While we have been celebrating ATA's 3rd birthday, we are pretty sure you have been counting down the days until end of year. Not long now! And 'yes' you will make it!
We are delighted with the acknowledgement that our Australian Teacher Aide of the Year winners and finalists have been receiving from their school leadership teams, education department executives, government ministers of education and the media.
On Tuesday 11 December, we will be visiting Clare State School, in North Queensland, to present Lyn Corradi, this year's Australian Teacher Aide of the Year, with her award. The Australian Teacher Aide of the Year award highlights the role of education paraprofessionals nationally, and recognises individual teacher aides for their outstanding contribution to education in schools.
We continue to advocate for teacher aides by voicing our views on important issues. In our most recent webinar, we reviewed the proposed changes to the Education Support qualifications.
Draft one saw some significant changes, the most significant being:
- the removal of the behaviour units
- a shift in focus from supporting students in the classroom, to outside school hours care and early childhood education
- an emphasis on business administration skills
- the units in common between Certificate III and IV, meaning that only 4 additional units of study are required to gain a Certificate IV.
We will be submitting our feedback on the proposed changes to the qualifications, along with feedback from our webinar participants. We urge you to go to the Skills IQ website, and have your say about the proposed changes, too. The review of draft two is scheduled between November 2018 and February 2019.
December is all but upon us. Almost time to dust off the Christmas tree and unpack those shiny baubles :)
Warm regards
Mandy and Stella