SSTUWA - State School Teachers' Union of Western Australia

Professional Developement for 500!

Five hundred teachers across 12 schools came together for a day of PD, a day where the topics were based on their needs.

It was about teachers leading teachers.

In a bid to equip them with more knowledge about the impending national curriculum and to build networks with other schools, it embodied the new regions and network restructure from R.E.D.

The day offered learning for both teaching and non-teaching staff.

There was an emphasis on the important topics, science, history, literacy, numeracy and Phys Ed, the use of Ipads in schools, along with autism awareness and speech therapy.

Kaye Hosking, SSTUWA Executive member said the directive from R.E.D was a way of enabling more schools to work in-line with one another.

“The number one reason is to know your local school community and know different students knowledge base, with a particular emphasis on successfully integrating the national curriculum.”

“Another focus is ensuring the transition from year 7 to high school is a smooth one. It’s about ensuring the primary teachers feel familiar and comfortable with this school and encouraging the local students from local primary school to come to the local high school – that’s really important from a high school perspective.”

Kaye, member/network officer David Sweet and the Committee worked together to organise the event and to provide teachers with a networking base between other local schools.

“Because schools are constrained financially it is very hard for principals to send groups of teachers to PD, the cost can be huge especially if they attend private PD. Our network PD is free for individual teachers, with the trade off of a school day closure. Most of the presenters here are teachers from the network, with lots of great people with great expertise. Some people don’t realise how much knowledge they have.”

Network Principal Russell Hahn, who helps to facilitate and run community PD, said it was about asking the staff what they felt was important for their learning.

“It’s the ability to get training and the ability to see what’s happening in the schools. Today shows the quality of public schools are great schools and we can rely on having a public education at the forefront.”

Pictures from the event