be set in the world of EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing: a powerful therapeutic technique for treating unprocessed trauma. The book is published by Next Chapter.
Melanie Morrison
Melanie Morrison the Director of the Sydney Peace Foundation, a foundation of the University of Sydney. She is a human rights advocate who leads the Foundation’s governance, strategic initiatives, partner and stakeholder outreach and communications programs. With a Master’s Degree from the University of Sydney, she has led communications and research programs across the corporate, non-profit, government and university sectors. She is an award-winning journalist, researcher and producer for her work in Australia and overseas.
This course is designed for teachers in the earlier stages of their career. It will help Early Career Teachers in developing their practice, with an emphasis on their professionalism. The course will provide participants with practical strategies and deeper understanding of the theory and practice of good management and good teaching.
Further details to follow.
29 July 2025 at NSW Teachers Federation, 23-33 Mary Street, Surry Hills
$220
Lila Mularczyk
Lila Mularczyk’s commitment to education was recognised by being honoured with the Order of Australia Medal (OAM). Lila has been contributing to public education for 40 years. She currently is undertaking a portfolio of work including leading or participating on multiple National and State Education Boards and Reference Groups and projects (including, PEF, ACE, UTS, UNSW, NSWTF and CPL.) tertiary professional experience officer, coach and mentor, UNSW Gonski Institute, State and Vice Chair ACE, supporting HALT’s, tertiary lecturer, work in and for schools, research, contract work, critical friend, innovation projects etc.
Prior, Lila was the Director, Secondary Education, at the Department of Education. Immediately prior to this, Lila was President of the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council (SPC) from 2012 to 2016. As President and as a school Principal, Lila represented Public Education around Australia, and frequently globally, at conferences over many years. Lila was Principal at Merrylands High School for 15 years until 2016.
Susan McGrath-Champ et al. introduce a series of articles on teachers’ work and working conditions. Their work provides an update to “Understanding work in schools, The Foundation for teaching and learning”, the 2018 report to the NSW Teachers Federation. The report examined the administrative demands that encroach on the work of teachers and impede their capacity to focus on tasks directly related to their teaching and to students’ learning. . .
Across the globe, teachers’ workload is a concern. Internationally (OECD, 2022) and within Australia (Gavin et al., 2021) studies show that workload is having adverse effects on teachers’ health and wellbeing, and is negatively impacting teacher recruitment and retention. Via a series of projects facilitated and funded by the NSW Teachers Federation, our research over the past ten years has exposed the considerable challenges many teachers face in a schooling system that is increasingly segregated by policies that encourage ‘choice’ and inequitable funding schemes. Teachers, through all our research, have called for greater support and recognition from their employer, and wish to feel valued for the important work they do in schools. The hallmark, collaborative study Understanding Work in Schools: A Foundation for Teaching and Learning (McGrath-Champ et al., 2018) revealed the extent of long working hours by teachers, identified unceasing policy changes and demands as a key cause, documented the vast array of work activities carried out by teachers, and identified strategies that are needed to address this workload problem. This provided a basis for the landmark Gallop Inquiry (Gallop et al., 2020) which confirmed these findings and other pressures facing teachers in their work.
Teachers are the heart of students’ learning, and good conditions of work improve the learning conditions of students. It is teachers in NSW public schools who have been, and are, fundamental to our stream of research. The suite of short research summaries in this thematic collection shares with Federation members the key findings of this research so far, with access to full papers and reports made available where possible via reference hyperlinks.1
Partnership with Federation has been, and continues to be, key to quality research (McGrath-Champ et al., 2022). Collaboration ensures meaningful, well-informed findings and insights, and is a crucial step to driving needed change in government policy and in schools. Findings from this research have been actioned via Federation’s advocacy, negotiation and lobbying of various groups, as well as separately through the Work in Schools Research Team making written submissions to parliamentary (e.g. NSW Legislative Council, 2022) and government (e.g. Australian Government Productivity Commission, 2022) bodies.
This brand new section of the Journal of Professional Learning (JPL) consists of four summaries in broad thematic areas which collate and narrate research publications our team has produced via projects supported by the Teachers’ Federation. The first summary, ‘Teacher workload and intensifying demands’, documents work intensification and overload, and deploys a ‘tsunami’ analogy to describe the impact of escalating paperwork and administration which requires teachers to ‘triage’ components of their daily work. Devolution and the neo-liberal drive towards school autonomy are key causes of this workload, which are outlined in the second summary (‘The impact of devolutionary reform on teachers and principals’). Other impacts including growing job insecurity, ‘job scarring’ and increased use of temporary employment are profiled in the third summary (‘Temporary teachers and precarious work’). The final summary (‘Teachers’ voices and their unions’) discusses issues of unionism and professionalisation in teaching.
In this introduction and the thematic summaries that follow, we have endeavoured, as much as possible, to cite open-access material for both our own and others’ research. Where this is our own work, we have usually linked to an institutional repository. This page will provide a link to the fully published version of the article and, often, a link to a freely-available ‘post-print’ version (where journal embargoes allow). Full publication details are also available in the reference lists provided.
Gavin, M., McGrath-Champ, S., Wilson, R., Fitzgerald, S., & Stacey, M. (2021). Teacher workload in Australia: national reports of intensification and its threats to democracy. In S. Riddle, A. Heffernan, & D. Bright (Eds.), New perspectives on education for democracy (pp. 110-123). Routledge.
Susan McGrath-Champ is Professor in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School, Australia. She has a PhD from Macquarie University, Sydney and a Masters degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her research includes the geographical aspects of the world of work, employment relations and international human resource management. Recent studies include those of school teachers’ work and working conditions.
Meghan Stacey is a former secondary school teacher and current Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at UNSW Sydney. Meghan’s research interests are in the sociology of education and education policy, with a particular focus on the critical policy sociology of teachers’ work. Her first book, The business of teaching: Becoming a teacher in a market of schools, was published in 2020 with Palgrave Macmillan.
Dr Scott Fitzgerald is an Associate Professor in the School of Management at Curtin Business School, Curtin University. His research interests are in the broad areas of industrial relations, human resource management, organisational behaviour and organisation studies. His research expertise also spans various disciplines: sociology, political economy and media and communication studies. A key focus of Scott’s recent research has been the changing nature of governance, professionalism and work in the education sector.
Mihajla Gavin is a Senior Lecturer in the Business School at the University of Technology Sydney, and has worked as a senior officer in the public sector in Australia across various workplace relations advisory, policy and project roles. Mihajla’s research is concerned with analysing the response of teacher unions to neoliberal education reform that has affected teachers’ conditions of work.
Rachel Wilson is Professor, Social Impact at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research takes a system perspective on design and management of education systems and their workforce. She has expertise in educational assessment, research methods and programme evaluation, with broad interests across educational evidence, policy and practice. She is interested in system-level reform and has been involved in designing, implementing and researching many university and school education reforms.
Mihajla Gavin et al. address the importance of teacher unions as the collective voice of teachers to counter policies that worsen teacher working conditions and student learning environments. . .
The neoliberal reform wave in education
Teachers are one of the most highly unionised professions in Australia and globally. This is despite a challenging industrial, political and legal environment marked by repeated attempts to weaken the power of trade unions.
