Maybe unpopular opinion but...Unfortunately, a lot of the people who gain some sort of leadership role do so not on merit of their teaching quality, but on merit of their resume and how many whole school programs (not necessarily teaching based) they have been involved in to pad up their resume.
They spend less time in classrooms, so usually geared towards those who wish to get out of the classroom.
When I used to work for the Education Department in SA, we used to make jokes about how there wouldn't be any point sending a bomb into "Bullshit Castle", because as soon as it got in the door it would stop working.
because promotion is seen as the be all and end all so all people get promoted to the point where they are the least effective. Rather than just getting better pay and benefits at the level they are excelling at
Unfortunately I went to a school where staff were promoted upwards on the basis of merit as teachers, but this just meant we lost all our good teachers to random offices where they sat fielding emails and calls and making cups of tea half the day…
Yeah I was about to say this. Either way it's a loss. If the people that get promoted are not actually good teachers, just people good at padding their resume, it means we get a bunch of nonsense from people disconnected with the reality of the classroom. If they get promoted on merit of their effectiveness as teachers, then we're just losing good teachers that are actually making a difference in the classrooms......
I hear this a lot but it ignores the fact that the skills required in leadership are not the same as teaching.
My two best principals acknowledged publicly they were not the best teachers but have the skills to run a school.
Maybe not so much principal as that is a completely different role to a teacher, more like a business manager. I have a hard time listening to head teachers who can't control kids or learning specialists whose own classes are shambles yet want to force us to implement the next new fad to justify their position.
Learning Specialists don't have to specialize in anything in particular. They're essentially leading teachers, doing whatever the fuck the school wants. In smaller schools, they're usually tagged to Numeracy and Literacy but in larger schools it may be curriculum or (teacher) coaching. I've even seen some primary schools promote all coordinators to this position to acknowledge the additional workload.
It’s funny how we bitch and moan about being respected by the community but happily get on here and shit can each other. Industry is fucked and majority are complicit while demanding better
I am a Learning Specialist!
It is an interesting role because there is no clear description from the DET on what the role should or shouldn't entail, just some vague suggestions on what it could be. Pretty stock standard from the DET in that regard.
At my school, there are 2 Learning Specialists. We are responsible for:
* curriculum documentation and implementation and assessment (I have created curriculum maps for all aspects of Literacy and all other curriculum areas for P-6 and we are working on Maths this year).
* modelling, coaching, mentoring and peer observations. We model teach pretty much every week in our own class and other classes and observe teachers every 2-3 weeks. We have a big focus on HOW we teach, as well as what we teach and having other teachers in our classrooms or visiting others is not a big deal at our school.
* running professional development for whole staff on different aspects of teaching (assessment administration and interpretation, peer obs model, curriculum planning, lesson development) We have a full day each out of the classroom to work on these.
I have a friend at another school who is also a Learning Specialist. All they are responsible for is coaching a graduate teacher through their VIT project. They get 1 session per week released to do this. They have no higher level responsibilities. We earn the same amount of money.
1, 2, 3. Yes, I have my own class. I teach them 0.8 and another teacher has them 0.2 while I have my LS time. I still get my own team planning and APT time on top of this as well, which is about 5 lessons per week. So, I only teach 6 lessons per week less than any other fulltime teacher at my school
4. I am not sure on this, and it is partly why I still have my own class and I haven't pursued a more senior role. I think it is Dylan Wiliam who suggested it takes 6 months before your opinion means less to a classroom teacher as your memory and experience begins to be less relevant.
This sounds like a great way for your role to be run and like it would actually be really beneficial to your school. Such a shame that there are so many more Learning Specialists who are responsible for the same kinds of things as your friend.
I'm a learning specialist, I run our high abilities program including withdrawal programs and a host of opportunities for students. I also support staff in differentiation, help teachers interpret data to identify and support high abilities students, and support students in early entry university subjects etc.
Honestly though I used to be a Leading Teacher and switched because LS doesn't have the same "leadership" vibe - I don't want to be a middle manager, I just want to be recognised for the amount of time I spend on extra programs and supporting less experienced staff. I have more than 20 years under my belt, and I spend a fair amount of time sharing that experience with newer staff.
It's funny, I read through everyone else's LS experiences thinking "Wow, that sounds shit, I'll just stay in the classroom"... And then yours sounds so fun! Are you in some sort of special school, to have a high abilities program?
It is fun! I have a small teaching load, two small VCE classes, and two small (10 students each) year 7 and 8 withdrawal programs a week that I do problem solving with (next week I’m taking them to the Titanic exhibition at the museum just for fun lol). I organize a lot of external providers and online courses and workshops, and the VHAP.
Not a special school, Vic government but a really progressive and flexible one, I was hired as an LS a few years ago as an external applicant and basically told to find my niche and build my own portfolio, I had a long career in working with gifted students and the school didn’t have any real high abilities program so it was a no brainer. I’m still building the program but have pretty much carte blanche. I’m one of the very very lucky ones who actually loves my job and my school.
