I have witnessed many wonderful things evolve at our school, but one of the most promising is the development of effective support structures for ex students. Developing Win-win situations for ex students and the school is very important to make these relationships work for all involved.
When I first arrived six years ago, graduating students often came back to the school and looked a bit lost. They said hello to teachers that barely remembered their names and I would get the feeling of loss that they would feel, coming back to a place where they were happy and felt safe that was now closed to them. This loss was heartfelt, as school is a launching pad for these students, a support that after graduation is lost.
Over the next few years we have looked at ways to engage ex-students, provide a level of support going forward and use the skills gained by students in navigating school to assist students within the system. It's a way of leveraging the goodwill gained during the 'best' times of their lives (though if it truly is the best, I'd be sad as it is a very small part of their lives).
The most obvious way was to encourage tertiary students to help at summer school. Students entering ATAR make mistakes preparing for the final two years and won't always listen to teachers as to the best method for preparing for one of the most stressful situations in their lives. By coming to summer school after graduation, they can share their experiences and have clear evidence of how far they have come in comparison to their fellow students. It's downtime for most students, so it only has minor impact on their commitments.
The recent emerging structure is seeing students come back as paid tutors after school. Students in first and second year university are finding that ICT is decreasing the number of required contact hours and they are now more free to engage in work related activities. We have found that our graduates are happy to come back and help out in after school programmes for high performing students and tutor. As effective tutors have typically been very difficult to find, it has been welcome to utilise they students as a resource (and fulfil a need of theirs to both belong and support their income).
A welcome aside is to assist our university bound students complete their courses. Our success is truly measured in their success and being able to give graduating students effective post-school support at critical times in their university journey may be the difference in completing their courses and failing. Assistance may be helping them through a first year math course and adapting to a more text orientated learning style with clear language differences than experienced in school. Support at tertiary institutions that work for a green leafy students, may not work for our headstrong students, who either do not fit in with peers well, or are too headstrong to engage in help structures and typically do not work well in groups. It takes them time to realise that there are students less intelligent that are completing successfully their courses and that they have something to offer beyond cynicism and self deprecating comments.
I have been pleasantly surprised by the number of students seeking math teaching as a pathway into the workforce. Having employed two of our mathematics practicum teachers in our team of four and having more on standby means that we have a pool of culturally aware teachers available to develop our mathematics department that can hit the ground running and avoid common issues found with our students. The fact that some of these are ex-students developing their peers is a whole of community bonus.
Much of this is officially non-core to our mission, but we know that many low-socioeconomic strategies have failed to increase tertiary engagement and effect social change. Post school programmes tied back to effective in school processes may be a factor that has not been sufficiently considered.
Showing posts with label goodwill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goodwill. Show all posts
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Saturday, July 12, 2008
The offer that promotes strike action.
Education in Western Australia is currently passing through a time of turmoil with an industrial dispute between the State government (department of education and training ("DET") and the local State school teachers union ("SSTUWA"). Currently the dispute is in arbitration. DET has put forward its statement of claims:
1. 15 hours of PD per year in your own time;
2. One, one hour staff meeting per week;
3. a requirement to be at school 15 minutes before school and 15 minutes after school;
4. Duties of a teacher have been expanded to include planning and preparation of courses of study activities undertaken to enrich the educational experiences of students including camps, music and drama festivals and performances;
5. A clause that says that a teacher can agree to teach hours that exceed the weekly maximum with of course an equivalent reduction in their DOTT time;
6. The vast majority of teachers will receive salary increases of 8.2% by February 2010 compared with their present salary level. Administrators will get 9.8%;
7. Those over 45 with two or more years continuous good service will be required to give five weeks notice instead of the present four to terminate their contract;
(taken from a post on http://www.platowa.com/ - a local pro-teacher lobby group)
Considering that the above is a change in conditions for a less than CPI increase, teachers are generally unhappy with the proposed changes.
At first glance the offer made to teachers was inflammatory but is underpinned by DET that is in a precarious position. Currently there are not enough teachers to staff hard to teach locations (with many non specialists teaching specialist subjects) and the employment market is buoyant enough for teachers to decline hard to staff locations. It is questionable that any amount of money would staff these locations given housing, behavioural issues and remoteness of some of these locations. Morale in DET schools is fragile with many teachers at the point of breakdown and many contemplating leaving for other employment sectors.
