Top teachers, including graduates, would get a bonus to teach in underperforming schools. Good luck to them. It'll be interesting to see if it works. My guess is that it won't. One, the government won't be willing to pay enough. Secondly, tossing the graduates into that environment is more likely to put them off teaching for good unless they get an amazing amount of support, which the government is unlikely to provide. Teachers tend to like to teach in areas similar to those they grow up in. How many teachers originally from the western suburbs are there in the education system?
Incidentally, if the staff succeed and pull up a school so that it is no longer underperforming, will that mean that their salary will then go down? If they don't, how does this accord with schools that already are performing to the correct 'standards'? That would be unfair on those teachers and schools already doing a good job.
One good thing in the article seems to be that the government wants a reduction in the number of pupil-free days. I've said before all-school pupil-free days are a waste of resources. Using a scatter-gun approach to professional development never works. They might want to also look a t the number of days some staff take off for PD. It is ridiculous the number of days taken off. I hear that there is a new process for applying for departmental PD that has a ridiculous number of hoops to jump through. That ought to slow things down a little. I'll have to investigate this.
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