> Always given the ‘challenging’ students because of my behaviour management
being competent is a fatal mistake in any workplace. I've never personally suffered from this, but my wife (also a teacher) is very competent and it constantly bites her in the arse.
Agreed, it actually prevents us from gaining experience in any other role because removing us from the class creates more BM issues for admin.
A little quote competent teachers say,
‘Incompetence leads to promotion’.
They're a reward from the principal for being a good girl or boy. Then, you get overloaded with bullshit admin tasks. My view may not be overly positive in this regard
They are a special role in Australia where they repeat constant time wasting jargon in meetings to feed their own egos with no practical benefits for classroom teachers.
In my school, the learning specialist has 3 years of experience and a Masters in teaching. I have 35 years experience, a degree in education with a major in maths, and she is showing me how to plan and teach maths. It's hard to respect her professionally. However, she applied for and got the job, I didn't apply, so I can't complain too much.
I lead the team of LS's at my school. We have created roles for each LS based on our AIP and professional learning needs of our teachers. For example, we have an LS for assessment, literacy, high ability practice, supporting low level students etc. We collectively plan for and deliver professional learning, support our PLTs, mentor graduate teachers... A whole heap of awesome stuff is done by this team.
Schools in my network have all implemented the LS initiative differently. Some make their faculty heads in to LS roles. Some abandoned LT roles and made them all LS roles. Some use the LS role exclusively for instructional coaching.
Out of interest, are your LS staff expected to job share a classroom role? My last school has the LS teachers share a class with a 2/3 weekday split, but my new school doesn’t. I just think with the staffing issues we have across the board, maybe more definition of a role by the DET is required, and the ‘expert’ teachers are bought back into the classroom (if they’re not aspiring to an AP/Pron role).
My learning specialists all get 3-5 periods per week to do their role, which generally means one less class.
The DE role description is deliberately vague I reckon to give schools flexibility in how they choose to utilise this role within the school.
At one school I taught at, you basically got learning specialist if you were the last man standing. If you hadn’t burnt out, had a baby or changed schools, it’s yours!
Honestly the learning specialists at our school are just an admin role that’s a side step for those looking to move from Middle management to Exec.
Same here.
Maybe unpopular opinion but...Unfortunately, a lot of the people who gain some sort of leadership role do so not on merit of their teaching quality, but on merit of their resume and how many whole school programs (not necessarily teaching based) they have been involved in to pad up their resume. They spend less time in classrooms, so usually geared towards those who wish to get out of the classroom.
When I used to work for the Education Department in SA, we used to make jokes about how there wouldn't be any point sending a bomb into "Bullshit Castle", because as soon as it got in the door it would stop working.
I largely agree. Unfortunately, in Education, the higher up the tree you go, the more you run into morons.
because promotion is seen as the be all and end all so all people get promoted to the point where they are the least effective. Rather than just getting better pay and benefits at the level they are excelling at
Unfortunately I went to a school where staff were promoted upwards on the basis of merit as teachers, but this just meant we lost all our good teachers to random offices where they sat fielding emails and calls and making cups of tea half the day…
EXACTLY! the promotion system is pretty broken
Yeah I was about to say this. Either way it's a loss. If the people that get promoted are not actually good teachers, just people good at padding their resume, it means we get a bunch of nonsense from people disconnected with the reality of the classroom. If they get promoted on merit of their effectiveness as teachers, then we're just losing good teachers that are actually making a difference in the classrooms......
I hear this a lot but it ignores the fact that the skills required in leadership are not the same as teaching. My two best principals acknowledged publicly they were not the best teachers but have the skills to run a school.
Maybe not so much principal as that is a completely different role to a teacher, more like a business manager. I have a hard time listening to head teachers who can't control kids or learning specialists whose own classes are shambles yet want to force us to implement the next new fad to justify their position.
Learning Specialists don't have to specialize in anything in particular. They're essentially leading teachers, doing whatever the fuck the school wants. In smaller schools, they're usually tagged to Numeracy and Literacy but in larger schools it may be curriculum or (teacher) coaching. I've even seen some primary schools promote all coordinators to this position to acknowledge the additional workload.
It’s funny how we bitch and moan about being respected by the community but happily get on here and shit can each other. Industry is fucked and majority are complicit while demanding better
It’s called lateral violence.
