Federation school and TAFE witnesses tell it like it is

RAY CAVENAGH reports on affidavits from Federation witnesses in the salaries case before the Industrial Relations Commission.

Lois Anderson is a head teacher TAS and a hospitality VET teacher at Maclean High School. She has experienced all of the changes in her chosen teaching area over a period of 30 plus years: "The bulk of the planning and preparation [for structured work placements] must then take place close to and during that placement week. Finding enough local hospitality establishments suitable and willing to take on a student for 35 hours is a task in itself! Students are drawn from a wide area and wish to be placed close to their homes as the hospitality industry works on split shifts and night work. The paperwork and phone calls to liaise with the supervisors in the workplace and to cover all parties for indemnity is enormous."

Michael Collins is the principal of Wanaaring Public School, west of Bourke and 550 kilometres from his district office. He not only tells about the life of a teacher in a distant small school, but also the life of a community in times of a desperate drought: "... due to the current record drought some student's families in my community are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the basic day to day requirements of food and clothing...The school has been selected by various departments during the drought as a centre to distribute food hampers, drinking water and various day to day donations. I am unable to say no to these tasks as many of the families require them, and there are very few places to conduct such an exercise in small communities."

John Cowell teaches industrial relations and VET at Canowindra High School. Canowindra is an established wine area and John helps the industry by running a VET course in viticulture: "Setting up the viticulture course has meant... liaising with local industries, budgeting for equipment and resources, getting our neglected school vineyard (300 vines) into working order, liaising with [the] principal and timetablers in relation to required hours... liaising with [the] farm assistant... careers advisers in relation to work placements... The budgeting requirements in particular were more complex and difficult than for any course I previously taught."

Dave Gilbert has had a long career as principal, starting at Captains Flat in 1976, and seeing him at Menindee and Coonamble prior to his return to Sydney in 1986. He is currently principal at Governor Philip King Public School at Edensor Park in the Fairfield district: "The shift to managerialism has increased the complexity of the role and markedly increased the level of expertise and responsibility required by me as Principal 1. I am now expected to lead and manage a large diverse and complex organisation with responsibility for planning, budgeting, replacement and acquisition, training and development of staff, both professional and ancillary, property and plant maintenance and improvement, liaison officer with the community, local government and state government agencies."

Narelle Grant is a classroom teacher at Dubbo West Public School. She has had a long relationship with Dubbo, and her contact with Dubbo West Public School, although not continuous, goes back to the early 1970s: "When I was teaching infants grades this [work samples] involved a tremendous amount of work. Approximately two to three hours per students each term out of teaching time just to cover books, complete and annotate work samples, and assess outcomes. Up to three hours to prepare and mark each work sample for a class."

Marilyn Johnson teaches at Bathurst Public School and has been a teacher for 30 years. Like the other experienced teachers who provided affidavits, she has a strong understanding of the impact of change in the classroom: "Since the early '90s there has been a noticeable increase in the number of children coming from difficult family situations and displaying difficult behaviours in the school. There is a certain movement of families to country towns due to unemployment, and many children from single parent families. Sixth class children are increasingly showing the characteristics of adolescents and I now have to be able to deal with adolescent children, many psychologically traumatised from their family situations."

Marina Kyriakou is another experienced teacher who also appeared in Federation's casual/temporary teachers case in 2001: "The integration of students with disabilities has added to my work in that I am required to liaise with a wide range of support personnel. This has included meetings with speech therapists, occupational therapists, teachers aides, parents, integration consultants and the itinerant teacher vision impairment. I am given relief from face to face teaching for these to occur."

Rosalee Mackay, from Wagga, was another who also was a witness in the casual/temporary case. She is currently employed as a temporary teacher in Wagga and Cootamundra as a support teacher of visually impaired students. She describes the extreme caution she believes she needs to show when dealing with her students: "Sometimes, when teaching a visually impaired student, I need to talk about and demonstrate methods of head position or rotation which may help the student to use his/her vision more effectively. His would be very easy to show by actually using my hands to move the student's head into the position, but I can't do this. I have to talk about it and demonstrate myself until the student understands. There are also many times when I am sure a student would respond with great pride to my hand on a shoulder..."

