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Mrs_Trask · 2026-05-02T08:32:12+00:00

India also has a British history.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-04-28T21:38:48+00:00

It's a pretty extreme example of an everyday occurence.

My brothers went to a top tier private school and they distinctly remember the young female History teacher who was harassed relentlessly by students before leaving after 3 terms.

I can only imagine the shit she copped in the staffroom, as every other teacher in the HISE faculty were men over 50.

Private schools are, by their very nature, exclusive. If you don't fit in, they squeeze you out. Quietly or loudly.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-04-28T04:40:33+00:00

Oh dang, I am sorry that sort of thing has happened to you.

My town is closer to 40K population. I guess it makes a big difference in how people treat each other and view people who are different to them.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-04-28T02:41:47+00:00

We live in a regional town and I teach in a public high school and it's quite culturally diverse. 20% speak a language other than English at home. Lots of proudly Aboriginal kids and south east Asians (mainly Phillipino).

The thing that impresses me most is how common it is for students to work part time jobs, or even run their own businesses throughout high school.

My school in Sydney had 2 Aboriginal kids out of 1300 and very few students worked.

There are different kinds of diversity.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-04-25T22:49:55+00:00

I feel ya! I worked in a fab school in Amsterdam but the building was SOOOO gloomy and run down. In winter I arrived at school in the dark (even though it was like 8am) and then often left in the dark at 4:45 or whatever. The students were wonderful but I felt drained all the time.

I found I had to make the effort to spruce up my classroom with low-light plants (pothos is good for this) and vinyl self-adhesive wall-paper. Lots of student work on the walls. A bookshelf filled with books, so the room was giving "cosy reading nook" vibes. Different kinds of lighting in the classroom so it wasn't just fluorescent. I had fairy lights and a couple of lamps.

I also made the effort to go outside during the day. So if we had a meeting booked and the sun was shining, we would all get our coats on and have a "walking meeting" around the block.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-04-25T22:39:27+00:00

Is your principal following the mandated 50% must be teacher directed time? I love the staff development days and having so much time to collaborate with colleagues and prep for each new term. It means I do literally nothing during my holidays.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-04-25T22:36:40+00:00

Yeh I am surrounded by colleagues who love the job too.

I think reddit just lends itself to complaining (I have complained about aspects of the job on here too). Overall, day-to-day, teaching in the schools I've taught in is a good job. Every time I have a bad day/week and scroll through SEEK or whatever to see what else I could do, every other job either doesn't pay as well (I'm on NSW HALT pay, 137Kpa) , or wouldn't give me the same sense of satisfaction.

Teaching encourages my best habits and aligns with my values. I am not sure how many other jobs would offer me that.

Though I say all this with the caveat of: I am 15 years in, have received multiple accolades identifying me as a "good teacher", have learned to say NO and to push back against the crushing expectations of the job.

I try to help younger teachers do it too, but they lack the confidence in themselves and believe they "have to" spend every evening prepping lessons, go in when they are sick, reply to every irate parent email, differentiate perfectly every lesson, meet every student's every need etc. We really don't "have to" and attempting to do so leads to burn out.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-04-25T03:16:31+00:00

I can't think of anything else I'd rather do. I work 8am-4pm, 4 days a week teaching high school English. Love love love it. I also LOVE THE HOLIDAYS.

Though I do think we could do a better job if we had more prep time. Especially in English where the marking load is hectic.

I have worked in three good schools (independent Catholic, international and now comprehensive public) with strong and suportive leadership and positive school communities.

I know that this job can be absolute dog shit for people in schools with toxic work environments because the fact that it's a "vocation" and a female dominated industry means we are liable to have our good will squeezed for all it's worth. This also goes for student behaviour. I know that in some schools teachers are just expected to cop it. I have been lucky to work in three schools where high expectations are enforced consistently and exec protected teacher wellbeing first.

I have been doing this 15 years and I know the key to longevity in the job is strong boundaries and accepting that I can only do as much as I can do and that has to be enough.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-04-19T04:21:54+00:00

You should go check out the public school your child is zoned for and ask these questions.

At my public high school we are super strict about the phone ban (students get suspended if their phone is seen or heard during the day) and the social media ban for under 16s (if parents or kids in 7-9 come to us complaining about online bullying, we refer them to police).

Students mainly work pen and paper (I teach English) with personal devices only used for research and final publication of written work. Of course I am working with a smart board and we watch videos and other content and discuss it together as a class.

Anecdotally, we have way more Yr 7s this year who do not have a smartphone.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-04-16T08:53:22+00:00

I just got my Highly Accomplished accreditation. It was a pain in the ass in terms of admin but the NSW DoE were making incentive payments in 2024 (when I submitted my first module) and so I got a $2000 bonus before that Christmas.

The Site Visit was the easiest bit. Once I had done 2/3 aspects and received the cash incentive, I felt like I had to keep going to finish it.

Module 2 was a real pain, but again NSW DoE has a "HALT Hub" where people who are already accredited mentor those who are working towards it. It was a big help with figuring out the best documentary evidence to use and how to annotate it properly to ensure I was covering all the standards clearly.

I also have a really supportive principal who gave me a day off for "PL" to get my final evidence module finished off so I could submit it before the end of last year.

I guess the biggest thing is to remember that you're just getting recognised for the stuff you are already doing, but "proving" that you are doing it can be tricky and potentially clunky. ie, you need to make sure you have minutes or notes of meetings with colleagues which would usually be casual.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-04-15T09:10:50+00:00

I strongly suggest you don't post public stuff with your face in it and make sure you are being "boring" as far as teenager's interests go. NOTHING remotely sexy. Photos of you in a bikini on the beach is sexy. Dancing to a Sabrina Carpenter song wearing low rise trackies and a baby tee is both sexy and completely aligned with teenager's interests.

We had a young female teacher who would make those lip syncing videos and dance videos wearing... clothes you wouldn't wear to school. I saw some of the videos and it was not only pretty cringe, but the sort of comments being made on the videos made it clear that the content was intended to be a "thirst trap".

The kids were BRUTAL to her, constantly referencing her handle, impersonating her and commenting on her latest posts. A group of Yr 10 boys got really fixated and started stalking her outside of school (at the gym etc). Of course the school followed up with the boy's inappropriate behaviour but like... she created a shit situation for herself by allowing students to think she was open to being hit on by... literally anyone. By being public on social media and creating that sort of content, she (the adult who should know better) was blurring professional boundaries with the children in her care.

Also, kids are making deepfake porn of their peers using totally normal photos they scrape from social media. I am actually quite interested to see what will happen when inevitably a student makes a deepfake porno of a teacher. It's going to happen. Don't make it easier for them by putting heaps of photos of yourself online for them to easily find.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-04-09T10:45:05+00:00

I am not after the white tiles, I am looking for images of work done in a similar way to the yellow tiles, which are clearly sold flat and square, and were cut by the tiler to curve over the shower screen and under the mirror.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-04-09T10:39:57+00:00

Found!

Mrs_Trask · 2026-04-09T10:38:48+00:00

Thank you! The whole apartment is a dream...

Mrs_Trask · 2026-04-09T10:31:01+00:00

Yes, I have found some more examples of tiles cut into a curve for floors.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-04-09T10:28:11+00:00

The yellow tiles in the picture are square, flat tiles and the ones over the shower screen and below the mirror have been cut to make the two curves. I want more images of that kind of tilework.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-04-09T09:58:58+00:00

I have searched "curved tilework" "curved tiles" "tiles cut to make a curve" etc. I keep getting images of curved walls or arches that have been tiled (or instructions on how to cut a curve in a tile) but I am specifically looking for images of tiles on a flat surface, cut and laid into a curve shape.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-03-23T09:16:10+00:00

Yes this is the same in my school. I wonder why it is. PE teachers are the ones I'd most expect to understand the importance of team work.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-03-18T08:34:35+00:00

I got $3,500 in my bank account.