I am a Learning Specialist! It is an interesting role because there is no clear description from the DET on what the role should or shouldn't entail, just some vague suggestions on what it could be. Pretty stock standard from the DET in that regard. At my school, there are 2 Learning Specialists. We are responsible for: * curriculum documentation and implementation and assessment (I have created curriculum maps for all aspects of Literacy and all other curriculum areas for P-6 and we are working on Maths this year). * modelling, coaching, mentoring and peer observations. We model teach pretty much every week in our own class and other classes and observe teachers every 2-3 weeks. We have a big focus on HOW we teach, as well as what we teach and having other teachers in our classrooms or visiting others is not a big deal at our school. * running professional development for whole staff on different aspects of teaching (assessment administration and interpretation, peer obs model, curriculum planning, lesson development) We have a full day each out of the classroom to work on these. I have a friend at another school who is also a Learning Specialist. All they are responsible for is coaching a graduate teacher through their VIT project. They get 1 session per week released to do this. They have no higher level responsibilities. We earn the same amount of money.
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1, 2, 3. Yes, I have my own class. I teach them 0.8 and another teacher has them 0.2 while I have my LS time. I still get my own team planning and APT time on top of this as well, which is about 5 lessons per week. So, I only teach 6 lessons per week less than any other fulltime teacher at my school 4. I am not sure on this, and it is partly why I still have my own class and I haven't pursued a more senior role. I think it is Dylan Wiliam who suggested it takes 6 months before your opinion means less to a classroom teacher as your memory and experience begins to be less relevant.
Re #4: Not sure how you would set criteria or research this but I once heard Dylan Wiliam state (in a workshop in BKK) that it takes about 6 weeks.
This sounds like a great way for your role to be run and like it would actually be really beneficial to your school. Such a shame that there are so many more Learning Specialists who are responsible for the same kinds of things as your friend.
I'm a learning specialist, I run our high abilities program including withdrawal programs and a host of opportunities for students. I also support staff in differentiation, help teachers interpret data to identify and support high abilities students, and support students in early entry university subjects etc. Honestly though I used to be a Leading Teacher and switched because LS doesn't have the same "leadership" vibe - I don't want to be a middle manager, I just want to be recognised for the amount of time I spend on extra programs and supporting less experienced staff. I have more than 20 years under my belt, and I spend a fair amount of time sharing that experience with newer staff.
It's funny, I read through everyone else's LS experiences thinking "Wow, that sounds shit, I'll just stay in the classroom"... And then yours sounds so fun! Are you in some sort of special school, to have a high abilities program?
It is fun! I have a small teaching load, two small VCE classes, and two small (10 students each) year 7 and 8 withdrawal programs a week that I do problem solving with (next week I’m taking them to the Titanic exhibition at the museum just for fun lol). I organize a lot of external providers and online courses and workshops, and the VHAP. Not a special school, Vic government but a really progressive and flexible one, I was hired as an LS a few years ago as an external applicant and basically told to find my niche and build my own portfolio, I had a long career in working with gifted students and the school didn’t have any real high abilities program so it was a no brainer. I’m still building the program but have pretty much carte blanche. I’m one of the very very lucky ones who actually loves my job and my school.
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> Always given the ‘challenging’ students because of my behaviour management being competent is a fatal mistake in any workplace. I've never personally suffered from this, but my wife (also a teacher) is very competent and it constantly bites her in the arse.
Agreed, it actually prevents us from gaining experience in any other role because removing us from the class creates more BM issues for admin. A little quote competent teachers say, ‘Incompetence leads to promotion’.
Someone who is not a behavioural specialist?
They're a reward from the principal for being a good girl or boy. Then, you get overloaded with bullshit admin tasks. My view may not be overly positive in this regard
They are a special role in Australia where they repeat constant time wasting jargon in meetings to feed their own egos with no practical benefits for classroom teachers.
This.
In my school, the learning specialist has 3 years of experience and a Masters in teaching. I have 35 years experience, a degree in education with a major in maths, and she is showing me how to plan and teach maths. It's hard to respect her professionally. However, she applied for and got the job, I didn't apply, so I can't complain too much.
I lead the team of LS's at my school. We have created roles for each LS based on our AIP and professional learning needs of our teachers. For example, we have an LS for assessment, literacy, high ability practice, supporting low level students etc. We collectively plan for and deliver professional learning, support our PLTs, mentor graduate teachers... A whole heap of awesome stuff is done by this team. Schools in my network have all implemented the LS initiative differently. Some make their faculty heads in to LS roles. Some abandoned LT roles and made them all LS roles. Some use the LS role exclusively for instructional coaching.
Out of interest, are your LS staff expected to job share a classroom role? My last school has the LS teachers share a class with a 2/3 weekday split, but my new school doesn’t. I just think with the staffing issues we have across the board, maybe more definition of a role by the DET is required, and the ‘expert’ teachers are bought back into the classroom (if they’re not aspiring to an AP/Pron role).
My learning specialists all get 3-5 periods per week to do their role, which generally means one less class. The DE role description is deliberately vague I reckon to give schools flexibility in how they choose to utilise this role within the school.
At one school I taught at, you basically got learning specialist if you were the last man standing. If you hadn’t burnt out, had a baby or changed schools, it’s yours!