Cheryl McBride's statement is an extensive account of the work of a principal at Sarah Redfern Public School. Among many detailed statements is the following: "To implement these programs [behaviour management] effectively and cope with teaching and programming for other students I am aware that teachers' inter-personal skills need to be outstanding -- reflective listening, awareness of body language, patience, focus, expectations, perception about level of intervention for each student exhibiting these behaviours. I am aware that there are few, if any, training opportunities provided by DET on these skills. This means that I have worked with executives and teachers to support each other in gaining these skills and this knowledge."

Jenifer Milligan, after studies in Sydney and work in Melbourne, spent a number of years in Tanzania before returning to work in NSW, and is currently an English/history teacher at Evans High School. She describes aspects of the new English HSC course: "I have had to develop skills in the teaching of visual texts. The stimulus booklet provided by the Board... includes several different visual texts. In addition to preparing students to provide an in-depth analysis of these.. I have to prepare them for previously unseen visual texts which may appear in Paper One of the New HSC... from cartoons to photograph montages to website facsimiles... students may need to conceive of and describe visual texts and relate them to a particular focus area or text."

Peter Morgan is the principal of Belmont High School. He canvasses all of the issues covered in the grounds and reasons for Federation's case, and also provides some view to the Commission of where the workload is heading: "In the past focus has been on the student's behaviour and the issues they bring from the broader society and their homes. This has fostered an 'us against them' mentality in some schools. New research adopts a more holistic view of student management, and therefore significant teacher re-learning. In my view, relearning is far more difficult than just learning, as it involves the undoing of assumptions that teachers have worked with... and engaging with, understanding and embracing the new ideas and approaches."

Chris Tome is the deputy principal of Orange High School, but his affidavit covers experiences both at Orange High and at Oberon High, his previous school.

"The impact of teacher shortages is currently being felt in many schools, particularly schools in the country areas of the state. At Oberon High School.. the shortage of casual teachers meant that I had to go to extraordinary lengths to obtain appropriate casual teachers... At Orange High it is frequently the case that replacement teachers are unable to be obtained for absent colleagues. When that occurs I have to ensure that the students from their classes are supervised appropriately, which often means that I personally provide the supervision needed."

Theresia Zadkovich is deputy principal at Eschol Park Public School, in the Campbelltown district: "For the last two years I have been responsible for site management in the school. During that time our school experienced 52 incidents that had to be reported to the security unit, Malsafe, and the police. The paper work involved was at times overwhelming. We experienced a fire in a demountable classroom and... it involved.. dealing with Treasury Managed Funds, Properties, government contractors and auditors. Finding quotes, purchasing replacement resources and equipment, negotiating with upset parents and students, overseeing committees and setting goals and time lines all became part of the site management issues."

Patrick Aiken has been a teacher of bricklaying since 1986, and is currently Manager, Building Finishes Programs, Construction and Transport Division of the Western Sydney Institute of TAFE: "At times my role extends across other construction areas. At present I am involved in the development of exemplar work method statements and workplace assessment instruments that will provide resources for all construction areas. In June 2002 I managed the delivery of the National TAFE Construction Conference that involved over 200 delegates from all states and territories in Australia..."

Camilla Couch has a long history of involvement in outreach programs in TAFE, and is one of those people at the cutting edge of delivery of specialised programs to people who might otherwise miss out: "All Outreach courses are constantly renegotiated. There is no such thing as a permanent static Outreach course. We have a highly flexible curriculum structure that allows us to tailor each new course to the needs of the individual students or broader community group... the demand has increased, as has the increasingly complex nature of disadvantage."

Chris Freestone has the interesting double of being an ordained Anglican minister as well as an electrical trades TAFE teacher in Bathurst and Orange: "The introduction of competency-based training in 1992 meant that students are assessed against competency standards required in the workplace, not learning outcomes derived from the curriculum developed by TAFE. This has meant that teachers...need to provide simulated learning experiences (practical) to bridge workplace skills and competencies and learning outcomes in TAFE."

