Seasiders

I agree Sammy, it is confusing, and I think it is a very fluid situation at the moment. Working in a remote country school, a lot of our first term and semester contracts at our place were completed before the freeze.

Hi all, I've not posted on here for a long time, but I thought this was an important piece of information for prospective government employees in Western Australia. From the 21st December the WA government has put a freeze on external applications for government positions. Government positions will only go internally until June 2016. Here is the message from the WA jobs website. On 21 December 2015 the WA Government announced an immediate sector wide external recruitment freeze that is to apply to all agencies and positions across the general government sector. This freeze will mean that, for general government agencies, vacant positions may only be filled by existing employees within the general government public sector by transfer, secondment or acting until 30 June 2016 (unless an exemption is granted by the Treasurer). This will include teachers, nurses etc, do not know if this will apply specifically to any of you, but I thought it was worth sharing. Cheers Seasiders

Hi all I'm new to this forum, but have read this particular thread with interest, and I thought I'd give you my thoughts and insights to some of the posters' questions. I'm a Primary School Senior Teacher in rural WA and have been here for over 10 years. Firstly, Sammy1 gives some good advice on the situation in WA. Things are changing considerable, and I think teachers need to be aware of this. From 2015 schools are going to be run with a one line budget, this has massive implications for some schools. Many schools will have reduced funding, meaning there will be staff reductions. Year 7's are going to high school as already been stated, meaning less students and less staff. That doesn't mean it will be Upper Primary will go, as everyone in WA schools are trained from 1-7, so theoretically it can be anyone. The part that may well concern prospective teachers are what happens to those teachers that are no longer required. They may want to stay in primary education and will go into one of the pools that operate in WA, redeployment ( teachers that are permanent but are not attached to a school), fixed ( teachers that are not permanent) and graduate ( teachers with less than 2 years experience. Redeployees can preference over everybody in the system, as the department want to assign them to a school as quickly as possible, and not have then as a supernumero (term for permanent teacher with no school). They will be expected to take a fixed term position if no permanent position exists, which is highly likely. that means more fixed term teachers chasing less fixed term jobs. The option for primary teachers is to do the SWITCH program that will allow them to teach up to Year 10 at high school. Some schools, especially remote and rural,are allowing primary teachers to do the program next year on the job, as they cannot get the staff to fill the positions. This may be an option for some of you that are high school Maths and Science teachers, other learning areas less so, as there appears an abundance of teachers for Phys Ed, English etc. Be aware that teaching in the bush can be tough, communities can be small and insular, and especially 'up north' the heat and humidity can be extremely oppressive. Permanent teaching positions are a premium in the South-West and locations like Margaret River, Busselton etc are virtually impossible. Fixed term positions are more likely but are usually 6 months to 1 year. You have to decide whether or not a one year contract is time enough for you to make a change. If you can get a permanent position in a great location then fantastic, but realistically in WA, it's more likely that you'll get a permanent position in a rural location or a fixe term position, ranging from 2 to 5 days in a metro school. Be prepared to do relief, get yourself known, go at the drop of a hat to a school, as that's what the relief coordinator wants, the principal is usually too busy to be concerned about who's doing relief as long as somebody is in front of the class! Hope this helps and good luck to all of you.