r/AustralianTeachers

My wife's a teacher and kept complaining that ChatGPT was useless for planning — too generic, not aligned to anything, took more time to fix than it saved. So I built her something better.

Lorikeet (lorikeetonline.com) — an AI tool built for the Australian curriculum.

What it does:

- Lesson plans, worksheets, quizzes, unit plans, rubrics, assessments

- Aligns to QCAA, NESA, VCAA, SACE, ACARA

- Also does report comments, exit tickets, behaviour plans, IEP goals

- Exports to PDF, DOCX, PPTX

- Free to try, no sign-up needed for basic tools

I'm not a teacher myself so I'd love feedback from people who actually do this every day. What's useful? What's missing? What would actually save you time?

Keen for any honest thoughts.

What was your favourite subject at school?

All teachers ATM are products of a university course of one description or another. Even though there is an argument that it is the school on prac that does the bulk of the training. Should we go back to a 'modernised' version of a regional teachers college system/network that caters to the needs of their local area and the casual load/work opportunities for the schools thereof

Have any teachers here gone on to do a masters in something? I’m thinking I’d love to learn some more about learning theory or behaviour analysis…. Something. Has anyone done this before? Did you get study leave? What did you do a masters in?

I graduated from a teaching degree (secondary) many years ago and did a few casual days here and there, but quickly found a full time non-teaching position in the private sector. I then transitioned to a NSW Government role, still non-teaching, but a few weeks ago I accepted a voluntary redundancy due to restructures. A condition of the redundancy is that I cannot work another govt role for a few months, for the time period that the redundancy payment covers (until approximately Week 2, term 4 by my calculations).

My leave of absence is ending and I'd like to take the opportunity to return to the classroom on a casual basis at least until the end of the year, but obviously cannot work in a government school. I had a few questions:

Can I set my ClassCover profile to only look for work in Independent schools? Or do I just need to decline work in govt schools? Any other things I need to do to prepare to casual teach again?

Hi everyone, I'm hoping someone with experience can help.
I'm an early childhood educator with a valid South Australian Working With Children Check (WWCC), issued last year and valid for 5 years.
I'm currently involved in a family violence intervention order matter in Victoria. **My husband applied for an interim family violence intervention order against me, and the protected persons listed on the application are both my baby and him.** The matter is still before the court. There has been no criminal conviction against me, and my lawyer is challenging the interim order.
At the same time, Victoria Police also applied for a family violence intervention order against my husband following an alleged assault, and that matter is a separate proceeding.
I'm confused about how my own interim intervention order may affect my WWCC.
My questions are:
Do I need to notify the South Australian Screening Unit about the interim intervention order?
If I notify them, is there a chance my WWCC could be suspended or cancelled while the matter is still before the court?
Has anyone been in a similar situation and been able to continue working in early childhood while the court proceedings were ongoing?
I'm a single mum trying to rebuild my career and support my child, so this is causing me a lot of stress. I'm already receiving legal advice, but I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who has been through a similar experience with the WWCC process. Thank you.

Hi all!
I am in my final year of my BEd and looking to move over to the UK for 2 ish years. Just wondering if anyone had any advice?

I have been looking into different organisations such as ANZUK Education. Has anyone worked with them or similar?
Should I even go through an organisation such as this?

Any tips or tricks would be great!

Usually this happens the other way around BUT, I am 36m and I am a Design Technologies teacher. Originally I did my bachelors in design, never really worked as a designer; later on however I did my masters in teaching to become a high school teacher and have being doing that ever since. However I regret not initially going to university for engineering. I actually wish I tried harder at the end of high school so I could of been an engineer. Is this a dumb idea to do it at 36? will I even get a job? Has any one else done a career move similar to this rather than going into a government role or something after teaching. Thoughts?

What are the things all teachers should be claiming on their tax returns that might not be completely obvious?

In a comment last week, the Age’s chief political correspondent Chip Le Grand bemoaned the rejection of a sellout enterprise agreement by Victorian teachers for the first time in over forty years.

Le Grand, drawing on the trope of the “outside agitator,” ascribed the defeat of the agreement to the influence of socialists. He particularly singled out the Committee for Public Education (CFPE), a rank-and-file teachers’ network initiated by the Socialist Equality Party, which had campaigned among educators for a “no” vote.

The column testified to nervousness within the corporate ruling elite over the teachers’ rebellion and the weakening grip of the trade union bureaucracy that it expresses. The Age is the most prominent “liberal” daily newspaper in Victoria. Le Grand is its most prominent commentator.

I’m seriously considering leaving my legal job to become a teacher, mainly because I’m hoping it would give me more time with my child once they start school.

