QLD Australia: Requirements for Montessori teachers

As my avid readers would know by now, every state in Australia has "almost" different set of requirements to work in the education industry.

These are the requirements for working in Montessori centres and schools in Queensland, Australia as per the Queensland Montessori Association (QMA). As said before, holding a Montessori diploma does not entitle the candidate to "teach" in a Montessori centre in the context of Australia. You still need to have a tertiary qualification (3 or 4- year teaching degree on top of it).

Take note that although these are the requirements set out in Queensland, the criterias are almost similar across the states in Australia. Also particularly important to know that across the states, candidates who are registered as a teacher with the individual state's College of Teaching are normally exempt from possessing a Blue Card / Working With Children Check (WWCC).

A WWCC is a compulsory regulation for all individuals who have long-term direct contact with children across all settings, whether it be in a commercial or a voluntary basis. Each state has its own regulations of obtaining a WWCC, so be sure to check out beforehand if you intend to travel & work inter-state and save you the trouble of how to obtain it.

To work in a Montessori School as a Teacher you need

• Registration with the Queensland College of Teaching
• Recognised teaching degree - Bachelor of Education for primary grades, or Bachelor of Early Childhood Education for Cycle 1
• Montessori qualification
• Current senior First Aid and CPR qualifications

To work in a Montessori Primary School as an Assistant you need

• Current Blue Card
• Previous experience in an educational setting
• Montessori credentials
• Current senior First Aid and CPR qualifications

To work in a Montessori Creche or Kindergarten as a Teacher you need

• Montessori Diploma
• Minimum Bachelor of Teaching (early childhood), preferred Bachelor of Education (early childhood)
• Queensland College of Teachers (QTC) registration
• Current senior First Aid and CPR qualifications

To work in a Montessori Creche or Kindergarten as an Assistant you need

• Montessori qualification
• Certificate 111 Diploma in Community Services (Children’s Services)
• Current senior First Aid and CPR qualifications
• Current Blue Card

To work in a Montessori Long Day Care Centre as a Director you need

• Bachelor of Teaching (Early Childhood), or Bachelor of Early Childhood, or Advanced Diploma in Children’s Services
• Registration with the Queensland College of Teaching (for teachers), or Current Blue Card (for Group Leaders)
  
• Montessori credentials
• Current senior First Aid and CPR qualifications.

To work in a Montessori Long Day Care Centre as a Group Leader / Teacher you need:

• Bachelor of Teaching (Early Childhood), or Bachelor of Early Childhood, or Certificate 111 Diploma in Community Services (Children’s Services)
• Registration with the Queensland College of Teaching, or Current Blue Card.
• Montessori credentials
• Current senior First Aid and CPR qualifications

To work in a Montessori Long Day Care Centre as an Assistant you need:

• Certificate 111 Diploma in Community Services (Children’s Services)
• Current Blue Card
• Current senior First Aid and CPR qualifications

NSW: Requirements for hiring an Early Childhood Teacher.

Hi readers, how are you guys getting on? I just came back from trying to catch a glimpse of Keanu Reeves at his premiere of Street Kings in Sydney earlier this evening.Well, so much for my brushing with fame anyways. Ha ha.

Last week, I was assigned to a centre on the way to Chatswood for a week block to work with pre-schoolers (3-5 yrs) and toddlers (2-3yrs). The centre was further away from the city, so the staff were mostly Anglo-Australian locals. This week, I was assigned to a centre in North Sydney. So far, I realised that the childcare centres which are nearer to the city have more multi-cultural staff compared to those which are further away. I would say this is how most cities are like anyways.

For the past two days, I have worked with babies (0-2 years) group in the nursery. Compared to the toddler age group I have worked with last week, babies are much more dependent on adults than toddlers are. Adults have to do everything from feeding, cleaning, and changing their nappies. Because babies can only babble, adults have to rely heavily on non-verbal as well as verbal clues given by the babies in order to meet their needs.

When babies cry, it could sound like a happy bubbly laugh, a whimpering, or plain loud crying! The two main contact persons in the centre are a trained Montessori lady from India, & the other a local-Aussie girl who is just completing her Cert III.

Yup, for the past two days, I have been changing nappies for babies! I don't know how I managed to go through so many weeks without ever having to change nappies, but I did not manage to escape this week! In the past two days, I must have changed nappies like 15 times in day, from the whole routine of putting on gloves, lining the bed with napkins, changing poo-filled nappies & disinfecting the beds to clearing out bags full of smelly, stinky nappies! Phew..!

I also understood more about the (NSW DoCS (Dept. of Community Services) requirements today. The director that is in charge of the centre I am assigned to this week is actually in charge of another centre I was assigned to a couple of weeks back!

Apparently the reason why I had been contracted to the centres in the past two weeks is because of the DoCS requirements that if the centre has more than about 39, or 59 children they need to adhere to Clause 52 whereby they are required to have a "teaching staff" to commensurate with the ratio for this amount.

1) Clause 52:
a) has a degree/ diploma in early childhood education from a university following a course with a duration (on a full-time basis) of not less than 3 years, or
(b) has some other approved qualification, or
(c) has other approved training and other approved experience.

The director also asked me to bring a copy of my qualification based on :

Clause 93:
1) Centre based and mobile children’s services
The licensee of a centre based or mobile children’s service must ensure that the following records are made and kept up to date in relation to each member of staff of the service:
(a) a copy of any relevant qualification held by the member,
(b) a copy of any first aid qualification held by the member,
(c) any other particulars that the Director-General requires, by notice in writing served on the licensee, to be kept in relation to the member.

