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Behind the scenes, your union is working hard for you, be that in your school, your sector (Catholic, Lutheran or Independent) or engaged nationally on matters that affect your workplace.

Sharing our wins for members is very important.

How else will members understand and appreciate the true value of their IEU membership without knowing what the IEU bargains, negotiates and wins on members’ behalf.

The IEU has a big win re National Consistent Collection of Data (NCCD) requirements.

Led by our NSW/ACT and QLD/NT IEU Branches,  much work has gone into highlighting that the requirements from some employers was not aligned with the requirements of the Federal Education Department – Department for Education, Skills and Employment (DESE).

Schools were asking teachers to produce way more evidence than was required by DESE — even to the point of producing evidence in multiple formats, resulting in higher workloads that are completely unnecessary to meet the NCCD requirements.

These unnecessary workload implications have been addressed.

To assist members, the IEU has produced a ‘simple to follow’ poster of what is and isn’t required by DESE for the NCCD. (You can download this here)

In fact, Principals are extremely grateful to the IEU for providing clarity as they had been working on the assumption that the extra information was required.

The next step is to ensure all teachers understand what is required and what is in not required. Where your school’s requirements are identified as exceeding NCCD requirements, we can work with your IEU Sub-Branch and the school to reach a suitable resolution.

IEU wins for members can be local to a school or its sector

IEU wins are often localised to a sector or school. One such example is addressing ‘Dual Mode Delivery’.

We have had a number of schools requiring teachers to work online or provide work for students isolating, whilst teaching their normal face to face classes. Through the activity of IEU Sub-Branches, and with intervention from IEU Organisers, we have been able to address these concerns and stop the dual mode delivery.

For clarity, dual mode delivery includes:

• Expecting teachers to concurrently run a class with students attending online and the remainder of the class attending face to face.
• Expecting teachers to run a class online only, but the teacher having duty of care responsibilities for students attending at the school.
• Expecting teachers to run a class face to face, but outside of that lesson running the lesson again online or meeting with, or checking in with students who are home.
• Expecting teachers to run a class face to face, but then providing work for students who are not at school.

If any of these are happening in your workplace then raise it with your IEU School Rep(s) and your IEU Organiser.

More collective voices strengthen the members’ collective power.

By highlighting IEU wins, we want to demonstrate to both members and potential members that together with you, our collective voice make our Union stronger. The more voices we have, the stronger our collective power.

Reaching out to the future of teaching

Tim Oosterbaan, our Pre-service Teacher (PST) Coordinator and Deputy Secretary, had the pleasure of presenting the benefits of IEU membership to around 100 University of Adelaide PSTs.

This presentation included explaining how Early Career Teachers (ECTs) are more likely to stay in their teaching career when fully supported by the IEU as IEU members. PSTs can join the IEU for FREE whilst they are studying.

The majority of PSTs at the presentation signed up for IEU Student Associate Membership and we welcome them.

We look forward to them successfully finishing their studies and working in the non-government sector, and becoming long term IEU members.

Ask a PST to join the IEU – it’s free.

If you have a PST at your school this year, please speak to them about joining. Send them to this link for more information: https://ieusa.org.au/student-associate-membership

• One key support we offer PSTs is advice about the culture and general membership reaction to schools where they are applying for jobs.
• Student members can also access our FREE Inhouse and Online Professional Learning.
• As PSTs transition to be ECTs we offer a 50% membership fee reduction in the first year.
• For an ECT, the ability to keep in regular contact with a qualified and industry experienced support team, who they can confidential chat to, is invaluable. And, we believe this is a vital step for their success in their first years of teaching.

Joining the IEU can be the best support you can give them and the best career move they make.

Contact our office on 8410 0122 or enquiries@ieusa.org.au if you would like to discuss this article further.