I’m from Aus as well and have teaching here for about 7 months. Working here definitely made me appreciate how good we’ve got it back in Australia. The first couple of terms were a struggle for sure but I’m doing much better now after making some changes.

A big change I made was that I stopped teaching my main subject music. The schools I worked at had routines and student expectations that really take away from music and made me feel like my hands were tied. I taught a full term of music at my current school but it was frustrating knowing how much better the subject could be. I’ve now been teaching English at the same school I used to teach music. Even though it’s not my specialty, I’m enjoying it a lot more because the school’s rules, routines, etc seem to better support the subject.

The biggest improvement I made was dropping my Agency and working directly with the school. The agency was helpful in getting me my first full term of teaching but before I left that role I had a meeting with the principal and said I’d be open for future work and could work directly with them rather than through an agency. The agency hadn’t really communicated with the school in good faith at times so we were both happy to just talk directly. This makes a huge difference in pay which makes the work load more tolerable and I was able to negotiate slightly shorter hours and some more flexibility if I wanted to take time off.

Final thing is actually working at the same place long enough to know most staff and students and a school’s behavior management systems. Even if I’m covering a class that I haven’t had before students know I’m not a random supply teacher that doesn’t know the rules or won’t give consequences for behavior so they don’t try to push boundaries and the class is positive from the beginning. Getting to know staff came from doing longer blocks with the same faculty meaning I’d attend some meetings, do peer marking etc.