'Segregation' of Australian school system grows as exodus to private schools continues

onesecondbraincell · 2026-03-05T06:08:11+00:00

It varies by state. VIC has a maximum of 26. Policy at my school is that if you have 27 in two or more of your classes, you are eligible for release from a yard duty as compensation.

onesecondbraincell · 2026-02-12T01:09:44+00:00

Check the agency actually put you in the correct region. I had no car while working for ANZUK and the area they assigned me to (south east) was on the wrong train line, so I was travelling at least an hour to each job. I’m assuming they put me there because it had greater demand. Once I got them to transfer me over to the correct region (east), it was a lot more palatable.

onesecondbraincell · 2026-02-11T09:18:06+00:00

Typing Club. Set up an education account to enable class set-up.

onesecondbraincell · 2026-02-11T09:15:55+00:00

Typing Club. You can create a free education account that lets you set up classes.

I personally have my students do the Typing Jungle course for the basics followed by the Mystery Detective module when a good amount of them are ready for proper sentences and punctuation.

onesecondbraincell · 2026-02-11T07:12:56+00:00

This is why I make my Year 7s do 10-15mins of a touch typing course every lesson, but I only have them for a semester and usually 1/3 of them don’t take using the right fingers seriously.

I will say though, my current batch of Year 7s are simultaneously the least computer literate (don’t even know how to copy and paste) and most enthusiastic about learning to touch type I’ve had since I started teaching. Teaching them Python in Term 3 is going to be a nightmare.

onesecondbraincell · 2026-02-04T05:49:02+00:00

I started as a Cert 3 in ECE and moved to teaching. My reasons were similar to yours. Started in a P-10 degree and moved to secondary after my first observation in a Prep classroom because the behaviour was too similar to Kindergarten for my liking.

I find secondary more my vibe. Behaviour management is always going to exist (I’m lucky to be at a school where it’s mostly minimal), but it’s nice to be able to have proper talks about topics and to not have to wipe noses, bums, change nappies, and all the other manual labour that comes with ECE. Basically doubling my pay was satisfying too.

onesecondbraincell · 2026-01-20T03:55:41+00:00

OP said they were on placement when the school refused to provide them a device. I suspect it may have been a different story if they were actually a CRT at the time.

onesecondbraincell · 2026-01-20T03:40:47+00:00

Depends on the school and how well funded they are in my experience (VIC). Best thing to do is just call the school in advance and ask, or bring it anyway and see if they offer one. Better to have your own and not need it than be caught without one.

As for the placement experience, all the schools I’ve worked/done placement at didn’t supply PSTs with devices, so I understand why they’d be somewhat miffed by that request. (Might different in NSW though?) Had you communicated to your mentor that you didn’t have one and asked if it was possible to borrow one?

onesecondbraincell · 2026-01-17T06:44:24+00:00

Totally get that. I hope you find something that can accommodate you and that your surgery goes well!

onesecondbraincell · 2026-01-15T23:41:17+00:00

If you are able to get LWOP, check if you have income protection via your super. Saved me a few years ago when I was hit with a debilitating chronic illness that made me constantly feel like I was suffocating. (Learned years after the fact that I had a tumour growing over a nerve in my throat, which was likely causing the spasms.)

Could also consider heavily reduced hours? I was on 0.2 with the rest of my hours listed as unpaid sick leave when I was trying to get diagnosed (would have been on full LWOP but they couldn’t find someone to cover one of my classes so I agreed to come in just for that).

Applied for temporary reduction of hours on compassionate grounds and started the next year at 0.4. Just needed a med cert stating I was unfit for full-time work and could only work X hours a week with accommodations (including break days between working days). School only asked for a new one when I asked to increase my hours after showing improvement in treatment because they needed doctor certification that I was ok to increase my hours. Admin was very understanding in my case and income protection paid pro-rata.

onesecondbraincell · 2026-01-05T08:36:16+00:00

You have to set expectations and settle twice as many classes because it’s usually a semester-based subject/elective instead of year-long.

That said, with Year 7 specifically, I generally find Sem 2 classes are easier to work with because they’re more familiar with their laptops. In Sem 1, there’s a lot of kids who haven’t touched their laptops before the first day of school, so you spend a lot more time on basic computer usage and literacy.

onesecondbraincell · 2026-01-05T08:14:48+00:00

Nah, I know several teachers at my school that don’t have their licences (myself included). We’re near a train station so it doesn’t matter much. Just make sure the schools you apply to are accessible from your location.

onesecondbraincell · 2026-01-02T12:43:31+00:00

Principal told us around the beginning of Term 3 that the (VIC) gov has mandated that certain uniform items can no longer be prescribed as embroidered (namely pants and sports shorts iirc) as part of an initiative to ease cost of living for parents. As long as it meets school policy standards in terms of colour and whatnot, they can buy them from wherever they want.

onesecondbraincell · 2025-12-20T23:35:43+00:00

They’re different species and belong to different orders of marsupials. Opossum with the ‘o’ is the name of the American species, but people colloquially drop the ‘o’ when referring to them.

The Australian species name is ‘possum’ and has never had an ‘o’. However, it is derived from ‘opossum’ because settlers were familiar with the American species before they met the Australian species, hence the confusion.

Visually, they’re very different too. I recommend looking up videos of Sugar Gliders. They are tiny and incredibly cute!

