1. Australian Professional Standards for Teachers Unpacking the Standards

2. Contents
Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (the Standards)
Standards animation (video)
Purpose of the Standards
Organisation of the Standards
Resources to support the Standards
The Standards infographic
Presenter Notes
This slide provides participants with an overview of what is expected to be covered in a 30 minute presentation.

3. Australian Professional Standards for Teachers Animation
Presenter Notes
Australian Professional Standards for Teachers animation – 6.36min
This is an engaging introduction to the presentation providing participants with a broad understanding about the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (the Standards).
This animation describes what the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers are and why they have been developed.
Click to play

4. Australian Professional Standards for Teachers
Dual purpose:
improvement
career progression
Map progression:
Graduate
Proficient
Highly Accomplished
Lead
Presenter Notes
The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians commits Australia to ambitious goals for education. We have agreed that all young Australians should become
successful learners
as well as confident and creative individuals and
active and informed citizens.
How is it possible to ensure that all our students achieve success? The answer is good teaching. If there is one area of agreement in Australian education, it is this: good teachers generate good learning.
This is the starting point for the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (the Standards).
They are based on the belief that every young Australian must gain the benefit of a high quality education, and that good teaching is an essential element for that result.
They represent a national commitment to achieving the highest possible level of teacher quality so each young Australian can gain the best possible education.
Equity is built in, not an add on, and the Standards make a contribution to the critical goal in the Melbourne Declaration: ‘Australian schooling promotes equity and excellence’.
Equity in education consists mainly in doing whatever is required to ensure that each child achieves the best education of which he or she is capable. It is for this reason, the Standards are intended for every teacher of every student.
The classroom teacher is the key audience for these Standards.
Why? Because it is in the quality of every classroom teacher that the quality of an education system lives. The quality of an education system lives and breathes in the endeavours and quality of every classroom teacher.
So, supporting teachers to plan and manage their career path from initial training, induction and early experience through to the heights of the profession is vital. The Standards are intended to play a key role in supporting teachers. They provide a map of that progression from Graduate through Proficient and Highly Accomplished to Lead teacher.
They will help teachers work out what they need to learn in order to become the kinds of teachers that students need.
As teachers progress through their careers, they expand their capacity and take on new roles.
Some move into formal leadership roles.
Others exercise peer leadership, and the Standards define the contribution our Highly Accomplished and Lead teachers make to improving teaching and student learning, strengthening the profession and enhancing community relationships.
The Standards also articulate the personal skills needed by our best teachers: skills in collaboration, modeling, influencing, coaching, mentoring and supporting. Those teachers who are at the peak of the profession are our best resource in delivering on our most ambitious goals for young Australians.
By improvement we mean professional growth of teachers – the Standards inform the development of professional learning goals, and provide a performance and development framework by which teachers can judge the success of their learning and assist self-reflection and self-assessment
By accountability we mean the formal processes associated with the Standards at each career stage; the nationally consistent approaches to accreditation of initial teacher programs, registration and voluntary certification at the Highly Accomplished and Lead career stages

5. How are the Standards organised?
Presenter Notes
Organisation of the Standards
The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers comprise seven Standards which outline what teachers should know and be able to do. The Standards are interconnected, interdependent and overlapping.
The Standards are grouped into three domains of teaching: Professional Knowledge, Professional Practice and Professional Engagement. In practice, teaching draws on aspects of all three domains.
Click to the next slide to drill down into the focus areas and descriptors of the Standards.

6. How are the Standards organised?
Focus Area
Domain
The Standard
Presenter Notes
Organisation of the Standards(cont)
Click to reveal the key elements of the Standards (5 arrows in total will appear)
Within each Standard, Focus Areas provide further illustration of teaching knowledge, practice and professional engagement. These are then separated into Descriptors at four professional career stages: Graduate, Proficient, Highly Accomplished and Lead.
The focus areas and descriptors identify the components of quality teaching at each career stage. They constitute agreed characteristics of the complex process of teaching. An effective teacher is able to integrate and apply knowledge, practice and professional engagement as outlined in the descriptors to create teaching environments in which learning is valued.
Illustrations of Practice show what the Standard looks like at a particular career stage. They maybe a video demonstrating a particular focus area (Dynamic Illustration), or an annotated lesson plan or unit of work (Static Illustration) or a combination of both.
Descriptor
Illustrations of practice

7. Illustrations of Practice
Annotated artefacts (e.g. video, lesson plan or work sample) that show what the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers look like in action at a particular career stage.
Illustrations of practice
Presenter Notes
What is an Illustration of Practice?
Illustrations of Practice are 3-5 minute videos with supporting static resources and show what each descriptor of the Standards looks like at a particular career stage. There are currently 95 available on the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers website.
These resources are illustrations of specific qualities of teacher practice within a particular career stage of the Standards. The Illustrations describe what the teacher practice could look like in a range of contexts to help teachers situate their own practice within the Standards.
Their purpose is to:
bring the Standards to life to allow teachers to ‘see’ themselves
illustrate the Standards in action within a career stage
link to the Australian Curriculum where relevant
encourage teachers to reflect on their own practice
demonstrate & articulate what is required in order to meet the Standards
Professional teaching associations, employing authorities and Education Services Australia have all been involved in the development of Illustrations of Practice.
If time permits:
a) Click on the link provided. You will be taken to the Illustrations of Practice landing page on the AITSL website
b) If you then click on the box titled “What is an Illustration of Practice?” you will be taken to a short video clip which gives an explanation of the Illustrations of Practice (approx time 2.00 mins)
c) OR navigate your way around this page and take a look at any number of Illustrations that have been developed
d) OR watch an Illustration and reflect on the Questions for Discussion

8. Standards Infographic
What are the Standards?
What do the Standards look like in practice?
What do the Standards say about each career stage?
How will the Standards be used?
Presenter Notes
This is a graphical representation of the Standards.
If you click on this page arrows (6 in total) will appear to highlight the key aspects to the infographhic.
This is available as a PDF printout.
How will AITSL use the Standards?
What are people saying about the Standards?

9. Connecting with AITSL
aitsl.edu.au
teacherfeature.aitsl.edu.au
youtube.com/aitsleduau
iTunes U > Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership
Presenter Notes
Social media is becoming an effective medium to connect, share and collaborate with educators within Australia and all over the world through professional learning networks (PLNs) and communities of practice.
Connect tonight, record questions on twitter, make comments on facebook.