What is TEACHING really like in Oz compare to the UK from those with experience of both?

[duckygee]

Hi,

 

I would really like some opinions about what teaching in Australia is like compared to the UK from people who have taught for a number of years in the UK.

 

I'll explain a bit about my experience over here.

 

I started teaching in my late 20s in 2007. I taught IT full time in a mixed comprehensive of about 2000 pupils, but it was a good school academically with very good GCSE and A level results. I taught years 7 - 13. 2 years later I had my first child and dropped to 4 days a week when I returned in 2010. 2 years after that I had my second child and was refused part time on my return, so I left and went to teach full time on a maternity contract in a sixth form college which was much closer to home. August 2014 the maternity contract came to an end and I left teaching.

 

I really enjoyed teaching for the first 5 years of my career. It wasn't a dream job, but I enjoyed the challenge and I enjoyed that no two days were the same. By the time I quit 7 years later, I was disheartened and tired. The workload seemed to keep increasing, the pressure on teachers to be outstanding 6 lessons a day 5 days a week was relentless and because I was an IT teacher and most of the courses I taught were coursework based, the marking was constant and the shifting curriculum meant that prep very rarely got any easier year by year. I began to feel that I had to make a choice between my children and someone else's and so eventually I chose my own children and the sanity of my marriage.

 

So really I want to judge what it is like in Australia. Do the children respect the teachers, do the teachers get time within school to mark and prep or are they expected to do it all in their own time, is there constant pressure to perform even when the children are happy and achieving well (do they judge you lesson by lesson or on the overall acheivement?)

 

If I was staying over here, I think I'd look to switch into primary and I have already been doing some volunteering in my daughter's school and have done a few days supply as a primary teacher. I have to say I much prefer the primary environment, but I have no primary training or any real experience. So, would I be likely to be able to switch to primary in Australia or is there an over-supply already?

 

It's Victoria we are moving to, if that makes a difference

 

thanks in advance

[BacktoDemocracy]

I have no experience of the education sector but what i think would be useful is to find out how victoria employs it's teachers because it maybe that the state employs staff and then deploys staff to schools and if they still do that then new teachers used to be sent up country, contact the teachers union in victoria to find out what job situation is, lots of young people do teaching quals as they used to subsidise course fees so huge over production of young cheap teachers desperate for jobs, i am talking from my scant knowledge of qnsld and we have been left now 20 months.

[Selina Smith]

 

@duckygee I am an early years teacher. I'm waiting on my 189 visa so can't answer your questions about the comparison. Lots of people on this forum talk about there being an oversupply of teachers all over Australia, primary and secondary. If you go onto the jobs and careers section there is a thread called 'Teachers in Oz' this has been really helpful during the visa process and most teachers on there are ones that have made the move already x

[gloucester girl]

Hi! I am a science teacher. Worked in the UK for 3 years in a grammar school teaching years 7-13. I have been here for only 2 months, but am nearly half way through a term as a science teacher. My workload in the UK was really high as I started out as an NQT and had 20 different lessons over the entire senior school every week. Had dreadful behaviour even from grammar school kids. Hated the first year, but loved it by the third year (stubborn!). Here in Oz I work for a highly prestigious (expensive) school in sydney. The workload is far less here. There are no expectation of outstanding lessons every lesson (although ironically because I have less year groups to teach, I can prepare better lessons than I had the time for in the UK). In fact, chalk and talk, reliance on the textbook and didactic teaching seem to the norm in this school. I only teach years 7-10, and am desperately trying to get years 11 and 12 for next year, which would mean losing some of the earlier years. There is no expectation of homework or even book marking! It is at the individual teacher's discretion. As it is the last term and the kids are winding down, I have not set any homework. I check work and give feedback in class. My head of department seems okay with this, but I am waiting to see if any of the parents complain seeing as they are paying a small fortune to have their kids taught here. Although there is continuous assessment and I would expect more marking expected with years 11 and 12 for the HSC. Also the behaviour is much much better. I have an extremely bad behaved class by their standards and inwardly I think "oh girls you haven't got a clue" when they try the naughtiness on. I am teaching the same number of hours as in the UK, but there is much less content to cover in that time - science education here is behind the UK. Only today, I left at 4.30, thinking that I had stayed later than usual, but would never have been able to leave my school in the UK at such a time.

