National Press Club Address

National Press Club Address, The Hon. Julia Gillard, MP, 24 February 2010; Media Release, The Hon. Christopher Pyne, MP, 24 February 2010; The Australian, 24 February 2010; Sydney Morning Herald, 24 February 2010; The Advertiser, 25 February 2010; The Age, 25 February 2010; The Australian, 25 February 2010; Canberra Times, 25 February 2010

Also in her address to the National Press Club, the Australian Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Ms Julia Gillard, announced that a draft copy of the National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST) was expected to be released in March 2010 for consultation.

The draft standards outline four levels of proficiency for teachers – graduate, proficient, highly accomplished and lead teachers, and specify the skills and knowledge expected of teachers at each of these levels. Beginning teachers are required to meet the ‘graduate’ standard to be registered to teach, and must reach the ‘proficient’ level one year later in order to receive a permanent teaching license.

The standards have been divided into three areas for each level – professional knowledge, professional practice and professional engagement, and require teachers to:

• know their students and how they learn
• know the content and how to teach it
• plan for and implement effective teaching and learning
• create and maintain safe and supportive learning environments
• assess and provide feedback
• report on student learning
• engage in professional learning and reflection and
• contribute to the school and professional community.

The draft document states that the standards ‘support the collective responsibility of the profession to ensure that those who teach have the essential knowledge and skills.

Ms Gillard also announced that a draft of the Australian Curriculum for years Prep to 10 in mathematics, English, history and science will be released on Monday 1 March 2010. In particular, she highlighted that grammar would be taught explicitly at all year levels, and that the English curriculum would include ‘the content, the ways in which [grammar] should be used, and the other areas of language and literature to which understanding of grammar can contribute’.

The draft curriculum will be available on the ACARA website for public consultation until 23 May 2010. ACARA expects that the draft senior secondary curriculum would be available for consultation between April 2010 and June 2010. After 1 March 2010, visit the ACARA website to access a copy of the draft curriculum.

Finally, Minister Gillard indicated that the Australian Government was considering new ways to ensure that ‘every school can get the right support and scrutiny to make sure it is performing well and improving in the areas where it needs to improve’. She indicated that this may involve the re-establishment of school inspectors via ‘physical inspections’ or ‘quality audits’ and that it would ‘certainly involve strengthening school-based performance management of individual teachers’. She also indicated that the My School website might be extended to include an analysis of the performance of tertiary institutions.

 

 

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