Dear Colleagues,

Dear colleagues,

Congratulations to Judy Elks and her team at St Josephs Uralla for receiving the ACEL New England HTB Harris Memorial Award for Significant Contribution to Education. Judy accepted the award at a ceremony held last Friday night. This is a recognition of their learning innovation for curriculum integration.

Last week the Early Career Teacher (ECT) Team facilitated an amazing professional learning experience for our beginning teachers at McCarthy Catholic College, Tamworth. The ECT Team was very well supported by other members of the Mission and Learning Team who presented various workshops after the keynotes.

These workshops included the following topics:

Inclusion (adjustments, differentiating tasks, PP's etc)

MaST Unpacking the MaST Units

MaST Quality Assessment in Mathematics

Guided Reading - Purposeful Practice Tasks

Writing Workshop

Rich Tasks

Data Ecosystem

I had the opportunity to speak to the group of 70 enthusiastic early career teachers who are being well supported by our ECT Team in negotiating the challenges of classroom practice, and preparing their documentation for accreditation.

I challenged them to ask themselves the questions:

Why did you become a teacher?
What do you hope to get from a career in teaching?
Are you resilient enough to enjoy the challenges that young people sometimes present?
Do you like young people?

These are important reflection questions for all of us engaged in this wonderful profession of educating the next generation. This is a very satisfying and noble profession that changes lives and supports young people as they grow towards adulthood.

I emphasised the importance of engaging young people and getting to know them as a learner and as a person. I stressed that we underpin the learning and teaching with Catholic principles and values that inform our relationships with young people and how we operate as a community of Catholic learners.

As a teacher it is our role to inspire our students to be curious, develop a growth mindset and promote their well being based on our values. Every young person in our classrooms is the son or daughter of a mother and/or father, grandparent or carer that loves them very much. Even when students challenge us it is our responsibility to remember where they come from.

Our role exists to achieve the Mission and Vision of Armidale Catholic Schools:

My thanks to the team of Katie Hanes (SPL) , Amanda Scott, Jenny Laird, Millie Woolaston, and Phoebe O’Shea for organising this amazing day and the work they do in support of the Early Career Teachers. The recruitment and retention of these teachers is critical to the sustainability of our system of schools.

This LINK outlines our model of supporting Early Career Teachers which is a local ACS innovation that leads the way in this area.

We all need to recognise the National challenges that teacher workforce shortages present. The government's new initiatives recognise this enormous challenge.

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/new-south-wales-education/be-that-teacher-campaign-10m-teacher-hiring-drive-to-end-shortages/news-story/e75da5e9bdefc2239a0dbcc8ccd8d3da?btr=8fb6230d1263f46d6928ec27e47be427

Best wishes,

Chris

Photos of our Early Career Teacher Day

Best wishes,

Chris

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