Teaching Australia - Overview of Achievements

Teaching Australia has made a significant contribution to advancing the Australian teaching profession for the good of all Australians. As acknowledged by the Deputy Prime Minster, its achievements over the four years have created a strong foundation for the future work of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL).

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Teaching Australia’s role
Teaching Australia was set up as an independent national body to operate ‘by and for the profession’, in partnership with the Australian Government. Its establishment recognised both the critical importance of quality teaching and school leadership in achieving the best possible outcomes for students and the need for the profession itself to play an active role, alongside governments and school authorities.

The establishment of Teaching Australia followed international recognition that the professionalisation of teaching is an important policy objective, but one that most countries have found difficult to achieve. In its four years in operation, Teaching Australia has laid important foundations towards this objective in ways that the new Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership can sustain and build on in undertaking its own role.

Teaching Australia’s mission has been to support and advance the quality of teaching and school leadership and the standing of the teaching profession. The strategic plan developed during Teaching Australia’s first year addressed each of its five constitutional functions. Those functions: standards for teachers and school leaders; professional learning; research and communication; promotion of the profession; and accreditation of pre-service teacher education, have been pursued with vigour over the past four years with the support of professional associations.

Operating as a small, new organisation, Teaching Australia has made a significant contribution to quality teaching and school leadership and to strengthening the profession. Its achievements against each of its five functions are set out below.

Engaging the teaching profession
In keeping with its role, one of Teaching Australia’s key operating principles has been to engage the profession both by working with and through national professional associations and by involving practising teachers and school leaders in its work.

A major achievement of Teaching Australia was the establishment in 2008 of the Teaching Australia Network, drawing together 34 national professional bodies that exemplify the diversity of the teaching profession.

The Network has created formal links between Teaching Australia and associations of teachers, principals and teacher educators focusing on the practice of teaching and leadership in education settings from early childhood to senior secondary. These bodies encompass the broad spectrum of teaching and leadership specialisations and contexts. Associations collectively represent members of the profession from government, Catholic and independent school sectors across the states and territories.

The aim of the Network is to enable the teaching profession to be an effective partner in quality teaching and school leadership, with the objective of providing the best education possible for Australian students. It provides a unique vehicle for developing a national profession-wide view of the priorities and needs of the teaching profession, and for channelling engagement with teachers and principals on national issues. The Network has also shown the potential for dynamic interaction among professional associations through ongoing communication and collaboration.

The Network was established following extensive consultation with the key professional associations during 2007 and is a testament to the trust and credibility Teaching Australia has been able to achieve as a government owned body, albeit an independent one. The Network’s relationship is based on a Memorandum of Understanding, which respects the integrity and voice of Teaching Australia and individual associations. It provides for reciprocal responsibilities that include, for associations, a common commitment to the Charter for the Australian teaching profession, a national model for
professional standards and a national code of ethics, and for Teaching Australia, a commitment to provide conference support and to host a fully funded annual Network Forum.

The Network Forum is designed to elicit the profession’s views on strategic directions and important issues. The recent forum held in August was valuable in identifying eight key areas in which profession-driven initiatives can complement and add value to the activities of governments. These areas are:

• developing specialist standards for highly accomplished practice in teaching and leadership;
• providing standards-based learning opportunities;
• contributing professional expertise to the development and implementation of national curriculum, assessment and reporting systems;
• building up an evidence base and disseminating information about what works in different contexts and for different groups of students;
• celebrating excellence within the profession;
• using the expertise of the profession in partnership with universities to inform, shape and support initial teacher education and to connect students preparing to be teachers with best practice in schools; and
• sharing innovative and effective teaching and leadership practices using digital technologies.

Standards, curriculum and professional development, in particular, have consistently been identified as high priorities for the profession, views reinforced at the recent Teaching Australia-hosted roundtable meeting between the Network and ACARA on 6 November 2009. This meeting led to an important commitment by ACARA to maintain the dialogue with the Network through regular meetings.

Teaching Australia would emphasise to AITSL the value of engaging with the profession through the Network, recognising that the profession has it own distinctive role to play in promoting excellence in teaching and school leadership, alongside governments and school authorities. With AITSL’s support, the Network can continue to provide a way of obtaining a national professional view, focused on the best possible outcomes for students, independent of jurisdictions and sectors, to inform policy-making and support quality teaching initiatives.

Teaching Australia would also strongly advocate the value of offering individual classroom practitioners opportunities for professional learning and networking with colleagues from other jurisdictions and systems in national activities.

Function 1: Standards
Since its establishment in 2005, Teaching Australia has been working closely with national professional associations on the development of standards for advanced practice, now more closely defined as highly accomplished practice, for teaching and for principals. The targeting of standards at the accomplished level has reflected Teaching Australia’s focus on aspirational standards and has been in keeping with its operating principle of building on and complementing the activities of other education organisations. Teaching Australia’s stance on national professional standards has been set out in two policy papers, one issued in 2006 and a second earlier this year by the Teaching Australia Network.

Standards development work has been undertaken through extensive consultation, including major conferences in 2005 and 2007, a national workshop and a symposium held in 2008, and two discussion papers widely circulated to all education stakeholders. It has drawn on a considerable research base, including two studies commissioned from ACER of Australian and international standards developments as well as exercises mapping the standards work of professional associations in teaching and leadership. It has also been informed by the findings of an overseas study tour, drawing mostly on the work of the United States National Board for Professional Teaching Standards as well as standards and teacher education accreditation approaches in Scotland, England and the Netherlands.

Teaching Australia has also undertaken research into approaches to standards validation and the use of standards for professional development and certification, including a current research project on the elements of a credible, fair and efficient standards-based assessment system.

Significant progress has been made in standards development, which is proceeding in accordance with an agreed profession-wide model that provides a coherent frame for the articulation of standards across areas of specialisation and would provide a basis, if need be, for translating these standards to the wider national framework that AITSL will administer. The model comprises the Charter for the Australian teaching profession – a statement of core values and commitments; generic capabilities – high level statements of the discrete elements of knowledge and skills expected of teachers and principals
operating at a high level of expertise; and detailed descriptors of accomplishment – elaborations of observable practice in specialised areas.

These specialist standards for highly accomplished teaching and principals will provide a valuable complement to the generic standards that have been developed to date by government and employing authorities. Teaching Australia believes they offer a solid foundation for AITSL in its particular role of achieving strong links between standards, professional development and certification. The distinctive detailed descriptors of accomplishment in specific fields of teaching and in leadership will provide a meaningful guide for professional development and offer a rigorous and practicable basis for assessment and certification. The value of the specialist dimension of these standards in supporting national curriculum is also clear.

The development process adopted by Teaching Australia has achieved a high degree of professional ownership of the standards and this will underpin their professional acceptance. During the past year, over 20 national professional associations have collaborated with Teaching Australia and each other in developing standards in four specialist areas. Drafting of science teaching standards has been completed. Drafting of primary and early childhood teaching standards and principal standards is progressing well. In line with national curriculum developments through ACARA, indications of interest have been sought from professional associations to begin drafting standards in the areas of English, mathematics and history teaching and there is interest from cross-curriculum areas. A process of testing and validation with external stakeholders is set to follow completion of drafting in each area.

Skills assessment
Since 2006 Teaching Australia has been the designated assessing authority under the Migration Regulations 1994 for the purpose of skilled migration to Australia of preprimary, primary and secondary teachers. In undertaking this function, Teaching Australia has worked cooperatively with registration authorities to minimise entry barriers to the Australian workforce for appropriately skilled migrants while at the same time providing quality assurance for the teaching workforce.

Function 2: Professional development
Teaching Australia was established with professional learning as one of the key functions to be performed in pursuing its constitutional responsibility to support and advance the quality of teaching and school leadership. Reflecting its role as a national professional body and the level of its resources, Teaching Australia’s approach has been to offer a selection of carefully targeted professional learning activities intended to complement the significant professional development investment of government and employing authorities. Its programs have been characterised by a distinctively national perspective and a focus on professional issues designed to build awareness and promote adoption of best practice and innovation in pedagogy and leadership. Teaching Australia has initiated activities specifically targeted at principals as well as activities designed to build school leadership capacity.

While AITSL has a broader professional development remit, Teaching Australia’s programs, purposefully designed to meet national needs, provide a useful foundation for further development of innovative and dynamic national flagship programs alongside state and territory initiatives.

In the critical area of effective school leadership for the 21st century, Teaching Australia’s highly successful Leading Australia’s Schools program, for example, has considerable potential for continuation as a national flagship program. Conducted in partnership with HayGroup and the University of Melbourne, the program draws on the latest national and international leadership practices and on the specialist standards for principals being developed through Teaching Australia.

There is also an exciting early prospect of setting up a parallel program for aspiring principals as a national initiative responding to the urgent need to build leadership capacity for the next generation of principals. AITSL will be able to draw on design work being undertaken in collaboration with the profession and school authorities, which is due to be completed early in 2010. In addition, it would be open to AITSL to continue and possibly expand the International Professional Development Program beyond 2010. International connections nurtured through this program have proved valuable in introducing principals and leading teachers to the latest research and best practice.

Teaching Australia’s annual program of master classes offers a particularly useful model for promoting best practice and innovative approaches to teaching and school leadership, linking practice and research. By drawing on winners of Australian Awards for Teaching Excellence as accomplished practitioner presenters, the master classes strengthen the link between professional development and accomplished standards and extend the impact of the professional recognition conferred by the awards. The classes have also provided an excellent vehicle for supporting education priorities such as ICT.Their strength has been the peer-to-peer opportunity to discuss professional issues.

Another area in which Teaching Australia believes its professional development activities may be of particular value to AITSL is future-focused schooling, which has been the subject of linked projects involving scenario-building, a series of workshops with school leadership teams, dissemination of materials and a forthcoming book. This professional learning has been designed to assist teachers and school leaders to anticipate and respond effectively to change.

Function 3: Research and communication
An important role for Teaching Australia has been to put in place a strong and accessible research and evidence base to underpin quality teaching and school leadership. Teaching Australia’s research activities have been directed to informing its own work, providing evidence to support practitioners and influencing education policy and practice.

As with professional development, Teaching Australia’s approach to research has been carefully targeted, reflecting its national professional role, level of resources and operating principles. Its starting point was to commission and publish research studies scanning, analysing and synthesising current research into pedagogy and school leadership as a resource and to highlight gaps in the research base. There would be value in an early project by AITSL to bring this research up to date with recent findings and evidence, given the application to its own work and the scope for effective dissemination to government, education authorities and the profession through its wide channels of influence.

Teaching Australia has also built up a body of valuable research about the development and use of professional standards, approaches to raising the quality of teacher education, effective and sustainable partnerships between schools and universities, and leadership and learning with information and communication technologies.

A project of major significance for Teaching Australia has been the commissioning of a feasibility study into establishing a national centre for pedagogy and research clearinghouse to respond to the lack of coordinated, sustained and accessible research about the efficacy of different approaches to practice. The study, completed by a research team from Monash University in 2008, established a strong case for a centre for pedagogy incorporating a research clearinghouse function, which Teaching Australia presented in an accompanying paper and at a roundtable of policy-makers and funding agencies.

Teaching Australia believes establishment of a centre for pedagogy is of singular importance for teaching and learning and an initiative that AITSL would be well-placed to pursue. There is a variety of ways in which the centre could be progressed. One possibility is partnership in a proposed Cooperative Research Centre for Innovation in Teaching and Learning for which the New South Wales Department of Education and Training is currently gathering a consortium to make a bid. Without pre-empting future consideration of approaches by AITSL, Teaching Australia has been accepted as a bid artner and sees value in AITSL continuing to be involved.

In another recent initiative likely to be of value to AITSL, Teaching Australia has instigated a series of research monographs on education issues of wide public interest. These monographs are intended to give a balanced and authoritative view on issues relevant to schooling and of public interest.

Function 4: Promotion of the teaching profession
Teaching Australia has had a constitutional responsibility for promoting the teaching profession, recognising that raising the status and standing of the profession is critical to attracting and retaining the best teachers and principals and raising the quality of school education.

Increasing public respect for the profession has been an integral part of all Teaching Australia’s activities, particularly the development of the Charter for the Australian teaching profession and professional standards, as hallmarks of professionalism. Increased recognition has also been important as a separate strand of Teaching Australia’s work, most notably through its management of the Australian Awards for Teaching Excellence on behalf of the Australian Government.

As well as being an effective mechanism for bringing wide public recognition to outstanding teaching and school leadership and celebrating achievement within the profession, the awards have provided a way of linking standards and professional recognition in the minds of teachers and principals. Teacher Australia has based the awards selection criteria and assessment guidelines on the professional capabilities from its model for standards for highly accomplished teaching and principals. With AITSL’s assumption of responsibility for the awards, there will be an opportunity to strengthen this important link.

Function 5: Pre-service teacher education
Teaching Australia made a significant contribution to the evidence base supporting national accreditation, and considerable progress in developing standards and processes for a rigorous national system of accreditation.

Following Australia-wide consultation on a set of proposals about a national accreditation system in late 2007, Teaching Australia began the documentation of a proposed national accreditation process, including draft graduate standards. This work was undertaken jointly with a working group from the Australian Council of Deans of Education. The outcome of these projects was a draft accreditation manual containing an overview of the proposed accreditation system; draft graduate standards; details of the accreditation process; guidance to universities for preparing a self-evaluation report; and an outline of the role of accreditation panels in the accreditation process. Following developments at the national level towards federal arrangements for accreditation, Teaching Australia did not proceed further with planned trials.

Teaching Australia’s work in this area will be available to AITSL in undertaking its responsibility for implementing an agreed system of standards-based national teacher accreditation. Also of value in informing AITSL’s thinking about quality teacher preparation programs will be the findings of a major longitudinal study commissioned by Teaching Australia to identify the distinctive characteristics of teacher preparation programs associated with successful outcomes for students. This research, which is being undertaken by the University of Western Australia, is following a sample of final year students through their first two years of teaching to assess the relative impact of their preparation on the quality of their teaching. The research is due to be completed in mid-2011.

Conclusion
Teaching Australia commends the initiatives outlined as a valuable way of continuing to promote quality teaching and school leadership to drive excellence in schools as part of AITSL’s broader mandate.