 

In summary, workload is less here for me, and the expectations put on teachers less. Although of course, it will be up to you the amount of effort you put and in my experience teachers from the UK are conscientious and hard-workers (I worked in an international school before moving to Australia and the UK teachers definitely found it hard to shake off the intense UK-school mentality).

 

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

[tina0101]

Not worked as a teacher but have worked in prestigious schools in both UK and Brisbane. Teachers in Brisbane seem to have it 'easier' than the UK. The expectation and pressure from parents in a fee-paying school is the same in both, in my opinion, but teachers here seem to come in later and finish earlier - in the UK, staff were in a good 90 minutes before school started and then not leaving until 5pm ish. Here, most are in 45 minutes before school start and then they are gone by 4pm.

 

There is no Ofsted so the pressure that comes with that is not something teachers here have to worry about.

 

Husband is a teacher and I would say that he is definitely more relaxed about work here.

[duckygee]

Hi! I am a science teacher. Worked in the UK for 3 years in a grammar school teaching years 7-13. I have been here for only 2 months, but am nearly half way through a term as a science teacher. My workload in the UK was really high as I started out as an NQT and had 20 different lessons over the entire senior school every week. Had dreadful behaviour even from grammar school kids. Hated the first year, but loved it by the third year (stubborn!). Here in Oz I work for a highly prestigious (expensive) school in sydney. The workload is far less here. There are no expectation of outstanding lessons every lesson (although ironically because I have less year groups to teach, I can prepare better lessons than I had the time for in the UK). In fact, chalk and talk, reliance on the textbook and didactic teaching seem to the norm in this school. I only teach years 7-10, and am desperately trying to get years 11 and 12 for next year, which would mean losing some of the earlier years. There is no expectation of homework or even book marking! It is at the individual teacher's discretion. As it is the last term and the kids are winding down, I have not set any homework. I check work and give feedback in class. My head of department seems okay with this, but I am waiting to see if any of the parents complain seeing as they are paying a small fortune to have their kids taught here. Although there is continuous assessment and I would expect more marking expected with years 11 and 12 for the HSC. Also the behaviour is much much better. I have an extremely bad behaved class by their standards and inwardly I think "oh girls you haven't got a clue" when they try the naughtiness on. I am teaching the same number of hours as in the UK, but there is much less content to cover in that time - science education here is behind the UK. Only today, I left at 4.30, thinking that I had stayed later than usual, but would never have been able to leave my school in the UK at such a time.

 

In summary, workload is less here for me, and the expectations put on teachers less. Although of course, it will be up to you the amount of effort you put and in my experience teachers from the UK are conscientious and hard-workers (I worked in an international school before moving to Australia and the UK teachers definitely found it hard to shake off the intense UK-school mentality).

 

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

 

Thank you for this @gloucester girl and @tina0101 - your replies are very much appreciated and gives me much more hope for a future career out there. Sorry it took me a while to reply, I didn't notice the email notification to say that someone had replied.

 

Thanks again and I hope that your jobs/your husband continues to be good and less stressful than the UK

[milliem]

I am Science and Maths.

I taught in a private school in Queensland for the first two years here and it was very evident that they were not used to a stringent assessment system. Homework was rarely set by teachers and it was even more rare for students to complete it. Other teachers thought it bizarre when I collected student books for marking. Academic expectations on students were fairly low across the school and behaviour was good for the most part. It was clear that most of the staff had not experienced any real kind of quality control.

 

This year I have moved to a large independent school which is entirely results driven and which tops the state in senior results. Top performing pupils are cherry picked for academic, sporting or music merit. There is a fast track programme and first year uni programme for top year 12 students. I teach two fast track classes and and senior classes and workload is pretty huge. Marking is relentless and there is a rigid quality control system with many teaching and learning initiatives in place. That said, the students are extremely focused and dedicated and it is a pleasure to be in the classroom. When I start to teach a unit most of them have already swallowed the textbook so it is largely about problem solving and enrichment. I have yet to issue a behaviour consequence and the year is almost out.

 

 

Two very different experiences for me so I guess it depends on what type of school you join. There is a huge variety here and I am sure you will find something that suits your needs.

[duckygee]

Thanks @milliem

 

i really don't mind working hard, as long as the students I am teaching are working hard too. It's so good to hear about real people's experiences