Support a teacher maintaining Proficient Teacher accreditation

Employer's internal procedures

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Internal procedure responsibilities

As an employer, you are responsible for ensuring your Proficient Teachers maintain their teaching practice to meet the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (the Standards) at Proficient level to continue teaching in NSW schools or services.

This means you must:

have internal procedures for implementing requirements for maintaining Proficient Teacher accreditation
provide all teachers with a copy or access to all relevant 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 maintaining their Proficient Teacher accreditation
teachers regularly working in the school placed by a third party, for example an employment agency.

Definition of 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 attestation 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.

What must the procedures cover?

These internal procedures must include processes to ensure you fulfil your obligations in the following areas.

Support teachers to maintain their practice

Your internal procedures must include processes for:

providing timely feedback to teachers about their demonstration of practice at the Standards, including where they risk not meeting requirements
addressing issues related to their practice not maintaining the Standards when they arise during the maintenance period
addressing concerns about teachers’ professional practice through appropriate support.

Notify teachers at risk of failing to maintain their practice

Your internal procedures should ensure teachers at risk of not meeting the relevant Standards are:

advised of your obligation to notify NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA)
notified after a completed or substantially completed performance process
given 28 days to respond to the notice before a principal, service director or employer notifies NESA of the relevant decision.

Your notice to the teacher must include:

reasons for the decision, including the Standard Descriptors not met
details of the appropriate and timely support and advice given to the teacher about maintaining practice at the Standards
details of feedback and support given to the teacher, which may include intervention strategies or an improvement plan
details of the outcome of those strategies, plans and support
teacher’s right to respond to the written notice within 28 days and address the issues.

Performance process

Employers must provide appropriate and timely support to the teacher to meet the Standard Descriptors identified as an issue in their practice.

A substantially completed performance process is when the:

employer has provided the relevant support to address identified issues
employer has determined that the teacher’s practice does not meet the Standards
teacher resigns before fully completing the performance process
employer accepts that resignation.

Management of teacher accreditation matters

Your internal procedures must ensure:

conflicts of interest are managed
complaints and grievances are managed
records related to notices that a teacher has not maintained their practice at Proficient Teacher are kept and provided to NESA on request.

Employers play an important role in teachers’ professional development

Employers are responsible for supporting teachers maintaining accreditation by providing and ensuring access to appropriate quality professional development opportunities suited to their needs and contexts.

Through engaging in a variety of ongoing PD activities, teachers update their knowledge and skills in pedagogy, curriculum, learning and assessment, wellbeing and safety to have the greatest impact on improving student/child learning.

PD activities should meet the needs and contexts of your teachers

The NESA Professional Development Framework is developed to guide teachers, principals/service directors and employers to identify types of PD activities that best suit teachers’ professional needs and context.

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