Over recent decades, teachers and their unions have felt the impact of ‘neoliberal’ policies in education. David Harvey describes neoliberalism as “a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterised by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade” (Harvey 2005). Essentially this means pursuing policies which privilege individualism, choice and competition, and see the state as a constraint on this freedom.
In the state of NSW, we have seen such policies manifest in school education over the last 30-odd years. Some key examples include the now-defunct Local Schools Local Decisions devolutionary reform, and school ‘dezoning’ policies from the 1980s which expanded parental choice.
Market-based and competition style policies have had clear impacts on teachers’ work. As we have described elsewhere in this suite of articles, and as expanded upon in a recent article (Gavin & Stacey, 2023), despite the promise of devolutionary reform in helping to ‘reduce red tape’, in fact, the level of bureaucracy and paperwork has worsened in schools. Teachers’ workload and work hours have exploded and are considered ‘very high’ by international standards. Evidence shows teachers have felt a loss of professional respect (Mockler, 2022). And this is while teachers have worked under a decade-long ‘cap’ on salaries and went to extraordinary lengths to continue students’ learning during the COVID-19 pandemic (Gavin & Stacey, 2022).
Teacher unions are setting the agenda
Asserting the voice of teachers against policies that worsen their conditions and affect public education is important. Unions use a range of tactics and strategies to protect and improve both teachers’ working conditions and students’ learning environments.
Looking beyond Australia, we’ve seen vivid examples of teachers being fed up with current policy environments and demanding better conditions and professional respect. In the USA, educators led an historic upsurge in work stoppages in the #RedforEd strikes in 2018-19 (Blanc, 2020). Teachers across mainly Republican-dominated states – some even with bans on public sector strikes – pushed back against austerity and privatisation agendas that were negatively impacting public schools. Educators were successful in winning many key improvements on pay, conditions, and school funding. This activism was mirrored in the NSW Teachers’ Federation ‘More Than Thanks’ campaign where NSW teachers took historic strike action to fight against workload burdens and declining professional salaries.
At other times, other strategies may be more necessary or effective to defend teachers’ work and public education. In a chapter looking at changes to professional accreditation in NSW, we examined how governments have used professional standards to hold teachers accountable for the quality of education systems (McGrath-Champ et al., 2020). We explored how the NSW Teachers’ Federation used a strategy of ‘professional unionism’ in working with government and Department to support a standards-based accreditation system at a time when we have seen credentialism and professionalism under threat. An interview with a senior officer for this research described how introducing a standards-based system in NSW would make it “more difficult for governments to come after qualified teachers” and help to prevent a “race to the bottom”. This is important given examples witnessed in other countries where lower paid ‘teaching assistants’ have increasingly replaced the work of teachers.
A great example of this ‘professionalisation’ strategy has also been building the work of the NSW Teachers’ Federation in other areas, such as the Centre for Professional Learning, which helps to provide high-quality training for teachers, as well as this very journal which shares key resources and articles for teachers to enhance their learning across topics. This kind of work by unions is critical and reflects an important way that teachers can build their knowledge and skills about unions and issues in their profession.
Elsewhere, we see examples of unions using evidence from academic research as a platform to campaign for better working conditions for teachers and improvements to public education. In an article on academics collaborating with teacher unions to drive policy impact, we showed how a collaborative research project on teacher workload with the NSW Teachers Federation established an evidence base to draw attention to the work demands on teachers and campaign for better conditions (McGrath-Champ et al., 2022). Unions have also supported influential independent public inquiries into public education, such as the Gallop Inquiry (Gallop et al., 2020).
Another key strategy of teacher unionism has been striving for social justice and equality – not only in public education but across society more broadly. In an article on women-activists’ participation in teacher unions, we wrote about the importance of unions advancing gender equality by elevating the voice of women in union decision-making and representation (Gavin et al., 2022). Unions, like the NSW Teachers’ Federation, have been forerunners in promoting women’s participation in the union through initiatives such as the annual Women’s Conference and the Anna Stewart Program. But activism is challenging, and our article highlights a number of strains that women continue to face not only in their union work, but in the labour market and broader society. One union officer for this research explained how ‘women still carry the bulk of caring responsibilities, teaching full-time…while balancing teaching and family.’ With women now more highly unionised than men in Australia than ever before, striving for the goal of gender equality remains ever important – not only for unions but across the fabric of society.
Let’s continue to raise teachers’ voices
Teachers work in one of the world’s most important professions globally, helping to educate and prepare children for their future lives and to be good citizens for a democratic society. But they are working in challenging and increasingly demanding times, marked by a distinct lack of professional respect. Unions play a vital role in continuing to advance and advocate not only for teachers, but for students and public education more broadly.
Gavin, M., McGrath-Champ, S., Stacey, M., & Wilson, R. (2022). The ‘triple burden’ in teaching: implications for women’s work as teachers and unionists. Economic and Industrial Democracy 43(2), 830-852.https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831X20958481
Gavin, M., & Stacey, M. (2023). Enacting autonomy reform in schools: the re-shaping of roles and relationships under Local Schools, Local Decisions. Journal of Educational Change 24 (501-523). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-022-09455-5
Harvey, D. A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005) Oxford: Oxford University Pres
McGrath-Champ, S., Gavin, M., & Stacey, M. (2020). Strategy and policy: the case of an Australian teachers’ union. In R. Lansbury, A. Johnson, & D. Van den Broek (Eds.), Contemporary issues in work and organisations: An integrated approach (pp. 110-126). Routledge.
McGrath-Champ, S., Gavin, M., Stacey, M., & Wilson, R. (2022). Collaborating for policy impact: Academic-practitioner collaboration in industrial relations research. Journal of Industrial Relations 64(5), 759-784. journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00221856221094887
Mihajla Gavin is a Senior Lecturer in the Business School at the University of Technology Sydney, and has worked as a senior officer in the public sector in Australia across various workplace relations advisory, policy and project roles. Mihajla’s research is concerned with analysing the response of teacher unions to neoliberal education reform that has affected teachers’ conditions of work.
Dr Scott Fitzgerald is an Associate Professor in the School of Management at Curtin Business School, Curtin University. His research interests are in the broad areas of industrial relations, human resource management, organisational behaviour and organisation studies. His research expertise also spans various disciplines: sociology, political economy and media and communication studies. A key focus of Scott’s recent research has been the changing nature of governance, professionalism and work in the education sector.
Susan McGrath-Champ is Professor in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School, Australia. She has a PhD from Macquarie University, Sydney and a Masters degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her research includes the geographical aspects of the world of work, employment relations and international human resource management. Recent studies include those of schoolteachers’ work and working conditions.
Meghan Stacey is a former secondary school teacher and current Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at UNSW Sydney. Meghan’s research interests are in the sociology of education and education policy, with a particular focus on the critical policy sociology of teachers’ work. Her first book, The business of teaching: Becoming a teacher in a market of schools, was published in 2020 with Palgrave Macmillan.
Rachel Wilson is Professor, Social Impact at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research takes a system perspective on design and management of education systems and their workforce. She has expertise in educational assessment, research methods and programme evaluation, with broad interests across educational evidence, policy and practice. She is interested in system-level reform and has been involved in designing, implementing and researching many university and school education reforms.
Meghan Stacey et al. provide a historical context to the introduction of the temporary teacher category and its implications of precariousness of work and the impact on workload and career expectations. . .
