Position Papers

NAPLAN

Does NAPLAN tell the whole story about a child? How can parents gauge where their child is at?

• NAPLAN tells only part of the story, it has its limitations
• Parents need to look at a variety of ways to gauge how their child is performing.
• The very best way is to go and speak to their teacher about how their child is progressing
• Develop a good, supportive relationship with the teacher as positive approaches work wonders in all kinds of ways.
• Support directly in the classroom if you can - you will understand much more about the world of teaching and learning
• Chat to the teacher sometimes about the many and varied ways they are assessing your child and the different things they are finding out because of this
• Sometimes ask to see some of your child's work, or any in-class assessments that may have been given and most of all, ask how you can support at home to back up the teacher's work

SACE

What do we think of having a review on SACE? 

The Council of Education Associations of SA welcomes the review of SACE and looks forward to an opportunity to give feedback on issues such as:

• the capacity of the research project to help all students achieve to their highest level and how it has affected results in other subjects 
• decreasing enrolments in languages and in humanities generally, and the consequences of this on students, teachers and our wider community.
• providing effective professional learning for Year 11 and 12 teachers in their subject disciplines, so that our valued expertise is not lost
• support for Year 11 and 12 teachers in 'one-to-one' mentoring, cross disciplinary approaches, and the research processes involved when supervising the research project.
• the increased workload for teachers in Year 11 and 12

What do we hope to see the review involve? 

The Council of Education Associations of SA would like to see: 

• wide consultation, but especially the seeking of advice from the rich expertise in the professional teaching associations
• terms of reference to include social justice and equity for all students and teachers
• listening widely to teachers' and students' needs and responses

DECD PD Review Discussion Paper

What is CEASA's response to the DECD PD Review discussion paper?

The Council of Education Associations of SA welcomes the review of professional learning within DECD. Here is the CEASA (and associations) response to the paper. 

Social Media

What is CEASA's position on Social Media?

• Social media, used responsibly, can give important encouragement and ideas from peers
• To give the quality of support needed to develop and sustain a young teacher's career, other things are also needed - school based support and professional associations. It's all about having a range of options.
• An important port of call for a young teacher should be to find someone on staff who can give them direct 'hands on' support, and another should be to reach out to the wider teaching community through professional associations, which savvy teachers have been doing for decades. Join an association here.
• Once joined, an association can provide social media networking contacts and 'face to face' professional development that can tap into the collective wisdom of many experienced professionals, help in a particular subject area or connect with the latest research.
• Many teachers find that this gives them more quality direction, has more chance of leading to successful classroom practice and eventually leads to more satisfaction in their career.
• A president of one of our associations is only in her 20's and she leads others through after school meetings and workshops, because as a young professional, she wants to support other young teachers of Japanese and gain knowledge and skills out of it herself. Her association has a Facebook forum which backs up their 'face to face' meetings and workshops, but would never replace them.
• Young teachers can go to the Council of Education Associations (CEASA) website: www.ceasa.asn.au and explore the 'Associations' tab to find out more about South Australia's 57 professional teacher associations or the 'Educators' tab to find out about over 85 professional learning events, run by associations, occurring between January and July 2012 alone.

News article: Social Media Can Help Young Teachers Cope - Dec 29 2011. By Sheradyn Holderhead, Education Editor from the Advertiser 'TEACHERS can benefit from using social media to express issues and receive feedback, research shows.'

See the full article form the Advertiser here with a comment from CEASA Executive Director, Phil Callen

See an interview with CEASA President, Rick Baldock, here: