Employers

Employers must ensure teachers are accredited and internal procedures to support accreditation are in place. Find out more about your responsibilities to support teachers applying for and maintaining Proficient Teacher and Highly Accomplished and Lead Teacher (HALT) accreditation.

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Changes to HALT accreditation

We’ve streamlined the requirements to achieve and maintain Highly Accomplished or Lead Teacher accreditation.

The simplified application process reduces the amount of evidence required and offers flexible ways to submit evidence.

Watch our video about the HALT accreditation changes

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Active accreditation

As an employer, you are responsible for ensuring teachers you employ are actively accredited to teach in NSW. Read Section 14.7 of the Teacher Accreditation Manual (TA Manual) for more details about your responsibilities.

Internal procedures

You must also have internal procedures in place to support teachers applying for and maintaining Proficient Teacher and HALT accreditation. You must provide all teachers with a copy or access to the procedures.

Who is covered by the procedures?

Your procedures for implementing the requirements apply to:

principals and service directors
casual, part-time, and full-time teachers
non-school or service based teachers
teachers regularly working in a school or service placed by a third party, for example an employment agency.

Who is considered a service director?

A service director is a teacher who:

is accredited at Proficient Teacher or above
has seniority over the teachers whose practice they are making an accreditation recommendation or verification for.

They may not have a service director title. The service director function may be assigned to an accredited teacher in the same service or delegated to another teacher within the employer. If there is no one to carry out the service director role, the employer must contact NESA.

Early childhood employers must nominate a primary contact person as their employer representative. This contact person is for all matters relating to teacher accreditation.

Read more information about the contact person's role in Nominating an early childhood employer representative (PDF 199.62KB).

Support a teacher applying for Proficient Teacher accreditation

Your internal procedures must ensure:

teachers making accreditation recommendations are accredited at Proficient Teacher or above
Provisional and Conditional teachers are allocated an Accreditation Supervisor and supervised
Provisional and Conditional teachers employed as casual, part-time or full-time are given ongoing support and feedback about their practice relating to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (the Standards)
timely feedback is provided to all teachers about their demonstration of practice at the Standards, including where they risk not meeting requirements.

NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) recommends teachers are allocated an Accreditation Supervisor as soon as possible after they are employed.

For more on how to support a teacher applying for Proficient Teacher, read Applying for Proficient Teacher Accreditation Procedure Information for K–12 employers (PDF 123.9KB).

Early childhood employers should refer to Applying for Proficient Teacher Accreditation Procedure – interim arrangements (PDF 277.06KB).

Support a teacher maintaining Proficient Teacher accreditation

You must have internal procedures to support your teachers maintaining their Proficient Teacher accreditation.

Read more about employer responsibilities to support teachers maintaining Proficient Teacher accreditation.

Support a teacher applying for HALT accreditation

Employers play an important role in supporting principals or service directors and applicants to meet requirements for HALT accreditation. Your internal procedures must include processes to support principals or service directors to fulfil their responsibility as described in the TA Manual.

Responsibilities include:

providing a supportive environment for teachers applying for HALT accreditation
participating in initial discussions with the teacher about their intention and readiness to apply for HALT accreditation
verifying a teacher meets the eligibility criteria for HALT accreditation
verifying a teacher’s individual contribution to a collaborative initiative, if applicable
supporting applicants through a NESA recognised program, if applicable
accommodating Site Visits for HALT applicants and participating in a 30-minute structured interview with the External Assessor.

For more information read Support a teacher applying for HALT accreditation.

Support a teacher maintaining HALT accreditation

Your internal procedures must ensure:

any principal, service director or delegate making a verification about maintenance of HALT accreditation is accredited at Proficient Teacher or above. A principal not accredited at Proficient Teacher must nominate a delegate who is, and who is employed in the same school to carry out the duties related to making maintenance verifications
verifications about the maintenance of HALT accreditation are made by the end of the relevant timeframe
timely feedback is provided to all teachers about their demonstration of practice in relation to the Standards. This includes where teachers are at risk of not meeting the requirements for accreditation by the end of the relevant timeframe
teachers are notified of any issue(s) with their practice and given 28 days to respond and address those issues before a principal, service director, or employer verifies that a teacher's practice does not meet the relevant Standard(s)
issues related to a teacher’s practice not meeting the applicable Standard(s) are addressed as and when they arise at any point during the maintenance period
any concerns relating to teachers’ ongoing professional practice are addressed through appropriate support
records related to verifications that a teacher has not maintained their practice at HALT are kept and provided to NESA on request.

For more information read Support a teacher maintaining HALT accreditation.

Guidance when there is an issue

Your internal procedures must include guidance for what to do when there is an issue, including how to:

notify NESA when there are grounds for suspension or revocation of accreditation
manage conflicts of interest
manage complaints and grievances.