Recently, around 5500 temporary teachers and support staff in NSW accepted a conversion to permanent status (NSW Government, 2023). This announcement represents new gains in the effort to address what we refer to below as the ‘recommodification’ of the teaching profession over the past twenty years, through growing work insecurity. In this article, we explore the origins and effects of the ‘temporary’ category of teaching work in NSW public schools.
The rise of temporary teaching work in NSW
In a recent journal article (McGrath-Champ et al., 2022), we used historical case and contemporary survey data to explore how the category of temporary teaching work has grown since its creation.
Established in 2001, the temporary teaching category was initially introduced in response to the ‘commodification’ of teaching labour that was taking place through a growth in casual work throughout the 1980s and 1990s, when the proportion of casual employment grew to 20%. This had considerable implications for teachers, and especially women teachers, with women engaged in childbearing effectively forced to resign from their permanent roles and return as casual teachers when their caring responsibilities allowed. There were, additionally, concerns that long-term casuals were completing very similar work to that of permanent teachers, but without appropriate recompense. The temporary teaching category presented a clear improvement on this situation.
Fast-forward to 2017, however, and while the casual proportion of the workforce had remained relatively stable since the introduction of the temporary category, at around 10%, analysis of union membership figures indicated that temporary teachers had grown to account for around 20% of the workforce, while permanent positions had declined from around 85% to about 70%. According to the NSW Government, the proportion of permanency has since been even lower, sitting at around 63% (NSW Government, 2023). The introduction of the temporary category, initially established in an effort to ‘decommodify’ the teaching profession, had instead led to an overall increase in precarity across the workforce, through what we describe as a process of ‘recommodification’.
The union has taken a range of actions over the past twenty years to manage this recommodification of work. This has included negotiations with the Department to achieve or maintain provisions under the three-yearly Staffing Agreement; monitoring of, and court action to ensure, the appointment of teachers to permanent instead of temporary positions; and efforts to secure professional development provisions for early career teachers in temporary roles. The announcement of the conversion of a further 5500 teachers and support staff to permanent status so far this year, and with more slated to come, represents but the latest response to a series of efforts made in this area by the union.
Impacts of temporary work on job quality and career progression
In a second recent article on this topic (Stacey et al., 2022), we conducted a deep-dive analysis of our survey data to explore the impacts of fixed-term contract work for temporary teachers.
Workload data indicates that teachers employed in a fixed-term capacity (i.e. in a ‘temporary engagement’) undertake a similar nature and amount of work to those in permanent roles, especially when compared with teachers working in a casual capacity. For example, while 72% of permanent teachers and 70% of temporary teachers felt their work ‘always’ requires them to ‘work very hard’, only 58% of casual teachers felt this way. Similarly, while 36% of permanent and 37% of temporary staff felt their work required ‘too great an effort’, this was true for only 27% of casual staff.
Yet interestingly, although temporary teachers were undertaking similar amounts of work to permanent teachers, they sometimes felt as though they were actually working harder. We understand this reflects a perception that they needed to ‘do more’ than permanent employees to keep their jobs. As one respondent explained, “there is a huge expectation that teachers put their hand up for extra roles … which adds to the pressure [teachers] (particularly temp teachers as we do more) feel”. Teachers’ careers were felt to be “at the whim of principals who pick and choose according to who toes the line … jumping through hoops to retain their position and add to their CV in order to gain permanency”. This loss of control over work negatively impacts job quality, as teachers described having to “take whatever is handed to you” as “workload rules go out the window”.
Overall, respondents expressed a frustration that they were not “deemed worthy of permanent employment”. Indeed, only 27% of respondents in fixed-term contract positions indicated that they were in these roles by choice. There are also gendered implications here, with women respondents much more likely to be temporary than men, suggesting potential, gendered ‘scarring’ effects on women teachers’ career progression.
The future of employment security in teaching
It has been heartening, in recent months, to see that the NSW Government is working with the Federation to continue to address the concerns raised by fixed-term contract work in teaching. Promoting the attractiveness of teaching as a career is a particularly important priority today, and employment security is a key part of what has, historically, made school teaching a high-quality job. Protecting this feature of the profession is essential if the workforce is to be effectively supported moving forward.
McGrath-Champ S, Fitzgerald S, Gavin M, Stacey M and Wilson R. (2023) Labour commodification in the employment heartland: Union responses to teachers’ temporary work. Work, Employment and Society, 37(5): 1165-1185. Published online 8 March 2022.DOI: 10.1177/09500170211069854
Stacey, M., Fitzgerald, S., Wilson, R., McGrath-Champ, S., & Gavin, M. (2022). Teachers, fixed-term contracts and school leadership: toeing the line and jumping through hoops. Journal of Educational Administration and History 54(1), 54-68. doi.org/10.1080/00220620.2021.1906633
Meghan Stacey is a former secondary school teacher and current Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at UNSW Sydney. Meghan’s research interests are in the sociology of education and education policy, with a particular focus on the critical policy sociology of teachers’ work. Her first book, The business of teaching: Becoming a teacher in a market of schools, was published in 2020 with Palgrave Macmillan.
Rachel Wilson is Professor, Social Impact at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research takes a system perspective on design and management of education systems and their workforce. She has expertise in educational assessment, research methods and programme evaluation, with broad interests across educational evidence, policy and practice. She is interested in system-level reform and has been involved in designing, implementing and researching many university and school education reforms.
Dr Scott Fitzgerald is an Associate Professor in the School of Management at Curtin Business School, Curtin University. His research interests are in the broad areas of industrial relations, human resource management, organisational behaviour and organisation studies. His research expertise also spans various disciplines: sociology, political economy and media and communication studies. A key focus of Scott’s recent research has been the changing nature of governance, professionalism and work in the education sector.
Mihajla Gavin is a Senior Lecturer in the Business School at the University of Technology Sydney, and has worked as a senior officer in the public sector in Australia across various workplace relations advisory, policy and project roles. Mihajla’s research is concerned with analysing the response of teacher unions to neoliberal education reform that has affected teachers’ conditions of work.
Susan McGrath-Champ is Professor in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School, Australia. She has a PhD from Macquarie University, Sydney and a Masters degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her research includes the geographical aspects of the world of work, employment relations and international human resource management. Recent studies include those of schoolteachers’ work and working conditions.
Rachel Wilson et al. provide insights into teachers’ work through research, including interviews, workshops and questionnaires. . .
It won’t be news to teachers, or anyone with family or friends who are teachers, that teachers work long hours under heavy and intensifying demands. However, some facts and figures speak loudly and help effect policy shifts to address the work challenges facing teachers in schools and related professional shortages.
Our research group focuses on teachers’ work. In this summary, we show how we collaborated with the NSW Teachers Federation to give teachers a voice about their workload through research, including a series of interviews, workshops and questionnaires.
We highlight here three important points. First, the almost universally high work hours of teachers across Australia which threaten our education system and democracy. Second, teachers report that workload has intensified in recent years, with a ‘tsunami’ of paperwork. A third, and important, point is that teachers are using strategies like triaging, to deal with rising and competing demands, and this has important implications for how teachers’ workload may impact upon students.