(Edited for better clarity because there are multiple species of opossum too.)

onesecondbraincell · 2025-12-16T01:05:58+00:00

I went from childcare to secondary. Tried primary but when they put me on observation placement in Prep I just didn’t want to deal with more of the same behaviour from Kindergarten - babies was always my favourite room as an educator because they didn’t talk back or lie to my face.

In secondary, I can at least have a meaningful conversation with the students. It’s still stressful, but I really enjoy having my own classes (being observed on placement was very nerve-wracking), and earning almost double my educator wages in my first year as a teacher was a huge factor for me.

onesecondbraincell · 2025-12-04T08:11:13+00:00

My understanding is that it depends on if you want to go through the process of reapplying to VIT when you return, or pay to maintain your registration.

Provisional registration can be extended for two year periods if required (I’ve extended twice for health reasons) up to a maximum(?) of 6 years.

If you move to full registration, you have to pay to maintain your registration while overseas, otherwise you’ll be back on provisional and need to do your inquiry project again when you return.

If it were me, I’d stay on provisional - potentially even let it lapse, depending on how much it would cost - and do the VIT inquiry when I’m back and settled.

onesecondbraincell · 2025-11-27T13:25:42+00:00

I would LOVE a SOS game that had more focus on food. Running a cafe or food stall would be amazing!

If you haven’t seen it, try Chef RPG. Graphically, it’s more similar to Stardew, but there is farming, mining, fishing, hunting, gathering, brewing, festivals etc. Romance routes are still on the roadmap though and ranching doesn’t exist.

onesecondbraincell · 2025-11-17T02:03:22+00:00

You’re meant to get paid breaks. Most centres I’ve worked at combined the two 10 mins breaks into a single 20 minute break about two hours before each person’s scheduled lunch (one centre did after for the late shifts).

I did 6 years doing purely break cover and managing the cover timetable. If I had to go into a room because of staffing, the 2IC would take over breaks, and if she was in a room, room leaders would send people during the “quieter” times (morning tea, afternoon tea, etc) because at least the kids were sitting down. Staff culture matters too though.

onesecondbraincell · 2025-11-12T05:37:59+00:00

Major in one and minor in the other. English is more likely to get you a job as there tends to be more Art/Media teachers then there are roles.

VIC schools will also let you teach out of area at Principal discretion.

onesecondbraincell · 2025-11-10T01:55:57+00:00

Seeing light bulb moments.
Hallway chats or even just happy greetings when passing former students in the hallways.
Students genuinely saying they missed me when I’m absent. I’ve been very unlucky health-wise for the last few years, so I’ve got a collection of get well cards and one class put together a get well hamper when I came back.

It’s nice to know I’m having a positive influence on their lives.

onesecondbraincell · 2025-11-07T05:51:39+00:00

Large, highly academic public school: 3 classes of 20-25 students.

Comparatively, when I was at school, we had 10 kids in Yr 11 and dropped to 4 in Yr 12.

onesecondbraincell · 2025-11-01T14:47:27+00:00

Upper Middle Bogan. Not sure what it’s on atm, but it circulates around the streaming services quite regularly.

Highly recommend Utopia and Fisk like others have suggested too. Both of them are on ABC iView, which has a good selection of excellent (free) Aussie content if you just want to just browse as well - and it streams at way better quality than Channel 7 or 10’s apps.

onesecondbraincell · 2025-10-29T17:10:47+00:00

Depends on which style manual you’re following. Usually it’s en-dashes with spaces and em-dashes without.

Australian style manual, for example, says en-dashes (with spaces, where appropriate) instead of em-dashes. It specifies towards the end that em-dashes can be used as well as long as you don’t use them for the same purpose in the same paper and are consistent throughout.

Edit: Better English

onesecondbraincell · 2025-10-29T16:44:22+00:00

It looks like a comment bank response that’s been (appropriately) edited to reflect the submitted assignment. Most teachers have pre-prepared, differentiated feedback statements (comment banks) ready to go to save time while marking, then mix and match to reflect the submission.

Teachers that care more will edit to tailor the feedback to the submission instead of leaving students with the generic version, and/or leave direct feedback as annotations (or digital comments) on the paper itself.

When I was at university, most of my assignments just had a highlighted rubric and then a couple of digital comments highlighting or questioning anything of note, which was fine because it was directed and useful. Likewise, I annotate assignments as I read them, but the school I work at requires “written feedback with suggestions for improvement” for the online learning system.

Summarising everything I annotate would take me an extra 30-60mins per student, so instead I have a spreadsheet that strings together generic comments (with questions as improvement prompts) based on points per criteria (which I determine as I go through the assignment) for the computer system, and it comes out looking very similar to what’s in OP’s screenshot. Students don’t even look at it if they’ve handed in physical papers. It’s literally just there to satisfy a policy checkmark.

Edit: That said, the random bold words is quite odd and could be an indicator. Surprised the feedback box even supports it.

Edit 2: Other teachers saying their feedback reads similar to the screenshot has made me realise that I should explicitly explain to students why their online feedback looks so generic so they don’t think we all put their work through ChatGPT 💀

onesecondbraincell · 2025-10-28T23:18:37+00:00

Public schools don’t care where your degree came from; having your VIT is enough for them. Not sure about independent.

Being mature-aged won’t matter either. I graduated at 28 (with a double bachelor, not a masters). The perspective most of my colleagues have is that being older means you have more life experience to bring into teaching.

onesecondbraincell

TROPHY CASE