I can very clearly remember my first year as a teacher in Far North Queensland in the early 1990’s. As it was so very far away from my home here in Toowoomba and such a very different community to what I was accustom to, it took me a great deal of time to settle in.

Thankfully, the class I had were beautiful (if not challenging) and I was very much able to throw myself into the teaching aspect of my life. I was also lucky to have a principal who made efforts to include me in the community in a variety of ways.

But it was very isolating and very lonely. I did not cope very well with this aspect of existence and struggled at times personally. For you, what are the key things that you can do to help you support yourself as a beginning teacher? What are your concerns? Share your ideas about what you think your first year will look like.

In this week’s presentation, my friend and colleague, Mark Butlin, discusses some of the key aspects of the law that teachers need to be aware of.

During my career, I was very lucky not to have had any legal proceedings brought against me or any of my teachers. This does not, however, mean that things did not take place that could have led to such proceedings, particularly in terms of injury to students or supervision matters.

What particularly concerns you in relation to legal matters and being a teacher? Do you have any key concerns?

OneSchool is the Department of Education’s student data management application and is used in all State School in Queensland.

David discusses a range of uses for OneSchool and highlights how it can aide teachers in fully understanding their class and the data that is collected about students.

What are your thoughts of the software and how you might use it in the future?

As you have seen in this presentation, the QCT have a number of responsibilities with respect to Queensland teachers. Take some time to review the Professional Boundaries document and also take a look at the Code of Ethics for Queensland Teachers. Are there any aspects of either of these documents that you find challenging or interesting.

I would be very keen to hear your views. Also feel free to ask any questions you may have about either document or the functions of the Queensland College of Teachers.

Hi everyone and welcome to our EDM8004 blog site. As you may have seen in the Assessment area on StudyDesk, our course is going to help pilot a new ePortfolio platform (CampusPress) this semester. I am excited to be doing this as I will be learning alongside you, developing my own ePortfolio using the same platform.

As part of the trial, I thought it might be nice for us to have a place to share our thoughts about each week’s Industry Presentation. This goes beyond the assessment task, to actually talking about the implications of each presentation for you as a beginning (or soon to be beginning) teacher.

This week’s presentation was by the two education unions in Queensland. The QTU supporting governmental school teachers and the Independent Education Union, supporting those in other schools.

I was a QTU member throughout my career. For me, it was insurance against litigation. However, for me as a young teacher and someone not politically minded, I had always seen unions as a bit unsavoury and militant. Having said that, I most certainly benefited from the union’s cause and saw a raft of improvements due to their influence.

As a principal though, I was sort of caught between a rock and a hard place. When there were strikes, for example, someone had to be at school to look after the students that came in. I also had a young family and mortgage and could not afford to lose a day’s pay.

I’d love to hear your experiences and opinions. Please reply to this post if you would like to join the conversation.