Unsurprising news – teachers have a heavy (and heavier!) workload
We reviewed Australian surveys of teachers’ work and workload across five states, covering a total sample of 48,741 Australian public-school teachers (Gavin et al., 2021). The surveys were conducted between 2014 and 2019 and all were ‘pre-COVID’, yet they show independently assessed, but consistently high, work hours (See Table 1). These statistics put Australian teachers in the ‘very high’ workload category, and many spend substantial ‘out-of-school’ hours working.
Although rising teacher workload, and teacher shortages, are a concern internationally, we also know, from international surveys, that Australian teachers work longer hours than the OECD average— almost 20% more (OECD, 2019).
Table 1: Teachers’ work hours from five state surveys.
Total average hours per week (Primary, FT)
Total average hours per week (Secondary, FT)
Hours within total undertaking work activities at home or on the weekend
NSW
55
55
11
WA
53
53
10
Vic
52.8
53.2
11.5 hours for primary teachers. 13 hours for secondary
Tas
45.8
46.2
90% of primary teachers work 5 hours. 70% of secondary teachers work 3 hours
Qld
44
44
Teachers report spending between 1 and 7 hours ‘outside rostered duty time’, including weekends, each week
Significantly, the data in Table 1 are also consistent with three earlier government ‘Staff in Australia’s Schools’ surveys showing teachers had high and increasing work hours. These were conducted by the Australian Federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations—carried out over 2006, 2010, and 2013—and show that the average total hours worked increased slightly for both primary and secondary teachers over these periods (McKenzie et al., 2014). International OECD data also shows growing work hours, with the average working week for Australian teachers having increased by 2.1 hours between 2014 and 2018 (OECD, 2019).
This clear increase in teachers’ work intensified still further during COVID, when many teachers became stretched to breaking point, as we highlighted in a further publication (Wilson et al., 2020).
A tsunami of paperwork and data
The now well-documented high, and increasing, workload of teachers has coincided with new government policies, increasing accountability and devolved responsibility for student outcomes and school performance to the school level. These policies brought heavy demands, data and paperwork. See the resounding voice of teachers on how this happened in Figure 1.
Teachers described how this intensification felt via in-depth, qualitative research interviews. As early as 2015, teachers described experiencing an increased and unmanageable workload, manifest especially in piles of paperwork. As one teacher put it:
“the pile just grows and grows and grows and then, so then you start a new pile … I’ve got a pile on this side of my desk and then when that pile started to get too big there’s a new pile on that side. And now there’s a pile growing on my computer table as well. And it’s all of this paperwork that I have to get through.“
These ‘piles’ of increasing administrative, technological and data-based requirements were reported in increasing levels alongside so-called ‘autonomy’ initiatives which many teachers pointed out occurred when the central education department support services were cut. The tsunami of new administrative work was felt acutely in public schools because it occurred alongside diminished support, and increasing demands, as schools became more and more segregated, residualising some public schools catering to an ever-wider range and depth of student need.
Teachers now do triage
Importantly, the intensification of teachers’ work, primarily driven by increasing compliance, paperwork and datafication, has also decreased the proportion of time that teachers have available to focus on matters perceived as more core to the job of teaching.
Our survey data reveal that teachers—by and large— still retain their primary focus on matters directly related to working with students in teaching and learning. In other words, they have taken the work intensification burden upon their own shoulders, working faster, for longer hours, and in out-of-school hours, to protect the time they spend with students and retain professional integrity.
One of the strategies teachers are now compelled to use to protect their core work is triage. About two-thirds of participants in our interview study (Stacey et al., 2022) reported that because of expansion of demands, some tasks could not be completed satisfactorily; for these teachers, the impossibility of completing their work “properly” meant that decisions had to be made regarding “what to let go”. Just as in the emergency room where nurses triage, prioritising the most pressing, time-critical and needy cases, many teachers are having to prioritise particular aspects of their work.
As one participant described it, data collection and accountability requirements meant they were “too busy proving that I’m doing what I should be doing”. Another related how they “have to tell students ‘I’m sorry, I can’t talk now, I’ve got to go to a meeting’, and that’s not fair to my students. I’m paid to teach; I’m not paid to run off to meetings”.
As noted above, teachers’ work intensified still further during COVID-19 with complexity of work and administrative tasks being particularly demanding, as shown in Figure 2, which is drawn from a publication reporting on a separate workload survey we conducted (Wilson et al., 2020). Although lesson preparation time also increased, teachers asked for support through alleviating the administrative burden, not through having others undertake lesson planning.
Figure 2: Increases in work demands after the shift to remote teaching and learning due to COVID in 2020 (Wilson et al., 2020)
The research data on teachers’ work, from a range of sources, including international and government reports, as well as from independent academic researchers like our team, clearly shows increasing demands on teachers that threaten important teaching work with students and educational productivity. In addition, teachers in our studies attributed these new demands largely to government policies, as we highlight in Stacey et al. (2023). If trends persist these will have knock-on effects to the economy, and egalitarian and democratic values.
Fixing the evolving teacher workload problem
COVID-19 pushed many teachers toward the brink, and since then a range of factors have conspired, producing national and international teacher shortages which are at once both a response to, and exacerbate, increasing teacher workload. Although recent policy shifts are attempting to address these matters, ongoing analysis will be required to ensure that teachers are effectively supported in the valuable work they do.
Gavin, M; McGrath – Champ, S; Wilson, R; Fitzgerald, S & Stacey, M (2021) Teacher workload in Australia; National reports of Intensification and its threat to democracy. In S. Riddle, A. Heffernan, & D. Bright (Eds.), New perspectives on education for democracy: Creative Responses to Local and Global Challenges (pp. 110-123). Routledge.
McKenzie, P., Weldon, P., Rowley, G., Murphy, M., & McMillan, J. (2014). Staff in Australia’s schools 2013: Main report on the survey. https://research.acer.edu.au/tll_misc/20/
Stacey, M., McGrath-Champ, S. & Wilson, R. (2023). Teacher attributions of workload increase in public sector schools: Reflections on change and policy development. Journal of Educational Change, online first. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10833-022-09476-0
Stacey, M., Wilson, R., & McGrath-Champ, S. (2022). Triage in teaching: the nature and impact of workload in schools. Asia Pacific Journal of Education 42(4), 772-785.https://doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2020.1777938
Rachel Wilson is Professor, Social Impact at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research takes a system perspective on design and management of education systems and their workforce. She has expertise in educational assessment, research methods and programme evaluation, with broad interests across educational evidence, policy and practice. She is interested in system-level reform and has been involved in designing, implementing and researching many university and school education reforms.
Susan McGrath-Champ is Professor in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School, Australia. She has a PhD from Macquarie University, Sydney and a Masters degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her research includes the geographical aspects of the world of work, employment relations and international human resource management. Recent studies include those of schoolteachers’ work and working conditions.
Dr Scott Fitzgerald is an Associate Professor in the School of Management at Curtin Business School, Curtin University. His research interests are in the broad areas of industrial relations, human resource management, organisational behaviour and organisation studies. His research expertise also spans various disciplines: sociology, political economy and media and communication studies. A key focus of Scott’s recent research has been the changing nature of governance, professionalism and work in the education sector.
