AEU New Educators Conference Report
By Emma Setterfield and Luke Nickholds
Summary
In the final weeks of Term 4, the Australian Education Union held a National New Educators Conference in Perth on December 4th and 5th. The conference itself was only for Saturday and Sunday, but getting there from Southern South Island meant it took both of us an extra day's travel on either side. Along with us, there were approximately 80 delegates from across the AEU’s state and territory bodies, plus delegates from NZEI, the SNTA (Samoa National Teachers’ Union) and JTU (Japan Teachers’ Union).
Highlights of the conference were the Welcome to Country performance (performed by kids ranging from toddler to mid teens, it was beyond beautiful!), the International Panel (learning about the differences in education around the world, and seeing the Australians react to some of our points!), and learning about the AEU (and the similarities/differences with the PPTA). It was a great experience and we’ve come back full of ideas for our NETs, as well as suitcases full of merch (not literally).
Common issues for new educators
Unsurprisingly there were some common themes that arose from new educators across state and national borders. The impact of covid has made it harder for those who’ve trained recently - either through reduced practicums, being expected to online teach when you’re still learning regular teaching, or just simply from the added stress during a time in your career that’s already stressful enough.
Attraction and retention of teachers was another universal issue, yet still many teachers were employed on fixed-term contracts where they shouldn’t. Delegates also raised concerns about how to find their voice and have their voices heard, both within schools and within union structures.
On reflection it's hard to know whether it is heartening to know we’re not alone, or depressing to know that these issues were widespread
Interesting Workshops
- A presentation from Cool Australia (https://www.coolaustralia.org/) about teaching students how to solve ‘wicked problems’. Some of their free resources are well worth checking out
- A workshop on the “The path to YES” in the upcoming Australian Referendum for an indigenous voice to Parliament. This referendum is an area that the AEU is going to put some significant effort into supporting.
- A workshop on “Asking Powerful Questions”, which were then used to record video questions for the new
- Education Minister Jason Clare. Video’s which he agreed to reply back to!
- A presentation on LGBTQIA progress in Education. Contrary to what you might expect, not all new educators felt up to speed in this area
- A workshop on building capacity and the importance of stories in organising. Well worth replicating at our own upcoming NETs Conference
Indigenous culture and voice in the AEU
The differences between the AEU and the PPTA on indigenous matters (or between any australian unions and NZ unions) is always noticeable, but Luke in particular found it pleasing to see the progress that has been made in the last decade. That said, the different attitudes were a little bit shown in how many delegates were surprised that Luke was able to speak in te reo māori after “only” being here 7 years.
The conference begun with a Welcome to Country ceremony featuring local students of all ages, and the strong commitment from the AEU to promoting the upcoming referendum was also pleasing to see.
Feedforward for NETs Conference in April
A major benefit from attendance was gathering ideas for the PPTA’s New & Establishing Teachers Conference to be held in the Term 1/Term 2 holidays this year. As well as topics listed elsewhere in this report some ideas include:
- Merchandise prize draws throughout the day as a way to smooth over lulls between conference sessions
- Simple ways of grouping members for workshops
- A novel way of doing Q&A with the President (watch out Chris!)
- Most excitingly - plans to invite AEU members to our conference
Interesting/Fun
It wouldn’t be a union conference without some fun and interesting moments! We started the conference off with a
n interactive activity, where we learnt about some of the initiatives each state branch/union were implementing for their new educators. One that blew many away was the ITE Internship Programme in Queensland. It provides new Queensland educators with financial support during study, a paid internship teaching position with support in the classroom and a permanent teaching position in a Queensland state school.
At times we would often forget that the AEU had teachers all the way from ECE to Secondary. There never seemed to be a ‘divide’ between the groups, and in fact they shared a lot of common issues, and showed support of any issues that they didn’t share. Perhaps, one day, we might have the same relationship with our ECE/Primary union brothers and sisters!
Neither of us had ever been to Perth, so we were excited to see a wee bit of it in our short time there! The AEU were great hosts, and treated us to two very fun nights. The conference itself was sponsored by Teachers Health, and they hosted a dinner on the Swan River waterfront that we were invited along to. For the conference dinner itself, we were all placed on a bus out to Scarborough Beach and went to a beach club (appropriate for a bunch
of young teachers!). We were fortunate enough to see the sunset over the Indian Ocean, which was absolutely beautiful but extremely fast! We decided to join a group of teachers to see the Perth nightlife, but we lasted a good ten minutes before needing to go home (due to jet lag, not being able to keep up!). Some other interesting points, Perth has amazing public transport to the airport and Emma cannot handle the dry Australian heat.