For context, my current role (and most legal jobs I’m familiar with) regularly involves 12–14 hour days, plus the unspoken guilt of actually taking annual leave.

I know teaching definitely isn’t an easy option and comes with plenty of long days too, but the idea of having school holidays line up with my child’s is really appealing.

In WA, there’s the option of completing a one-year postgraduate teaching qualification, but I’d need to choose between the primary or secondary pathway.

If you’ve read this far, I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who can share their experience, particularly on:
Is the flexibility people talk about in teaching actually a reality for most teachers?
Have you switched careers into teaching? What prompted the change, and has it been worthwhile or fulfilling?
If you’ve taught or considered both, how did you decide between primary and secondary?

I’d love to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly before I take the plunge.

I’ve seen countless universities offer post graduate training in counselling. Has anyone or is currently making the switch? Know someone who has? Pitfalls? Positives? Wages? Happy to hear any thing!

Hi all,

Currently teaching alternative sequence Physics in QLD - about a year and a half in.

After a recent cluster meeting, I've realised I do almost no (mandatory) practicals or labs. Just a lot of theory, bookwork and chalk and talk. I do fot maybe a couple in during mechanics but very little aside from those topics.

Naturally I do a brief introduction and provide 'original' results prior to doing an IA2.

I'm open to the idea I need to improve on planning and sequencing, however I'm finding that things are so stretched for time that I'm not doing any/many practicals due to both the prep time and how long it takes to get results and discuss in class.

I also find that I'm feeling a bit cynical about the learning value of some of the practicals/experiments.

Just seeking out other teachers experiences and opinions on alt sequence physics and experiments.

EDIT: I'm mainly seeking the experience of other alt seq physics teachers. I already understand the importance and purpose pracs but I'm feeling super time-constrained so perspective from others who have taught the course is my main interest

This is a common reply when asking other teachers about students I am struggling with. It is unhelpful, judgemental, unsupportive and does not help or offer collaboration. When I hear this, I think: they are implying the problem is me, they are shutting down the conversation...

Please stop saying that and respond with something helpful, empathetic and collaborative like:

-His behaviour varies, let's figure out why.

-These are the routines I find works best...

-I find that he responds well to...

I started this post to raise awareness of this, especially because I don't think other teachers actually mean it that way.

The basic job itself (just classroom instruction) has become almost untenable over the last decade due to behavior issues increasing and lack of support from leadership.

Add to this the ever increasing request to collect data, report back on data, conduct in class trials to get improvements in data etc - it’s the metaphorical final nail in the coffin.

Teachers are sinking.

When will leadership start supporting teaches by removing some of these excess burdens on top of core business?

Something has got to give, and at the moment it’s teachers leaving the profession in droves.

*As an aside, please all enjoy your school holidays, you deserve it!

I’m not in a leadership role but maybe one day would like to be.

Last year there was a major conflict between two staff members on my faculty. Involving one staff member (A) swearing at another (B) and not being able to communicate on the team, as A refused to be in the same room as B, so also A didn’t attend faculty meetings. B went to an AP because the HOD didn’t or couldn’t deal with it. B wanted a restorative meeting (or at least an AP to talk to A) but the A refused to participate.

What is the next step, what should have happened? The person B, who wanted remediation or action, subsequently left the school for another job.

Hi all Victorian teachers,

I know you're working over the school holidays, so please spend 15 minutes of your day when you see this to email VIT at vitinquiryrefresh@vit.vic.edu.au to let them know about absolutely everything that's wrong with the current provisional-to-full inquiry process and everything they can do to fix it.

And before you suggest scrapping the provisional to full process altogether, that's not going to happen, so please don't waste your opportunity to contribute meaningfully.

Instead, focus on providing input that would make getting full registration simpler and easier, provide more options for teachers to demonstrate the required standard has been met, and provide avenues for bypassing and challenging principals as the sole decision-makers.

Think about casual relief teachers without consistent employment, those with limited access to a mentor or a supportive school principal, and those experienced teachers - some new to teaching in Australia - who still have to undertake the process as though they were brand new to the profession.

Also think about the experience at your school and how they almost certainly set a higher bar to clear than that set by the VIT. And contemplate how the process could work better for early childhood teachers who don't have the same supports or structures in place as teachers working in schools.

Please also share this with your colleagues, because there needs to be strength in numbers for significant yet meaningful changes to be made.

There's also a VIT LinkedIn post about this you may wish to view/share here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/victorian-institute-of-teaching\_if-youve-recently-moved-from-provisional-activity-7478324112260517888-pyuP

The more feedback received, the harder it will be for VIT to ignore, so get those emails in and get ready to attend the subsequent consultation sessions being held on 28 July and 25 August.