Mihajla Gavin is a Senior Lecturer in the Business School at the University of Technology Sydney, and has worked as a senior officer in the public sector in Australia across various workplace relations advisory, policy and project roles. Mihajla’s research is concerned with analysing the response of teacher unions to neoliberal education reform that has affected teachers’ conditions of work.
Meghan Stacey is a former secondary school teacher and current Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at UNSW Sydney. Meghan’s research interests are in the sociology of education and education policy, with a particular focus on the critical policy sociology of teachers’ work. Her first book, The business of teaching: Becoming a teacher in a market of schools, was published in 2020 with Palgrave Macmillan.
Melissa Preston highlights the role of collegiality, compassion, and collaboration within the context of teaching in TAFE. . .
The education landscape is constantly evolving, and Technical and Further Education (TAFE) institutions play a pivotal role in imparting vocational skills and knowledge to students. TAFE teachers are instrumental in ensuring the quality of education and the success of these institutions. Among the numerous factors that contribute to the effectiveness of TAFE, collegiality, collaboration, and compassion are key. The importance of these three interrelated aspects, within the context of TAFE teaching, highlights their role in enhancing peda/ andragogical practices, teacher development, student outcomes, and the overall learning environment.
Collegiality encompasses a sense of camaraderie, mutual respect, and shared responsibility among colleagues. For TAFE teachers, this means cultivating an environment of open dialogue, constructive feedback, as well as a willingness to collaborate for the betterment of teaching practices and student learning outcomes. Effective collegiality fosters a supportive culture where teachers can learn from each other’s experiences, share innovative teaching strategies, and collectively address challenges. This sense of unity enhances job satisfaction (Louis & Kruse, 1995) and promotes a positive work environment, thereby contributing to teacher retention rates within the demanding TAFE landscape.
Collegiality not only enhances the professional growth of teachers but also has a direct impact on student outcomes. Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) support the idea that schools (and by extension, TAFE institutions) with a strong sense of collegiality tend to perform better academically. Collaborative planning and curriculum development ensure that courses are aligned with industry standards and meet the evolving needs of students. Furthermore, by engaging in peer observation and feedback, TAFE teachers can enhance their peda/andragogical skills and provide students with more effective learning experiences.
Collaboration extends the concept of collegiality by emphasising joint efforts to achieve common goals. In the context of TAFE, collaboration is not confined to year-level or faculty interactions; it extends to interdisciplinary teamwork that can lead to comprehensive and holistic learning experiences for students. Hattie (2012) argues that teacher collaboration has a substantial impact on student achievement. Collaborative endeavours allow TAFE teachers to pool their diverse expertise and perspectives, resulting in well-rounded educational experiences for students. In TAFE, collaboration becomes particularly significant as it helps bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical skills required in the workforce.
Through interdisciplinary collaboration, TAFE teachers can create complete learning experiences that simulate real-world scenarios. For instance, a collaboration between an automotive and business teacher could lead to the development of a project where students design a business plan for an auto repair shop. Such collaborative projects not only expose students to multiple facets of their chosen field but also foster critical thinking and problem-solving skills. By simulating workplace dynamics, collaboration among TAFE teachers prepares students for the challenges they will encounter in their careers.
In considering how to create positive and nurturing learning environments, compassion refers to the genuine care and concern that TAFE teachers show towards their colleagues and students. TAFE students often come from diverse backgrounds and face a variety of barriers to learning – including neurodiversity, cultural diversity, and damage to the affective domain – therefore, compassion plays a pivotal role in creating a supportive and inclusive learning environment. Teachers who exhibit compassion tend to be more attuned to the needs of their students and can ‘cherry pick’ between andragogy and pedagogy to tailor their teaching approaches and accommodate different learning styles and abilities.
Furthermore, compassion among TAFE teachers contributes to a positive workplace culture. Overall, when teachers feel valued and supported, they are more likely to be engaged, motivated, and committed to their roles. This sense of belonging enhances job satisfaction and reduces burnout, which is a common concern not only amongst the mainstream teacher cohort, but the TAFE teacher cohort (Ingersoll, 2003). Compassionate teachers are also more open to collaboration and knowledge sharing, fostering an atmosphere of continuous learning within the institution.
The potent combination of collegiality, collaboration, and compassion among TAFE teachers yields a multitude of benefits that extend beyond the individual teacher and student. Firstly, a culture of collegiality promotes a strong sense of unity among the teaching staff, leading to improved communication and teamwork. This ensures that curriculum development is comprehensive and aligned with industry demands. Collaborative planning and assessment also facilitate the identification of areas needing improvement, allowing for timely adjustments to teaching strategies. Secondly, collaboration among TAFE teachers encourages the sharing of best practices and innovative teaching methods. When teachers collaborate across disciplines, they can incorporate different perspectives into their teaching, resulting in more comprehensive and engaging lessons. Moreover, collaborative projects for students from different courses and faculties encourage interdisciplinary thinking and problem-solving skills, reflecting the complexities of real-world work environments. Lastly, compassion for colleagues and students contributes to a positive institutional climate. When TAFE teachers model empathy and understanding, students are more likely to feel comfortable and motivated in their learning journeys. Compassionate teachers also serve as mentors and role models, inspiring students to pursue their goals and overcome obstacles. Furthermore, a compassionate work environment promotes teacher well-being and retention, which is essential for maintaining institutional stability and long-term growth.
While the importance of the 3Cs – collegiality, collaboration, and compassion – among TAFE teachers is clear, there are challenges to achieving and maintaining these aspects within the TAFE environment. Limited time for collaboration, untenable teaching loads, gatekeeping of information, partially or poorly implemented ICT systems and heavy hierarchies of management hinder effective collaboration and communication despite these being core values of TAFE. The 3Cs can sometimes be overshadowed by burdensome administrative tasks and procedures that are, unfortunately, intrinsically linked to the Government’s funding model of TAFE which only serve to compound curriculum pressure. To address these challenges, TAFE must implement strategies such as dedicated time for collaborative planning, adequate and high-level professional development and interdisciplinary workshops, as well as meaningful mentorship programs. TAFE also demonstrates a reluctance for these to occur on a face-to-face- basis which demonstrates management’s inability to understand that fundamentally education is a social activity. The current ad hoc approach and mishmash of platforms designed for business, not education, further act as inhibitors for teachers to share best practices and partake in the 3Cs. Furthermore, fostering a culture of empathy and appreciation through recognition programs can reinforce compassionate behaviour among TAFE teachers, but again they must done in a way that is authentic.
Collegiality, collaboration, and compassion hold immense significance among TAFE teachers, fostering an environment conducive to effective teaching and student success. Collegiality forms the basis of mutual support and professional growth; collaboration leverages diverse expertise to enhance student learning experiences; and compassion nurtures positive learning environments and teacher well-being. The integration of these three aspects not only benefits teachers and students but also contributes to the overall growth and success of TAFE institutions. By acknowledging and prioritizing collegiality, collaboration, and compassion, TAFE institutions can create a culture of excellence that prepares students for the challenges of the modern workforce.
Hargreaves, A., & Fullan, M. (2012). Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Hattie, J., 2012. Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning. Routledge.
Ingersoll, R., 2003. Is there really a teacher shortage?A Research ReportCo-sponsored by The Consortium for Policy Research in Education and The Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy https://www.gse.upenn.edu/pdf/rmi/Shortage-RMI-09-2003.pdf
Louis, K.S. and Kruse, S.D., 1995. Professionalism and community: Perspectives on reforming urban schools. SAGE Publications Ltd.
