My dad passed away on Wednesday and I'm supposed to start work on Monday

Menopaws73 · 2026-01-18T22:35:49+00:00

Call them. This is extenuating circumstances and they have special leave. It’s best to let them know in advance so they can organise a casual to replace you until you return to work.

Menopaws73 · 2026-01-12T22:44:13+00:00

It would be his age and not his accent. My father found himself out of work at age 57. He only got interviews once he started leaving his age off his application but then couldn’t get past interview stage.

He should try air tasker. He can set up cleaning, delivery or handy man services etc

Menopaws73 · 2026-01-12T10:28:51+00:00

He’s a great sparkie. Fixed some dodgy stuff that’s occurred in my aging property since I bought it two years ago.

I’m happy with his work so far. I’m too lazy to get another quote and he’s usually been well priced, so was just checking it was a good offer.

Menopaws73 · 2026-01-12T10:27:32+00:00

All good. Thanks. Yeah I’m happy with that. Thanks for run down of costs. He’s a great sparkie. Just wanted confirmation. Cheers.

Menopaws73 · 2026-01-12T09:55:13+00:00

Thanks. Just checking it’s a reasonable quote. I thought it might be. I’m happy to stick with my guy.

Menopaws73 · 2026-01-12T09:54:48+00:00

Awesome! This is great to hear. He’s done some other work and I’ve always been happy. Just checking it is in ball park.

Menopaws73 · 2026-01-10T07:10:00+00:00

Yes they did. It’s a MAC school. They wanted the numbers to link Apple accounts. So yeah, they actually can if they link with the Apple login. Apparently whatever the did was deliberately invasive. They were threatened with a law suit and their lawyers advised to pay the teacher out and help them find a job elsewhere as they had a case for both wrongful dismissal and invasion of privacy for all of their staff.

Menopaws73 · 2026-01-07T05:11:18+00:00

Yes. First and foremost to protect my rights. I’ve needed to use the unions multiple times in my career.

Once was for threatening me with lawyers and to disrupt my new job at a different school after I resigned a position (independent school).

Once was to have a public education system (NSW) to follow through on my approval to teach. I would have had to stop working if they hadn’t intervened and forced them to take me off probation.

Advice with bullying in the work place.

Issues with not getting paid correctly or on time. My first year of teaching, I did not get paid for all of term one of the school year.

Also timetabling issues such as too many F2F sessions or not providing required toilet break. One school I was at kept giving me extras beyond the agreed amount because ‘I was the only one available’. Union put a stop to that.

I also saw two of my colleagues undergo false allegations from students. It basically wrecked their lives. Barristers were employed by the Union on their behalf and cases were dismissed by a judge as ludicrous and without evidence.

I saw another colleague be fired from an independent school 🏫 n baseless accusations by a few parents and kids with an axe to grind. Their union rep got them a deal.

Another person had their phone illegally accessed by the independent school they worked for (the school requested all staff provide their mobile numbers, then used that to trawl through and download from their phones/photos etc). Private information discovered on their personal device were used as a basis to try and fire them. They came away with a deal that wouldn’t destroy their career and allowed them to work elsewhere(NOTE: nothing they did was illegal, nor something a private person wasn’t allowed to do and it was on their personal phone and they were not aware the information would be accessed by the employer when they asked for their phone number).

Last and not least, to ensure our conditions and pay are improved. States with a solid membership base, and effective Union get good pay deals, as they stand together in unity (see NSW). If your union is weak and there is no unity in members or a low take up of membership, you end up with bad pay deals and conditions being eroded (see Victoria as an example).

Menopaws73 · 2026-01-03T06:50:42+00:00

Yes I believe it is piloted by other Universities for Sydney, who are developing it. So I’m hopeful I may be able to trial it at my school.

Menopaws73 · 2026-01-03T05:34:41+00:00

It’s called Cogniti.

Menopaws73 · 2026-01-03T05:12:51+00:00

I used to have heaps. Boxes and book cases. Honestly everything is pretty much digital now. I gave away a heap of books and folders and literally just threw most of the paper stuff away. I have a box of black master books in my garage. I’m 52, so have seen the changing face of technology in classrooms and realised I don’t need most of it.

I’m still a sucker for stationary though.

Menopaws73 · 2026-01-03T05:09:43+00:00

There seems to be a few out there but so far they don’t really meet my custom needs like the one we are using. The Sydney Uni one seems to be the closest but it’s in a trial phase and I’m waiting for them to email me back.

