St Andrew’s Cathedral School (SACS) has entered into a creative partnership with three other Sydney Schools – Scots College, William Clarke Anglican College and Blue Mountains Grammar School – to ‘home grow’ some of our own teachers from amongst our own senior students. The initiative will help address the anticipated growth in the number of teachers required in NSW schools in the next 10 years (a need occasioned by growth in enrolments and also by the anticipated retirement of the large number of teachers who are part of the baby boomer generation).
The model operates around a clinical supervision methodology, whereby trainee teachers we select are embedded on rotation within the participating schools, both for practical teaching experience, and also to learn the craft of schools through part-time work as teachers’ aides during their degree years.
Much of the theoretical components of teacher education will be delivered on site in conjunction with the teacher education staff of Alphacrucis College, which is authorised by TEQSA (Tertiary Education Quality Standards Authority) and NESA (NSW Education Standards Authority) to both offer degrees (up to doctoral level) and prepare people for teaching. The focus is on Initial Teacher Education (ITE), and Alphracrucis fulfils our needs as a partner – appreciative and cognisant of our school’s own Anglican theology, and registered to accredit courses that are quality assured and robust.
The Teaching Alliance will complement the work of traditional universities, giving schools like SACS more recruitment options – the key difference being that it will offer the opportunity to develop emerging teachers who are grounded in our context and apt to teach in our environment.
For more information about the Teaching Alliance, please visit https://www.teachingschoolsalliancesydney.org/program.html