Melissa Preston is a teacher at TAFE NSW. Her specialities include neurodiversity and LLND. The youngest daughter of migrants, Melissa came to teaching late in life after finishing her first degree in 2018. Prior to this Melissa spent nearly 20 years as a qualified financial planner and bank manager.
As the only permanent full time teacher between Canberra and Sydney, Melissa has a large geographic footprint and is proud to teach, learn and live on Ngambri, Ngunnawal and Gundungurra country. She predominately teaches on the high school equivalency programs, as well as the occasional specialist program.
Melissa has been active in the NSW Teachers Federation since joining the teaching profession and credits her sanity to activism and the collegiately, compassion and collaboration that it brings to her teaching practice.
Catherine Myson-Foehner provides a guide to the new Mathematics Syllabus K-6…
The price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change
Education is evolving rapidly, driven by a strong faith in the ‘magic’ of research. Inside the classroom we keenly feel this maelstrom, with seemingly constant changes to not only what students learn, but how, why and where they learn. In 2023, all NSW primary teachers are either trialing, or implementing, the reformed mathematics syllabus. Being given a new road map to your job in any field of work is a stressful and confusing time. It takes energy because things that ran on automatic pilot now demand attention to detail and thoughtful interaction. And change takes from teachers that one resource which is always in shortest supply – time. As teachers, we have a broad set of mandated goals. We must improve student achievement, but also take the lead in tackling social problems such as poverty, inequality, complex fast-paced change and fragile mental health. The new tasks thrust upon us require new approaches, new understandings, and above all, a closer relation between practice, research and theory.
And therein lies the story of our new syllabus.
Why change the syllabus?
There are three main drivers of syllabus reform.
Firstly, we are failing to meet our own national education goals. In 2019, Education ministers agreed on a vision of education for all young Australians under the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration (Education Council, 2019). The first goal is: ‘The Australian education system promotes excellence and equity.’ This means a commitment to ‘provide all young Australians with access to high-quality education that is inclusive and free from any form of discrimination’ (Education Council, 2019). And yet in our schools and classrooms, academic achievement is still tied to wealth, to gender, to indigeneity. By Year 9, students from the lowest quartile of socioeconomic advantage are roughly 3 years behind students from the highest quartile. And startlingly, for each 25% of wealth and social capital, you lose a year in mathematical achievement. Moreover, how is it possible that in 2021 the gender gap in Year 3 NAPLAN numeracy was the widest yet of any test in favour of boys at 2.52 months? (Thomas, 2021)
Secondly, the NSW Curriculum review (Department of Education NSW, 2022)voiced concern that Australian students’ level of mathematical achievement appears to be in decline. Analysis of PISA data suggested that Australian students have slipped from being some of the highest performers in mathematics to being near the OECD average. Reforming the curriculum was seen as essential step in ensuring all students are challenged and engaged to maximise their individual capabilities and potential.
Thirdly, and crucially for us as teachers, a major driver of syllabus change was our own feedback to the NSW Curriculum Review – that the curriculum ‘contains too much clutter, with not enough time to focus on deep learning’
These three factors, contextualized by the fast pace of educational and social change, brought about an inevitable reform to our curriculum. It is essential we reflect on the ‘why’ of the reform as we implement these changes because, as teachers, its success rests in our hands. The syllabus always was, and always will be, the basis for all teaching and learning programs. Until it is enacted in our classrooms, the attempts to support higher achievement, to untie educational destiny from socio-economic status, gender and indigeneity, and to (eventually) reduce our workload, will fail. We are mandated to carry out the reform and we can use it to illuminate possibilities for the way mathematics is taught and learnt in our classrooms.
The key changes
The structure and content of the syllabus was adapted to reflect current evidence on what makes good teaching and learning. The key changes are:
clearer, more explicit outcomes for what students are to know, understand and do,
more deliberate and careful sequencing of content K -6 with a reduction of content and repetition, and a focus on connecting knowledge
greater emphasis on mathematical reasoning, with one overarching Working mathematically outcome K-6
increased opportunity for students to apply their knowledge.
The syllabus now sits in a purpose-built, digital portal. Online links provide continuously updated resources such as teaching advice, vocabulary guides, assessment resources, and content examples. This framework of support is essential viewing because it provides context and support for teaching and learning. A resource tab provides tailored support such as work samples, professional learning opportunities, and parent/carer guides.
Explicit goals for what students are to know, understand and do.
To make it easier to identify what students need to know, the Mathematics K-10 syllabus has been streamlined and the content described in simpler, more precise language. Stage statements have been removed, reflecting the fact that content within a stage of learning represents what students ‘typically’ know, do and understand. The change acknowledges that students can have different learning trajectories and teachers are best placed to make decisions on student learning goals.
Syllabus content remains organised into three conceptual areas: ‘Number and algebra’, ‘Measurement and geometry’ (previously ‘Measurement and space’) and ‘Statistics and probability’. There are clearer expectations for students’ developmental progression in relation to foundational concepts such as place value, additive and multiplicative relations, and fractions. Focus areas have been renamed to make the learning content more explicit. For example, in K-2, Addition and Subtraction has been replaced with ‘Combining and separating quantities’, moving to ‘Additive relations’ in Years 3-6. This shifts the focus from treating addition and subtraction as two separate mathematical processes to examining the relationship between them. Similarly, Multiplication and Division is now ‘Forming groups’ in K-2, moving to ‘Multiplicative relations’ in Years 3-6.
Each focus area is also accompanied by teaching advice to assist with programming and lesson design. The advice covers aspects such as possible misconceptions, developmental progression, and interrelationships with other mathematical concepts. To clarify teaching and learning goals, appropriate content points have drop downs which provide unambiguous examples.
Student goal setting is supported through a tight integration of assessment resources. The K-2 syllabus has key progression point tasks in Representing number, Combining and separating quantities and Forming groups. To provide a direct link between observable behaviours and syllabus outcomes, National Numeracy Learning Progression V3(ACARA, 2020) are tagged to syllabus content from K-10. Teaching advice supports the development of assessment tasks by helping teachers understand where students are on the trajectory of learning. Linked assessment resources provide a range of strategies to monitor student progress and identify areas where additional support may be needed. Underlining a strong focus on equitable outcomes, sample access points are integrated for students with complex disabilities who are working towards Early Stage 1 outcomes.
The content is more deliberately sequenced and connected.
The new syllabus draws on contemporary research to redesign the way we identify, introduce and progress key concepts. Content within, and across, focus areas has been realigned and sequenced to improve the progression of learning and build stronger schemas of understanding. Purposeful connections have replaced isolated repetition. For example, in Measurement and geometry, content relating to time and mass now fall together under Non-spatial measure, emphasising the different conceptual approach required to measure things we can’t see or touch. Volume now falls under Three-dimensional spatial structure as a natural connection to how we describe and quantify objects.
Many of the changes reflect that ‘skills and knowledge for focus areas often develop in an interrelated manner and can be addressed in parallel’(NESA, 2022). For example, patterning is a basic mathematical skill that enables students to sequence, see order and make predictions. It underpins all mathematical relationships from the memorisation of the counting sequence to spatial thinking and geometry. Being able to identify the repetition of a unit is the basis of multiplicative thinking. Therefore, it just makes sense to liberate ‘Patterns and Algebra’ from its isolated outcome in the 2012 syllabus and entwine it in all focus areas.
