Welcome to the February edition of TA Talk, our 100th issue!! Another milestone for ATA :)
Since our last newsletter in January, we have welcomed Kim Nuske to the ATA team. Kim 'hit the ground running' with us, (quite literally!) planning and delivering a workshop for one of our local member schools within the first 2 weeks. Kim shares our values and embodies our mission, to empower educators to help students succeed, bringing a wealth of experience in education, particularly inclusive education, and a youthful and infectious energy to our (increasingly awesome) team.
This month, we presented our first live web event for 2024, Introducing ATAPS, giving TAs, teachers and school leaders the opportunity to become familiar with the performance and professional growth framework under development for education support staff. Next week, we embark on the 2nd series of workshops with schools participating in our 3-part pilot program, as we continue to test the relevance and usefulness of the standards.
We have also been kept busy onboarding two large corporate groups of schools, ensuring new members are able to access and use the professional development resources and member portal features effectively. Following an orientation with school leaders, led by our Operations Manager, Tamara, the Manager of Inclusive Education, Toowoomba Diocese, remarked 'Thank you for your presentation to the Learning Support Teachers yesterday. We are most grateful for your thorough explanation and your supportive presentation style. The response has been positive.' We appreciate the expression of gratitude, Eileen Moyle. Thank you!
We were also invited to meet with four education departments, including the Australian Government Department of Education, to provide an update on the ATAPS pilot. During these consultations, we took the opportunity to seek feedback and endorsement of the Standards. The response has been extremely positive and there is acknowledgement that ATAPS will not only benefit schools in a myriad of ways, but will also contribute to the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan.
For those of you who have visited our Web Events page this week, you will have noticed that we published two more live web events, Differentiation - Strategies to collect and record evidence and Supporting Students with Oppositional Defiant Disorder. We are very excited to bring this professional learning to you, as both topics have been commonly requested by members. All in all a fun-filled and action packed leap month, and we wouldn't have it any other way! Warm regards Stella and Mandy |
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We have achieved another milestone worthy of celebrating as we publish this, our 100th edition of TA Talk! Since ATA's foundation in 2015, we have also written over 400 weekly newsletters to our ever-growing professional learning community, which includes you! Suffice to say, we always have plenty to talk about, and we hope you enjoy the regular updates and professional learning prompts. Being our 100th issue, we invite you to help us mark the achievement by popping over to our business page and giving us a Google review. 100 stars would be awesome! but 5 will do nicely too :) Thank you!
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| How Teachers and Teacher Aides Work Together to Support Students with Autism Tuesday, 12 March 2024 |
Are you wanting to enhance your skills in supporting students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)?
ATA guest presenters, Ros Sullivan, Deputy Principal, and Laura Newman, Head of Teaching and Learning, work at The Sycamore School, a school for young people living with ASD. During this webinar, Ros and Laura will delve into the strategies that can make a significant impact on the educational journey of these students. |
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| Introducing ATAPS – A performance and professional growth framework |
The Australian Teaching Assistant Professional Standards (ATAPS) are due to be published in Semester II 2024 and, earlier this month, Stella Liliendal, Director and Co-founder of ATA, demonstrated how teaching assistants can use the ATAPS framework to reflect on their practice, identify the skills needed to perform their role, and set professional growth goals.
This webinar recording provides an opportunity to become familiar with the framework and get a head start on using ATAPS to support the performance and professional growth of teaching assistants prior to publication. |
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| ATAPS School Pilot Workshop 2 starts next week |
In March, the following pilot schools will commence ATAPS Workshop 2 on Professional Practice and Learning:
- Galilee School – Communities at Work - ACT
- Tallowood School & Monaro High School - NSW
- Katherine School of the Air - NT
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Harristown State High School, St Joseph's Nudgee College & The Sycamore School - QLD
- Montmorency Secondary College & Padua Secondary College - VIC
- Arbor Grove Primary School, Ocean Reef State High School & St Mark's Anglican Community School - WA
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Catholic Education Sandhurst - VIC: St Augustine's School – Wodonga; Borinya Wangaratta Community Partnership; Catherine McAuley College – Bendigo; Doxa School – Bendigo; St Francis of Assisi Primary School – Baranduda; St Francis of the Fields School – Bendigo; St Joseph's School – Rochester; St Michael's School – Tallangatta; St Mary's Catholic Primary – Inglewood; St Monica’s School- Wodonga; St Patrick's School – Tongala; Sacred Heart College –Yarrawonga.
Schools have been providing valuable feedback to help validate the Standards. We have also had the opportunity to share this feedback with State and Federal Ministers and Education Departments to demonstrate how ATAPS can contribute to addressing Action 21 of the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan: Identify the most effective use of initial teacher education (ITE) students, teaching assistants, and other non-teaching staff.
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OUTSTANDING PARTICIPATION IN ATA PROFESSIONAL LEARNING |
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| This month, we celebrate the following five schools for their outstanding participation in ATA professional learning. St Bernard's School - Wangaratta (VIC) Ocean View College (SA) St Edward's Primary School - South Tamworth (NSW) Islamic College of Melbourne (VIC) Rushworth P-12 College (VIC) |
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WHAT'S TRENDING ON THE ATA FACEBOOK PAGE |
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| Great school culture is not an accident |
21,574 views
1,338 reactions, 151 comments and 121 shares
Jenny commented, "This is exactly how our school culture is, and it certainly creates a great environment for everyone. Those schools not recognising the input and collaboration from their SLSO's or support staff are missing out on some very valuable knowledge from the people/persons most likely to have developed the trust, understanding and the closest relationships of the students they work with." |
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Leaders in Professional Learning for Schools |
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