Image: Baby shower for Kirra Smith, Course Manager, Curriculum and Academic Management, who is now on Maternity Leave.

 

Farewell

Associate Professor Margaret Brooks departed UNE on 12 September 2023. Margaret was an integral part of the Early Childhood team and will go on to pursue her dreams in further international work. We wish Margaret luck and enjoyment in her new endeavours.

 

Recruitment

Several vacant positions will go to recruitment in the coming months.

 

Congratulations

Australian Council for Educational Leaders (ACEL) New England Group

• CSSP team for the HTB Harris Award for ‘Significant Contribution to Education’
• Associate Professor Ingrid Harrington for leadership of the CSSP the William Walker Award for ‘Excellence in Educational Leadership’

2023 UNE Sports Awards

• Dr Kristy O’Neill and Professor Pep Baker receive the ‘Spirit of Sport’ award.

This award is in honour of an individual or group exemplifying a steadfast commitment to advancing and nurturing sports in the community and at the University of New England. This is based on Kristy and Pep’s contributions to community sport via the programs for the Ezidi community that underpinned their research for the ‘Driving Social Inclusion through Sport and Physical Activity’ Australian Government – Department of Health grant funding 2021-2023. Their program enabled over 3,000 engagements in sport and physical activity.

School of Education Research Committee

· Dr Josh Matthews, Deputy Chair

· Dr Genevieve Thraves, Member of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Education field of research

· Dr Haoran Zheng, Early Career Researcher

 

Industry notes

From the Office for Professional Learning (OPL) (2022 statistics):

· A total of 1,818 Teacher Education Students were engaged in one or more placements during 2022 with a total of 2,779 placements being successfully completed.

· Collectively, our students racked up a total of 34,395 days on placement.

· Flow-on effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic … during 2022, NSW alone experienced 840,000 teacher sick days.

· The OPL sent out 1,449 placement requests and made around 7,245 follow-up phone calls to schools and centres for placements.

· The OPL’s surveys reached out to approximately 2,300 schools and centres to secure offers of placements for our students.

NSW Department of Education announced:

• Starting salary for a NSW teacher will increase from $75,791 to $85,000

• Salary for a top of the scale teacher will increase from $113,042 to $122,100

• All teachers will also move to a new higher paying step.

Strong Beginnings report – as a result of the QITE (Quality Initial Teacher Education) and Teacher Education Expert Panel (TEEP) Discussion Papers. All universities are working on how to implement recommendations from the New Beginnings document.

 

Noticeboard

ASCILITE – free membership for all in the university, please complete this form – join a SIG, social media, monthly newsletters, webinars, research schools, CMALT, TELAS, AJET, mentoring – community and women in academic leadership, grants, awards, bursaries, peer-assisted learning and AJET.
PPDR – Please start meeting with your Head of Department about setting and reviewing your goals for 2023. Ensure you discuss Teaching, Research and Service/Leadership outlining SMART Goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timebound).