Fractions are another (particularly striking and important) example of how making connections explicit can drive changes to the way we teach, and students learn. We know that almost all students find fractions challenging, and almost all teachers find fractions challenging to teach. Research suggests ‘a student’s proficiency with fractions is directly related to the conceptual and procedural interweaving they make over a long period of time’ (Australian Government Department of Education, 2022).
To support this, the ‘Fractions and Decimals’ outcome from the previous syllabus has gone from K-2, and fractional understanding is woven into Forming groups and Geometric measure. The emphasis is on conceptual understanding of the whole, and its relationship to the parts, rather than on fractions as a number. Of the three different fraction models – linear (partitioning a length or line), area (partitioning whole shapes or areas) and discreet (partitioning a collection) – the area model is the most challenging. The parts must be equal (‘exactly equal’), and students must understand that a shape or object has many different attributes and that only some of them contribute to the measurement of area (for instance – not colour, not orientation, not position). K-2 students are slowly building their ability to estimate and compare area by superimposing shapes, using indirect comparison and, finally, by using grid overlays. Introducing fractions through halves and quarters of shapes assumes students already have a deep understanding of this challenging concept. Indeed, the typical objects we halve (apples, pizzas, leaves, playdough) are often not halves in terms of their mass or volume, and only ‘about half’ in terms of their size. We are inadvertently contributing to the misconception that one out of two pieces is a half, rather than focusing on the equality of the parts and their relationship to the whole.
The new syllabus, therefore, introduces halves through collections when forming groups, and half (and about half) of lengths in Geometric measure. Students are then introduced to the focus area Partitioned fractions (or fractions as parts of things) in Stage 2, in preparation for representing quantity fractions (or fractions as numbers) in Stage 3.
All of these changes are framed by an increased focus on reasoning. Opportunities for students to reason are tagged to relevant content, and teachers are supported to engage students in mathematical reasoning activities through linked teaching advice. Research suggests that ‘children’s mathematical reasoning might be the mediator between social background and children’s mathematics’ (Nunes et al, 2009). If we are serious about closing the equity gaps in mathematical achievement, this is the place to start.
The focus on reasoning informs the move to a single, overarching Working mathematically outcome. It emphasises the interrelationship of the processes that make up working mathematically – understanding and fluency, problem solving, reasoning, and communicating through mathematical language and models. When teachers feel pressured,they often revert to more traditional teaching methods which don’t address mathematical reasoning. It seems like a more efficient way of getting through the content. Yet having students listen to, share, and make sense of their classmates’ reasoning is vital to building and maintaining a focus on mathematical understanding. For example,learning multiplication facts by rote can be helpful but many students are never able to recall them all accurately. In a classroom where reasoning and communicating is expected, students have to clarify and organise their thinking about the multiplicative relations underlying fact families. This helps them identify important mathematical connections and build fluency through understanding. That most incorrectly remembered multiplication fact, 6 x 8, can then be accessed or checked through more familiar facts such as (6 x 4) + (6 x 4), or (7 x 6) + (1 x 6).
Implementation Support
There is no shortage of support for teachers to engage with the new syllabus. NESA has an online learning portal, NESA Learning, which deals with all aspects of the new curriculum. The NSW Department of Education has a wide range of professional development opportunities, as well as on-demand support through Statewide staffrooms and Curriculum networks. A complete set of sample units for Mathematics K-2 Syllabus can be downloaded from the Universal Resource Hub. A selection of sample units for Stage 2 and Stage 3 are also available, with the rest being released in a phased manner into 2024.
However, after all the professional learning is done and all the resources are downloaded, the most important thing will be those discussions in stage meetings, in the staffroom, in classroom doorways and at student desks. It is here that we, as teachers, will really begin to ‘work mathematically’, exploring, connecting, choosing, applying, reasoning, and communicating newly acquired syllabus content knowledge, reflecting on our beliefs about successful teaching practices and illuminating our own way forward. The best advice I have? A cut and paste from Jenny Williams’ and Mary-Ellen Betts’ words of wisdom for teacher approaching a previous ‘new syllabus’ in 2014: “Open the syllabus and read it.”
Clinton, W. J. (1994). Public papers of the Presidents of the United States, William J. Clinton. Washington, DC :Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records
Catherine Myson-Foehner has held classroom teacher and executive roles in NSW schools. She is currently employed by the NSW Department of Education as a Teaching and Learning Officer within the Educational Standards Directorate. She assists in the development, implementation and evaluation of innovative approaches to planning, programming and assessment for primary mathematics teachers.
Catherine has a strong educational interest in curriculum development and its impact on student equity. She worked on the K-2 and 3-6 writing teams for the K-10 Mathematics syllabus and delivers professional learning for teachers on syllabus implementation, including workshops at the Centre for Professional learning.
Professor Tony Loughland and Professor Mary Ryan explain why teacher collective efficacy is a vital part of their professional learning and how its use influences students’ learning and development…
Do Not Try This Alone
When Tony and Mary started their teaching careers last century there were many lone ranger teachers in the schools where they worked. These lone rangers were often very good practitioners who preferred to work their magic in their own classroom. You didn’t often see them in the staffroom but their students were happy, the parents did not complain and the school executive were generally of the view that “if it ain’t broke it don’t need fixing”.
There were also teachers and executive staff back then who were very generous in the sharing of their practical wisdom. This generosity was much appreciated by Tony who struggled to teach students with English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) backgrounds in inner city Sydney, especially given he had just completed six semesters of enthusiastic and expert teaching of the whole language model of teaching English K-6 in his pre-service education degree.
The collegiality of these colleagues extended to observing them in class, team teaching, sharing programs and resources, affirmation of our small wins as novice teachers and generally making us feel like we might succeed at this profession one day. Their collegiality gave us an enhanced sense of our efficacy as an individual teacher and promulgated a general sense of collective efficacy that we can teach these students well in our school.
There is strong support in the research literature that students thrive when teachers have a positive sense of their self-efficacy as individual teachers as well as a strong sense of their collective efficacy as a stage, faculty, team and school. We argue in this paper that the motivational sources of collective teacher efficacy provide a useful framework for the development and evaluation of professional learning programs at the school level.
The Compelling Evidence for Pursuing Collective Teacher Efficacy
Teachers’ sense of their collective efficacy is the second most important school-based influence on student outcomes. It has an effect size of 1.57 on student achievement according to Hattie’s synthesis of 1200 meta-analyses relating to influences on student achievement (Hattie, 2015). An effect size of this magnitude demands the attention of school leaders and researchers invested in teacher professional learning, “Given the link between collective efficacy and student achievement, understanding collective efficacy in and of itself is a worthy endeavour” (Berebitsky & Salloum, 2017, p.2). This study sought to develop an in-depth understanding of the antecedents of teacher collective efficacy in their professional learning.