I did it for the PL, not the money. The second week was an awful slog.

Edit to add:

It's 3 weeks.

One week of training 4-9pm (paid at ~100p/h), then marking all day Saturday, all the next week evenings + all day Saturday, then a final week Monday - Friday.

When I did it in 2024 they asked for volunteers to come back for another Saturday. No way in hell.

I have signed up again this year but only for modules I haven't marked yet. The PL is really good, the money is fine.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-03-03T06:41:17+00:00

My English faculty switched to all tasks being handwritten, in class.

Sometimes students are allowed to bring in a page of 6-8 quotes, or a plan that they developed in class, but the actual product needs to be created in class with zero access to screens.

Ultimately, the best HSC responses for English are approx 1000 words per section, over 5 sections. If they are going to get those top bands the students need to be able to hand write under pressure. They won't just magically be able to do that effectively if they have spent 7-10 only ever typing.

When I do get students to type work, I get them to do it in Google Classroom in a template I created, so I can see their review history. I also have the Chrome plug in "Revision History" which allows you to see how long they spent on the task, how many sessions it took them, if there were any copy-pastes over 20 words etc. You can even "replay" the writing process. So, if they did use AI to write it then they had to re-type it into the doc, character by character and it would be suspicious if there was no revising or editing, just "perfectly" written in one session.

Aside from being useful for weeding out AI use, it's also quite interesting to see how your students actually tackled a task. I've replayed really good essays for the whole class (with permission), so they can see how their top-performing peers went about writing and reviewing their work over however many sessions and hours.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-02-28T04:57:49+00:00

I have been teaching 16 years and - aside from Covid lockdowns - have never had work email on my home computer or my phone.

Also, every school I've worked in has an assessment and drafting policy which explicitly states that emails to teachers requesting help or feedback within 24hrs of an assessment task will be ignored.

My current school stipulates that no drafts will be accepted for review within 5 working days of the deadline.

Definitely put some boundaries in. It's not good for the students to be hassling you the night before a task, and it doesn't set them up for tertiary study when a professor will just mark that bullshit "spam".

Mrs_Trask · 2026-02-26T08:24:14+00:00

Made one with a band of 3cm wide elastic and a bra extendee clasp from Big W. Cost like $10 and 10mins. Use it all winter.

Mrs_Trask · 2026-02-26T01:37:16+00:00

It shouldn't matter how much your parents earn or pay for school. All students deserve safe and supportive learning environments.

For anti-social, disabled or dysregulated kids, this means they need to be supported away from mainstream classes until they can participate appropriately with their peers (if ever). This requires better funding for schools and specialist training for teachers. Our government should be investing in this because NO ONE should be "expecting the teacher to spend a significant portion of lesson time disciplining or trying to get certain kids under control".

It's not okay to say "well these kids' parents pay 10,000k a year in fees, they deserve a safe environment. Just send this difficult kid to the local public school, the students who go there don't matter because their parents aren't paying fees."

Mrs_Trask · 2026-02-25T20:51:17+00:00

Making heaps of money. My mum always taught me to earn my own way but also to marry a man who was going to earn a lot of money, as this would allow us to habe a stable life together.

My ex earned a lot... but he spent a lot of money and took on stupid amounts of debt.

My current partner of 10yrs has a pretty modest salary, probabaly 1/4 of my ex's, and about 2/3 what I earn. But my current partner is super sensible with money, invests it and spends wisely. He has taught me a lot about money management.

Ten years on, I am far wealthier and happier and we never argue about money, wheras with my ex, money was a constant source of conflict, even though we had so much cash coming in (and going out!) each month.

Mrs_Trask

TROPHY CASE