Teaching in Queensland - or trying to

"I don't believe in ANZAC day so I'm not doing this, " said the eight year old, who then waited to see what I would do next. This was my first day of teaching in Australia, after enjoying 18 months of not doing it, and, as a supply teacher, I needed to weigh up my confrontation options quickly. Fortunately, I had brought with me the world's most boring Harry Potter word search so I sent him off to a corner and we were both happy.

Let me start by saying that having your qualified teacher status recognised in Queensland is no easy task. It involves reams of paper, endless queueing up to see a JP and a disturbing trip down memory lane. I will attempt to demonstrate how frustrating this ridiculous, pompous and bureaucratic process is.

Round 1 involved tracking down academic transcripts I didn't even know I had. Not content with seeing my degree and post graduate qualifications for teaching, Queensland College of Teachers wanted to see documentation of the grades I obtained for each module of my courses. In the case of my PGCE, this was a pointless exercise since either a pass or a fail was awarded. In the case of my degree, it was just plain embarrassing having to revisit that infinite list of Cs and Ds.

Qualifications weren't the only things I had to track down. I personally had to obtain references from former head teachers. This is a humiliating experience if, like me, you have left the country in a blaze of smugness vowing never to be a teacher again. But $270 a day is a hard prospect to ignore, so I made contact. Only to find out that one head had retired and the other one was on her way. Thankfully, a lovely ex colleague stepped in to write a reference in place of the first head teacher and to jog the memory of the stubborn second.

Next thing I had to do was to get copies of my passport, birth certificate, degree and post grad certificates, degree and post grad transcripts and first aid certificate all certified by a JP. This is such a common ludicrous practice that there are usually JP 'clinics' at a local shopping centre or magistrates court, staffed by volunteers, at certain times of the week. To date, I have gone through this process four times just to be able to teach. I had to be registered with Queensland College of Teachers, Education Queensland and two supply registers.

So, now that I have a foot in the door, how different is it from teaching in the UK? With all my uni commitments, so far my aussie teaching experiences are only based on one school. And it's not so different. Except for the silly christian names on the class register (eg.Saxon..??), the lack of assemblies and the fact that yesterday I had to send a boy home who had a tick embedded in the back of his head. Classroom areas can quite often be open plan with the classroom next door, which can quite often be very annoying. There are no interactive whiteboards in the classrooms. In fact it has been the first time in 7 years that I have had to use a blackboard. Support assistants are few and far between as the children get older. However, they do have specialist teachers who come in to teach PE, music and ICT, leaving you with the ever precious non contact time. Hooray!

Curriculum wise the subject areas are broken down into English, Maths, Science, the Arts (dance, drama, media, music, visual arts), Languages Other Than English (LOTE), Health and Physical Education (HPE), Studies Of Society and Environment (SOSE: History, Geography, Culture!) and Technology (DT and ICT). So there.

The Early Years have their own curriculum which is uncannily similar to the UK Early Learning Goals, except more streamlined (ie. bits missing), with less bloody paperwork. The 'Prep' year is relatively new in Queensland and is not mandatory. So it's quite common for the usual suspects to be missing off the daily roll call, which presumably only creates more hassles for the Year One teachers when they are expected to attend. In the prep class I taught, the support assistant was only present in the mornings -although the afternoons are only and hour and 20 minutes long anyway - there was no free flow outdoor area (isn't in the curriculum) and no sand or water trays. There were two snack times in the mornings and get this: The class teacher invited the children to suggest what they should learn about next. There was no actual planning!!!!!

So sod the IT masters degree I'm trying to pass, I'm going to be a prep teacher when I grow up.

PS Just seen the ads at the top of this page.