NESA News
Changes to Professional Development requirements
On Friday, 16th August, NESA announced changes to current PD requirements. These changes mean that NESA has removed the Elective and Accredited Professional Development (PD) categories, giving NSW teachers greater flexibility in completing their required 100 hours of PD.
What does this mean for teachers?
What will change?
- PD will no longer be classified as either Accredited or Elective.
Teachers will no longer need to:
- complete Accredited PD across the four mandatory priority areas
- write an evaluation for any Accredited PD courses they complete
- align PD activities against the 37 Standard Descriptors.
Instead, teachers can:
- align PD activities to one or more of the 7 Standards of the Australian Professional
Standards for Teachers (the Standards)
- use all employer mandated training aligned to the Standards towards their 100 hours.
What is staying the same?
- Teachers will still need to complete 100 hours of PD each maintenance cycle but will be able to choose PD that better meets their needs and contexts.
- Any professional development that teachers undertake must be aligned to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers and relevant to their context and broader development priorities.
- While no longer mandatory, priority areas will remain, with NESA providing guidance for providers, teachers and employers about effective PD in these important areas of teaching and learning.
- Teachers will still need to keep a basic record of the PD they complete. They can keep this record in various ways, such as their NESA online account, our PD log template, daybook or a format that best suits them.
- Teachers need to retain their PD log for 12 months after they finalise their maintenance and provide this to NESA if requested.
- Teachers will need to capture the following in their PD log:
- date of PD activity
- PD activity type
- name of PD activity
- Standard(s) addressed
- duration of activity
- provider name (if applicable)
- priority area (if applicable).
PD hours that have already been completed, both Accredited or Elective, will remain in a teacher’s current maintenance cycle.
For further information, along with a video detailing these changes please visit the NESA website.
NESA Professional Development Framework
NESA has released a PD Framework to support teachers in identifying effective professional development. This framework can be used by teachers as a guide in selecting effective PD to meet their maintenance of accreditation requirements. It also outlines what activities are not PD.
Further information regarding the PD Framework can be found here.
NESA Professional Development Videos
The following videos have been released by NESA to support teachers transiting with the new PD requirements for:
Please contact Amanda Scott or Millie Woolaston if you have any questions