There is a perception that the government does not wish to be a part of the public education sector other than as a safety net provider. University entrance subject provision (commonly known as TEE subjects) in many DET schools is becoming limited with many not providing one or more of English Literature, Geography, Specialist Maths (such as calculus), Physics, Chemistry or Economics - subjects typically available as a baseline. This has been compounded this year with a directive from DET to not offer courses in schools with less than 14 students enrolled in the course. Many courses in year 11 & 12 have needed class sizes smaller than 14 to run (successfully) - typically the more demanding courses.
The current DET behaviour management programme has become teacher oriented with the onus to resolve behavioural issues within the classroom. As academic students leave the public system for private schools and students are forced to exit private schools for behavioural reasons, behaviour in public schools has become an ongoing issue between staff, students and administration.
At least 1000 teachers this year left the sector and did not renew their teacher registration. Many of these were relief teachers that at first investigation experience difficulty in being assigned work and then are faced with the typical difficulties experienced by relief teachers.
New courses were introduced this year with no capability to delay if teachers are unable to prepare adequately for 2009. SSTUWA has banned preparation of the new courses for 2009. This was recently overturned by the state arbiter. The horse though has bolted. With the teacher shortage, low morale, behavioural issues and limited ability to find relief staff for planning it is difficult to see how many schools will adequately provide these new courses for 2009 with significant goodwill from teachers that at present does not exist.
Despite these concerns the state government made no allowance for substantial teacher pay rises in the recent 2008 budget nor seemingly wishes to bridge this gap in goodwill between teachers and their employer.
1. 15 hours of PD per year in your own time;
2. One, one hour staff meeting per week;
3. a requirement to be at school 15 minutes before school and 15 minutes after school;
4. Duties of a teacher have been expanded to include planning and preparation of courses of study activities undertaken to enrich the educational experiences of students including camps, music and drama festivals and performances;
5. A clause that says that a teacher can agree to teach hours that exceed the weekly maximum with of course an equivalent reduction in their DOTT time;
6. The vast majority of teachers will receive salary increases of 8.2% by February 2010 compared with their present salary level. Administrators will get 9.8%;
7. Those over 45 with two or more years continuous good service will be required to give five weeks notice instead of the present four to terminate their contract;
(taken from a post on http://www.platowa.com/ - a local pro-teacher lobby group)
Considering that the above is a change in conditions for a less than CPI increase, teachers are generally unhappy with the proposed changes.
At first glance the offer made to teachers was inflammatory but is underpinned by DET that is in a precarious position. Currently there are not enough teachers to staff hard to teach locations (with many non specialists teaching specialist subjects) and the employment market is buoyant enough for teachers to decline hard to staff locations. It is questionable that any amount of money would staff these locations given housing, behavioural issues and remoteness of some of these locations. Morale in DET schools is fragile with many teachers at the point of breakdown and many contemplating leaving for other employment sectors.
There is a perception that the government does not wish to be a part of the public education sector other than as a safety net provider. University entrance subject provision (commonly known as TEE subjects) in many DET schools is becoming limited with many not providing one or more of English Literature, Geography, Specialist Maths (such as calculus), Physics, Chemistry or Economics - subjects typically available as a baseline. This has been compounded this year with a directive from DET to not offer courses in schools with less than 14 students enrolled in the course. Many courses in year 11 & 12 have needed class sizes smaller than 14 to run (successfully) - typically the more demanding courses.
The current DET behaviour management programme has become teacher oriented with the onus to resolve behavioural issues within the classroom. As academic students leave the public system for private schools and students are forced to exit private schools for behavioural reasons, behaviour in public schools has become an ongoing issue between staff, students and administration.
At least 1000 teachers this year left the sector and did not renew their teacher registration. Many of these were relief teachers that at first investigation experience difficulty in being assigned work and then are faced with the typical difficulties experienced by relief teachers.
New courses were introduced this year with no capability to delay if teachers are unable to prepare adequately for 2009. SSTUWA has banned preparation of the new courses for 2009. This was recently overturned by the state arbiter. The horse though has bolted. With the teacher shortage, low morale, behavioural issues and limited ability to find relief staff for planning it is difficult to see how many schools will adequately provide these new courses for 2009 with significant goodwill from teachers that at present does not exist.
Despite these concerns the state government made no allowance for substantial teacher pay rises in the recent 2008 budget nor seemingly wishes to bridge this gap in goodwill between teachers and their employer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)