Lois Green is a hospitality head teacher at the Wollongong College of the Riverina Institute of TAFE with a long history in the hospitality industry, including international experience, and also a period in her own restaurant. She talks about the newer methods of course delivery: "Customising of course to suit a particular establishment where delivery is on site requires the development of customised manuals. Good computer skills are needed in this area. Industry liaison and the focus on keeping current and up to date has not changed in itself for me but in terms of customising modules/courses to suit and establishment, I spend a lot of time talking to prospective clients."

Jennifer Hill is Senior Head Teacher, Welfare, in Wollongong, coming into TAFE from a background as a social worker, and here talks about the complexities of recognition of prior learning: "Mostly, the portfolios provided by those seeking recognition do not provide a 'neat fit' to the competencies within a course or module... the community services industry requires that practitioners have developed complex and sophisticated skills and knowledge such as counselling, advocacy, developing social policy, community development, social research, psychology, sociology, group work and understanding legal issues. These are all very difficult to assess for recognition..."

Dennis Hine comes from a long history of personnel work in private enterprise and currently works at West Wollongong TAFE as a Teacher of Business Studies (Human Resource Management): "Students and their parents have greater expectations in today's society and teachers are... more accountable for information provided and explaining the reason for an assessment outcome." This comment rings through many of the affidavits, both school and TAFE.

John Humphrey joined TAFE as a carpentry/joinery teacher in 1981, and is currently campus head at the Deniliquin and Finley campuses of the Riverina Institute of TAFE. As a preface to his extensive affidavit he makes the following comment: "The last eight years of my teaching career and the past four years as a Head of Campus have been marked by constant change. The degree and pace of this change is increasing and I believe that the demands being placed on teaching staff in relation to the nature of work, volume of work, and the levels of responsibility, are now greater than at any time in the past."

Carol Maloney teaches Administration Studies at Wollongong TAFE. Her career background is as a private secretary and professional assistant. She discusses the market oriented approach of TAFE: "Teachers are expected to be marketing experts. We are expected to market TAFE courses, to gain commercial business, to on-sell, cross-sell, up-sell all with no training. We are required to market our courses in the classroom by encouraging the students to continue studying in our section... There are greater expectations of staff to constantly make business contacts with a view to selling our business."

Noelene Milliken teaches language, literacy, numeracy and communication at Wagga Wagga TAFE. She started her working life as a primary teacher, but has also been involved in agriculture and retail: "Twelve years ago I taught between 9am and 3pm, for the most part Monday to Friday. I may have had an occasional night class from 6pm until 9pm.Since then I have been known to start at 6.30 am and finish at 10pm. I have taught on any of the seven days in the week, I teach on campus, off campus, in community centres and workplaces such as factories, building industry and food processing plants."

Julianne Robinson is a senior TAFE counsellor at Petersham College in the Sydney Institute of TAFE. She notes, as do other affidavits, the increased role of TAFE in dealing with students in difficulties: "Since the mid 1990s there has been an increased emphasis on working with school leavers, including increased contact with school careers advisers and principals, by way of individual student referrals, where the student is not coping with the school environment or curriculum. Often these cases require liaison with the school and mental health workers or medical providers to secure appropriate placement and management."

TAFE affidavits have also mentioned the increased classroom difficulties some of the referred students bring with them.

Jennifer Stürmann is a part time casual teacher of English/communication at St George TAFE campus. She has a work history of teaching and travel: "Always a demanding course to teach, the HSC has become more complex and rigorous. Student expectations are higher so the pressure on teachers has increased. Students themselves are more demanding. They expect more individual attention."

Alan Swift works as a part time casual teacher of tourism and hospitality at Coffs Harbour Education Campus in the North Coast Institute of TAFE. He worked for many years in the airline industry, much of it in a training capacity: "I was then able to prepare my lesson plans and assessments [after reading TAFE supplied documents]. Now I have to constantly check the information to ensure its validity, research resources and then prepare the lesson, as the Division no longer supplies resource packages."

Ray Cavenagh is an acting Industrial Officer. Not all Federation witnesses appeared in person before the IRC. This means the Department has accepted their evidence.

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Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005