So I received the first edition of Teacher Magazine in my inbox today and dutifully scanned through some of the articles (having featured in an article I figured it’s only fair). It was here that I came across a rather unfortunate infographic…

See Teacher Magazine here…

The “Did you know?” infographic is a summary of the results of a study undertaken by the Grattan Institute on Making time for great teaching (the link to the report on Grattan website is dead but it can be downloaded from here). The unfortunate part is the underpinning messages that I was gleaning from what was represented.

• Reduce teacher involvement in extra-curricular activities
• Don’t waste time on subjects with small enrolments or non-core subjects
• One period a week on pastoral care is ‘too much time’
• 1 to 2 periods a week on PE is ‘too much time’
• 1 period a week on research skills is ‘too much time’
• Just get more money to fund teacher learning time

Of course the full report does go into detail on other elements such as the amount of time wasted supervising students in the schoolyard, detentions and exam supervisions… This isn’t even a complete list! ACER what messages did you think educators were going to extract from this?

On the plus side it suggests a program of professional learning taken from high performing education systems around the world that requires approximately 135 periods (112.5 hours) of professional learning throughout the year blending:

• Teacher mentoring and coaching
• Lesson and grade groups
• Research groups
• Teacher appraisal and feedback
• Classroom observation and feedback

Not a bad list of suggestions but if you’re suggesting that being out in the schoolyard building relationships with students, supervising extra-curricular activities to support students engaging in their personal interests, or engaging in pastoral care activities to promote student health and wellbeing aren’t directly linked to quality “teaching and learning” then I must be doing it wrong…

Can someone tell me how to do it right?