Newsletter, Term 1, Week 10, Friday 8 April 2021

Australia-wide blue sky thinking about the teaching profession paints a less than rosy picture of the professions’ future, which is why I’m making teacher wellbeing one of a high priority - for Term 2 and beyond.

We are blessed to have a dynamic, dedicated and skilled teacher workforce at Scots and whenever we advertise a teaching position, we generally have scores of applicants. But that’s not the case globally.

Maths, Design & Technology and Languages teaching positions are very difficult to fill for most schools these days and teachers across Australia are leaving the profession in droves.

There’s already a prediction that in NSW in 2025, there will be a shortfall of 2425 teachers. (Education Review 2022)

In a recent article in February's Education Review, an international research team of academics argued that the impact of the pandemic on the future of the teaching profession needed “serious strategic consideration”.

Teachers responding to a survey by this research team listed the most common issues as:

The shift to online teaching and related technology issues
Maintaining connectivity with students and families
Concerns about the quality of teaching they were providing.

The report states that teachers received a significant increase in emails from parents as they sought a greater understanding of content and assessment regarding their child. This together with teachers' natural sense of responsibility to make up for 'lost time' and the constant unknown of attendance, continuous presentation of a hybrid teaching model and the daily fear of contracting the infection (leading to further time away from students) placed enormous pressure on the profession.

The article also noted that the Australian Government spent 1.8 per cent of GDP on education in recent years compared with the world average of 4.429 per cent.

I must say that the lack of any substantial funding for regional schools in the recent Commonwealth budget is a real concern, particularly because regional schools are growing faster than our city counterparts.

As an example, Scots has already spent near its entire year’s budget on relief teachers because our teachers have had to furlough with Covid.

And COVID-19 is still impacting students, though in different ways than over the past two years.

As of last week, we have had 121 students in the Senior School, 82 in the Junior School and one in the Pre-school away for seven days either with COVID-19 or as a result of a family member having COVID-19.

The students have to make up that time, so parents need to be mindful that every other day at school matters. We ask parents, especially parents of Senior School students, to think very carefully about making a decision to allow their children to stay away from school for other reasons.

Ensuring that students don’t fall behind because of absences is another challenge for teachers and if there is a silver lining in this pandemic, it’s that parents who have had to step in and help their children learn at home probably have a greater appreciation and deepening respect for their child’s teachers.

Scots parents have been wonderfully supportive over the past two difficult years and we are very grateful for the many who have reached out to teachers and staff with messages of support and encouragement.

Let’s start our focus on teacher wellbeing today by saying a simple Thank You to your child’s teacher just before we head into our Term break. I’m sure it will make their day.

Our week began with an Easter Chapel for the whole school. Congratulations to both the Senior School and Junior School Chapel Captains for leading the entire service. It was wonderful to have the whole school together again. Following this our Year 7 students participated in the RUOK Day presentation that explored mental health in teenagers.

This week has seen the entire Senior School participate in a camp or alternative program and we have had many stories of enjoyment. We anticipate there will be many exhausted students this Friday night and they will be deserving of a well-earned rest.

Last week our leaders ran a successful autism awareness campaign that was well supported by our students wearing their ‘funky socks’. Our Year 12s also ran a Trivia Night last Thursday that was great fun. It was wonderful to see the event attended by students from a range of year levels across the Senior School. Congratulations to the Year 11 team on their victory. It turns out our staff team was not as up with popular culture as they like to think!

Please scroll through and enjoy the many photos of our students enjoying camp and being part of our community.

I would like to wish all of our families a happy and safe Easter break.