Collective efficacy is an extension of the construct of self-efficacy from the broader theoretical framework of social cognition. Collective efficacy is defined as “the extent to which people believe they can work together effectively to accomplish their shared goals” (Maddux & Gosselin, 2012, p.214). Social cognition assumes reciprocal causality exists between a person and their environment, “people respond cognitively, emotionally, and behaviourally to environmental events. Also, through cognition people can exercise control over their own behaviour, which then influences not only the environment but also their cognitive, emotional, and biological states” (Maddux & Gosselin, 2012, p.199). This reciprocal causality has positive implications for teacher collective efficacy as it creates a virtuous cycle of improvement where enhanced collective efficacy contributes to student achievement which then further strengthens collective efficacy (Goddard et al., 2000).
The motivational sources of teacher collective efficacy are mastery and vicarious experiences, social persuasion, and affective states.1Teacher collective efficacy is also enhanced by a team’s ability to analyse the task ahead and make a judgment on their current level of competency to complete the task. All these characteristics represent what is regarded in the literature as effective teacher professional learning. However, teacher collective efficacy has not been commonly associated with a theory of action for teacher professional learning as it has been predominately employed as an outcome measure of the health of a school’s collective culture.
We contend that the measurable construct of teacher collective efficacy can be used as a design framework for professional learning programs as well as being an evaluative measure of its effectiveness. We acknowledge that the question of whether teacher collective efficacy is a necessary antecedent condition for effective professional learning, or a consequence of these programs remains open. We suspect that there might be reciprocal causation between teacher collective efficacy and effective professional learning where the presence of both enhances the other.
The Importance of a Professional Learning Collective
This last section of the paper examines the confluence between the motivational sources of teacher collective efficacy and the principles of effective teacher professional learning (see Table 1 below)
Sources of Teacher Collective Efficacy
Principles of Effective Teacher Professional Learning
Mastery experiences
Collaborative. Iterative. Focus on teachers’ work
Vicarious experiences
Collaborative. Focus on teachers’ work
Social persuasion
Collaborative
Affective states
Collaborative
Table 1 Collective efficacy, principles and design of teacher professional learning (Loughland & Ryan, 2022, p.345)
What is missing in the hypothesised model in table 1 is an explication of the processes that create the conditions for effective collaboration. One influence on effective collaboration and learning relates to time constraint and leadership support (Park & So, 2014). We have another clue to this missing piece of the puzzle in the finding that the density of networks is more important than centrality in professional learning networks (Berebitsky & Salloum, 2017). Furthermore, the density of networks is significantly related to collective efficacy in schools (Berebitsky & Salloum, 2017). This suggests that more opportunities should be provided for purposeful learning interactions between teachers as depicted in the principles of teacher professional learning in Table 1. This suggests that effective teacher professional learning needs to involve more interaction between teachers than top-down delivery approaches that may be better suited to compulsory compliance training. We know that time for professional learning in schools may be limited so school leaders must make informed decisions on what model of professional learning to adopt in their school.
The literature strongly suggests that a model of school-based, interactive teacher professional learning that focuses on teachers’ work in the classroom is the most effective (Kennedy, 2016). In this model, outside help in the form of academics and experienced practitioners in the system, is introduced if and when they are needed.
We suspect that the arguments we have presented in this paper are not earth-shattering revelations for the readers. The principles of effective teacher professional learning are now well established in the literature. The challenge that remains is one of implementation.
The challenges we identify here are very real to many teachers who are reading this article. There is the serious challenge of finding time for meaningful professional learning in the hectic schedules of schools. There is the conflation between the legislative requirements of compulsory compliance training and the real opportunities for professional growth afforded by effective teacher professional learning. There is the pervasive legacy of the cargo cult model of professional learning where the external consultant, the latest edu-guru, the international keynoter, or the social media superstar are regarded as experts and saviours. Valuable professional learning time is spent listening to them instead of engaging with your colleague next door on meaningful pedagogical discussion on how your students’ learning may be enhanced tomorrow, next week and next term.
Our own post-graduate university courses at the Masters and Higher Degree Research levels are also not exempt from our criticism. Our MEd and EdD programs need to be more adaptive and responsive so that they might produce educators with the scholarly and practical wisdom that they can use to provide the best possible conditions for student success in the schools and systems where they work.
None of these challenges are insurmountable but they require school and system leaders to build cultures of professional learning in schools that create a sense of collective teacher efficacy among their staff. Surely that is not too much to ask in an institution whose core business is learning?
End note:
1Mastery experiences are those that focus on developing instructional skills and capabilities. The important goal of improving student outcomes in wellbeing and achievement is at the forefront. Vicarious experiences are those whereby teachers and leaders learn from each other. Social persuasion involves a shared sense of purpose and vision, and a collaborative effort to achieve those goals. Affective states are the social-emotional aspects that underpin effective relationships, including trust, respect and dialogic approaches that value all voices and contributions. A positive relationship between these motivational constructs and collaborative professional learning has been found (Durksen et al. 2017).
NB- Sections of this text have been taken from Tony and Mary’s published journal article (Loughland & Ryan, 2022) that can be found here https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2020.1711801 (available to access through an academic institution or paid download)
Berebitsky, D., & Salloum, S. J. (2017). The Relationship Between Collective Efficacy and Teachers’ Social Networks in Urban Middle Schools. AERA Open, 3(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858417743927
Durksen, T. L., Klassen, R. M., & Daniels, L. M. (2017). Motivation and collaboration: The keys to a developmental framework for teachers’ professional learning. TEACHING AND TEACHER EDUCATION, 67, 53-66. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2017.05.011
Goddard, R. D., Hoy, W. K., & Hoy, A. W. (2000). Collective teacher efficacy: Its meaning, measure, and impact on student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 37(2), 479-507. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312037002479
Hattie, J. (2015). The applicability of Visible Learning to higher education. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 1(1), 79-91. https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000021
Kennedy, M. M. (2016). How Does Professional Development Improve Teaching? Review of Educational Research, 86(4), 945-980. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654315626800
Loughland, T., & Ryan, M. (2022). Beyond the measures: the antecedents of teacher collective efficacy in professional learning. Professional Development in Education, 48(2), 343-352. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2020.1711801
Maddux, J. E., & Gosselin, J. T. (2012). Self-Efficacy. In M. R. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of Self and Identity. Second Edition (Second ed., pp. 198-224). The Guildford Press.
Park, M., & So, K. (2014). Opportunities and Challenges for Teacher Professional Development: A Case of Collaborative Learning Community in South Korea. International education studies, 7(7), 96-108.
Tony Loughland is an Associate Professor and Deputy Head of School (Research) in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales.
Tony is an experienced educator who likes to think that theory should be the plaything of practice. He agrees with Marx’s assertion that philosophy should be used to not only interpret the world but to try to change it. Tony subscribes to Marx as he believes this orientation towards research is vital in a world threatened by anthropocentric climate change. Tony is currently leading projects on using AI for citizens’ informed participation in urban development, the provision of staffing for rural and remote areas in NSW and on Graduate Ready Schools.
Mary Ryan is Professor and Executive Dean of Education and Arts at Australian Catholic University. Her research is in the areas of writing pedagogy and assessment, teachers’ work in, and preparation for, diverse classrooms, reflexive learning and practice, and reflective writing. She was formerly a primary teacher and lecturer in literacy and English and has an extensive record of program development in universities and professional learning for teachers. Her funded research projects are in the areas of classroom writing and preparing teachers to teach for diversity to break the cycle of disadvantage.
