The Department of Education is calling for feedback on a draft plan aimed at changing the way teachers work at school to give them more quality time to spend preparing and teaching students.
Minister for Education, Sarah Mitchell said the Department’s draft Quality Time Action Plan to simplify administrative practices in schools (September 2021) set an ambitious agenda for reducing duplicative, repetitive and low-value administrative tasks in schools.
“We know that quality teachers have the biggest impact on student outcomes – by streamlining and simplifying the work done outside of the classroom, we can enhance the experience and outcomes within the classroom,” Ms Mitchell said.
“The Department needs to always support teachers to do their best work,” she said.
“This Plan is about asking teachers to help shape the solutions they need from the system.”
Ms Mitchell said opportunities for reform identified in the Action Plan included an overhauled assessment system which would allow teachers to generate individual student focused assessments in minutes; an online tool for teachers to store, find, share and tailor lesson plans; and streamlined administration requirements for maintaining accreditation.
“While lesson planning, marking and reporting are core parts of the job, we can make these processes smarter, more intuitive and high-value rather than cumbersome, repetitive and wasteful,” she said.
“Not only will this give teachers back valuable time to focus on learning, it will enable us to scale best practice resources and teaching approaches in classrooms across NSW.”
Ms Mitchell said the Department was seeking feedback on the draft Plan from parents and carers, teachers and school staff until 29 October.
The Department’s 15-page Action Plan can be downloaded at this PS News link.
