REFA - RESPONSE TO NATIONAL PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS FOR TEACHERS
The Rural Education Forum Australia (REFA) is a collective of national organisations which
represent the consumers and/or providers of education services in rural and remote Australia.
REFA wishes to acknowledge the work undertaken by the AEEYSOC National Standards
Expert Working Group in preparing the draft National Professional Standards for Teachers
draft document. We believe national standards are an important step in improving the quality
of learning for all Australians.
We acknowledge that the work to develop national standards fits well with the aim to achieve
national consistency in teacher registration and national standards for pre-service teacher
accreditation. However, we would urge some restraint with the timeline, as the work to
develop the national curriculum may influence the content and descriptors of the teacher
standards.
We are concerned that much of the thinking and language is centred on the classroom.
Teachers must have the skills and mindset to engage with the local, national and global
communities in innovative and exciting ways.
In the general context we would question the non-inclusion of standards for pre-school
teachers, as the standards are applicable to the major stages of learning. In a rural and remote
context many learning centres are developing K-12 settings.
Rural and Remote Context
Our focus is how the national standards recognise the challenges faced and the skills needed
by teachers in rural and remote settings, and how we can ensure that they met.
In the Domains of Teaching – Professional Knowledge, recognition is given to the fact that
teachers know their students well, and value close links between the school and its
community. However, we do not believe that this then translates into strong place-based
descriptors in the standards.
2.
An easily identifiable, and usually strong community exists in rural and remote learning
areas. This close link has many advantages, but it also represents a challenge to many
teachers who may not have experience in living and working in such settings.
In Standard 1.1 it is not the diversity of social and cultural backgrounds that should be
recognized, but rather the cross-cultural context that teachers must understand. This is
particularly the case when rural and remote teachers not only work, but live in such a
prominent way in these settings.
We believe Standard 1.5 should state “how students develop place-based and culturally
relevant practices for literacy and numeracy....”
In Standard 1.6 isolation should be included, and the sentence end “or who are otherwise
disadvantaged.”
In Standard 2.2 we believe there should be recognition of content selection that has placebased relevance. This is not to ignore the need for many students in rural and remote
community to broaden their perspective.
Standard 3.1 add “and location” after relevant to their stage of development.
In Standard 5 we believe awareness of cultural and location differences when framing the
language used and examples set in assessment tasks is necessary.
In Standard 7 we applaud the inclusion of community-based personnel in Standard 7.3, but
we believe the sense of the descriptors is still very much school-based. REFA strongly
believes we should be talking about learning communities. The language of “students,
colleagues and parents/caregivers” is twentieth century thinking. REFA believes that the
thinking and terminology should go beyond professional communities, but rather include
engagement with the broader community in 0-18 learning.
REFA is concerned about the next phase and would like to be involved in the consultation
concerning implementation. For example, how does a graduate in a one-two teacher school
many kilometres from colleagues, gain access to “advice and constructive feedback”?
We thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback, and we wish the Council well in the
task of evaluating the feedback.