(2) The licensee of a centre based or mobile children’s service must ensure that records are made and kept up to date of the day to day attendance of each member of staff, casual employee or contractor of the service, including times of arrival and departure during the day and including details of all absences

(3) All children’s services: The licensee of a children’s service must ensure that records are made and kept up to date of the attendance of any visitor to the premises of the service, including times of arrival and departure.

(4) The records kept under this clause in relation to any person must be signed by the person.

Anyways, regardless of the requirements that an ECT is needed as per the legislation set out, candidates have to know that if the centre doesn't like the ECT who has been contracted, they may not ask that candidate to return to the centre to work again. So, work rapport & managing interpersonal skills with other staff is important aside from having the right credentials as well as qualifications.

Have fun working, kids!

Australia: "Standardised Education" across the states.

Even we have standardised education systems in Malaysia.

What happened to the country of Australia? This is a question that I would like to pose to the different education boards across the different states in Australia.

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN??

In the context of this blog entry, it means having "standardised testing" where all states in Australia could adopt one standard Key Learning Area for all schools, as well as providing the same respect for teacher qualifications.

MY EXPERIENCE- WHAT HAPPENED TO ME

I will share with all my experience of what has happened to me in my journey of moving across Queensland to work in New South Wales.

Today, I received in an e-mail from one of my employers that the Department of Community Services in New South Wales has rejected my Queensland childcare qualification as equivalent to the qualification in NSW Education.

I believe it is because the title of my degree does not appear on either Victoria or NSW's approved list of qualifications. Yes, it seems that the state of NSW has such a requirement that only certain teaching qualifications are accepted to be their equal, eventhough it may have come from a qualified and trusted Australian Tertiary Education Provider.

ARE NSW CHILDCARE CENTRES ALL THAT DIFFERENT FROM THAT IN QLD?

Unfortunately the answer is NO.

From my work experience, I have found that childcare centres in Queenslands employ the same teaching routines and procedures as that in New South Wales. Actually, whether it is within the Australia or New Zealand area perimeters, day-to-day childcare teaching & room schedules, whether it takes place in the nursery, toddler or preschool age group, THEY ARE almost similar.

The only difference is the type of programming (or curriculum planning) that is being used by the group leaders/ ECTs to assess the children's developmental areas.

From my experience as a childcare relief staff these past many months, and having the opportunity to have travelled to both private as well as govt. funded & community centres, this is a fact that I can attest to.

QUALIFICATIONS ASSESSING PROCEDURES

Thankfully, the credential assessment in NSW is FREE. Yeap, job applicants are not charged a dime for completing a NSW Working With Children Check procedure, but is a complimentary service provided by the Dept. and is undertaken by the Employer as part of their responsibilities to screen prospective job applicants.

In the state of Victoria however, it is a requirement for staff who want to find employment in the childcare or education industry to possess Police Check (abt $30). The Victoria Working With Children Check (abt $71). The advantage about both is that once procured, it keeps processing time to a minimum for the applicants being that they are transferable in the employment process, and hence only references checking is required.

I really don't understand why the state of Victoria have to be the only state that makes it a necessity to have a Police Check when the others don't. Who died & made Victoria lord over all the others, when the others didn't have to, eh??

The staff who have only studied and worked in Victoria all this while will not be aware of requirements in other states. This was brought to light after having an audience with a friend of mine who has incidentally been in Victoria for over 4 years. She showed much surprise when I told her that the other states had no such requirements!

It is really beyond my understanding why the country of Australia is unable to "standardise" each state's department of education to provide a standard form testing for the education system. It is understandable if teachers hold a foreign qualification, which would deem the situation to be acceptable to have the foreign teaching credential to be assessed for its equivalency to Australia's standards.

THE IRONY OF IT ALL...

It's ironic however, that my Queensland qualification is accepted in every other country, but not in a different state within Australia. Granted, Australia IS a huge mass expanse, but people live far and between in sporadic spots here & there.

A TOTAL WASTE OF GOVERNMENT FUNDING....

Actually, there were some complaints from my Australian lecturers when I was at uni. One of them incidentally remarked that the area of New York has probably far more people in that state than the entire of Australia put together, and they only required ONE STANDARD Education System (Testing) . The money could be put to better use like medical research instead of producing so many different types of education syllabuses. Perhaps the govt. wants to provide employment in such a redundant way?

A WASTE OF MY TIME

As I have looked through the education syllabuses, I have found that these KLAs technically and essentially are almost the same in principle, but the time & costs required to publish different sets for each state is time consuming and a waste of resources in my opinion.

This really questions the need of having to assess qualifications for teachers who want transfer inter-state is really a time consuming & costly affair.

Basically I have worked my bottom off so hard for over four years only to know that I now have to spend another $66 dollars just to get my AUSTRALIAN Qualification assessed just because its title doesn't appear on the list of approved qualifications (which they should continually update on a yearly basis so that it cost us applicants less trouble). I would be able to procure six nice pair of collar shirts for myself with that amount, I reckon.

OTHER NOTICES
Anyways, a further notice to all aspiring candidates (especially those coming from UK or Malaysia), this is to inform all that just because an individual holds an International Diploma in Montessori Pedagogy doesn't immediately entitle them to work as a qualified childcare worker in Australia. In fact you'd still go under the category of untrained staff until you had your credentials assessed to Australian standards (which you will have to fork out more of the dough *again*).

In fact in most states, if you do not hold a 4 yr teaching degree, you are not legally allowed to practise to be a teacher until the candidate gets prior approval from the state's teacher registry.

BUT SOME GOOD NEWS, FOR ME THAT IS.....
Anyways, some good news. I scored an overall grade of band 8 for my Academic format IELTS. Isn't that great news? I've been praying about it and it was thoroughly happy when I got my results. I was only hoping to get 6, but an overall band of 8 is more than I expected!!

^^