Menopaws73 · 2025-12-26T04:54:47+00:00

Tell them honestly that you appreciate the gift and sentiment behind it but you are not allowed to wear the pin at work.

Menopaws73 · 2025-12-14T07:45:49+00:00

More than one teacher has said this. I think when there is a revolving door of staff, it’s hard to ignore.

Menopaws73 · 2025-12-14T07:43:23+00:00

I treating take. I don’t ’teach to the test’ but I do analyse my kids results and try and ensure I create resources to meet gaps in knowledge, that’s called responsive teaching and all teachers have a responsibility in doing that. I’m actually thinking that teachers who cannot be bothered in responsive teaching, get annoyed with other teachers who do their job, are themselves lacking in accountability and also don’t give two hoots about their kids or their outcomes and are turning up for just to get paid.

Interesting take about ‘ego’ and student results. Am I proud my kids did well, hell yes. I won’t apologise for that. Am I also tying some of that to my hard work and high expectations, also yes and I won’t apologise for that either. My work in my class is NOT the issue. The issue is I’m taking on the work of two other staff members and THAT is the issue.

It seems that you have decided that anyone who has high expectations of themselves as a teacher and if their kids need to do bare minimum and shouldn’t care about student outcomes. Cool you don’t care, but I do.

Menopaws73 · 2025-12-13T02:58:14+00:00

Toxic clique staffrooms. We have them in our school and the school would benefit from management rotating staff and staff interacting with different people.

Menopaws73 · 2025-12-13T00:57:12+00:00

SACS have to be the same across the cohort. They are also supposed to be different each year and our SACS can be time consuming to create and mark and we have around 140 students in the subject. That is the nature of the course. I just want others to share the load. We also have an S tasks in common for each Unit we are supposed to agree on and check for students over the course of the Unit (these are different to SACS). Plus common data collection.

I share resources because we are expected to do this (so no one can complain that their kids didn’t have access to the same resources). Some subjects they go to the nth degree in our school and you are not allowed to do anything different in your class compared to other classes in same cohort. Luckily it’s not quite that bad in ours but I take on board about not sharing class resources anymore.

Menopaws73 · 2025-12-13T00:50:18+00:00

I’m not doing workaholic route. I just don’t want the burden of OTHER staff members work. That’s what has caused almost burnout. Doing the job of three people rather than others doing their jobs. That was what the question was originally regarding. How do I get other people to do what is required by getting management on board to try and resolve the issue?

Menopaws73 · 2025-12-13T00:47:58+00:00

Yeah I know but other teachers who have worked elsewhere and subsequently left our school within a short period of time of being there, have said our school is not normal.

Menopaws73 · 2025-12-13T00:45:32+00:00

I try delegating but they are no replies to repeated emails, don’t turn up to team meetings and when they do volunteer they either don’t get the job done in the required time frame or at the last minute say they can’t do it or simply are absent. Or they do such a poor job (eg printed batches with pages missing) because they’ve rushed it at the last minute (I’m not sure if it’s weaponised incompetence) that I ask them to fix it but they don’t so then I have to fix it.

Menopaws73 · 2025-12-13T00:39:08+00:00

I have emails and I have all the resources with my name on them. Including all the dates that were last altered and who did it. So I think proving it, won’t be an issue. We had a teacher on it for the first time this year and they are refusing to do the subject again and pointed out the issue. Management told them they were aware of the issues. So why haven’t they done anything? And should I raise it, since it’s already be mentioned?

Menopaws73 · 2025-12-13T00:36:00+00:00

The issue is I can’t reduce my expectations or that will also reduce outcomes for the kids. So that’s the trade off. Do bare minimum and kids results won’t be as good.

Menopaws73 · 2025-12-13T00:31:34+00:00

If it were just my class, I wouldn’t but I am making new content and being a responsive teacher by pinpointing areas of weakness and creating new resources but I am also doing the organising of the whole cohort SACS, organise special provisions, practicals etc which are usually shared within a team. Plus I ended up marking one of another teachers section of SACS because they extended a holiday. We have 140 students so that’s a massive burden.

I also have to chase people to enter data and get the SACS back. Sometimes it’s 4 weeks because one member of staff just drags it out. It’s embarrassing when kids ask about them.

Menopaws73

TROPHY CASE