EEO AND OHS Commitment
Applicants seeking part-time employment are encouraged to apply for any teaching service position and, if they are the successful candidate, request a reduced time fraction. Such requests will be negotiated on a case-by-case basis and will be subject to the operational requirements of the school.
The Department of Education is committed to the principles of equal opportunity, and diversity and inclusion for all. We value diversity and inclusion in all forms - gender, religion, ethnicity, LGBTIQ+, disability and neurodiversity. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander candidates are strongly encouraged to apply for roles within the Department. The Department recognises that the provision of family friendly, supportive, safe and harassment free workplaces is essential to high performance and promotes flexible work, diversity and safety across all schools and Department workplaces. It is our policy to provide reasonable adjustments for persons with a disability (see Workplace adjustment guidelines).
Additional support and advice on the recruitment process is available to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders from the Koorie Outcomes Division (KOD) via [email protected]
Child Safe Standards
Victorian government schools are child safe environments. Our schools actively promote the safety and wellbeing of all students, and all school staff are committed to protecting students from abuse or harm in the school environment, in accordance with their legal obligations including child safe standards. All schools have a Child Safety Code of Conduct consistent with the department's exemplar available at:
https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/child-safe-standards/policy
DE Values
The department's employees commit to upholding the department's Values: Responsiveness, Integrity, Impartiality, Accountability, Respect, Leadership and Human Rights. The department's Values complement each school's own values and underpin the behaviours the community expects of Victorian public sector employees, including those who work in Victorian Government Schools. Information on the department values is available at:
https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/values-department-vps-school-employees/overview
Conditions of Employment
- All staff employed by the Department and schools have access to a broad range of employment conditions and working arrangements.
- Appointment of successful applicants will be made subject to a satisfactory pre-employment conditions check.
- A probationary period may apply during the first year of employment and induction and support programs provided.
- Detailed information on all terms and conditions of employment is available on the Department's Human Resources website at http://www.education.vic.gov.au/hrweb/Pages/default.aspx
VIT LANTITE
To be eligible for employment, transfer or promotion in the principal or teacher class a person must have provisional or full registration from the Victorian Institute of Teaching. In addition, from 3 August 2020, to be eligible for employment in the principal class or teacher class, a person who graduated from a Victorian Initial Teacher Education program after 1 July 2016, must demonstrate that they have passed the literacy and numeracy test for initial teacher education (LANTITE) requirements. This condition is satisfied where the LANTITE requirement is part of the Victorian Initial Teacher Education program completed by the person.
Location Profile
Yarra Me School seeks a Class Teacher for an Acting Leading Teacher role.
Yarra Me School is a vibrant, dynamic and inclusive Victorian Department of Education specialist school focused on building the social and emotional capability and wellbeing of our students, so they become better equipped to engage in learning at their mainstream schools. With the main campus located in Preston and another in Hurstbridge, Yarra Me School provides services to state primary schools in the North-East Metropolitan and Hume Merri-bek Areas within the North-Western Victoria Region.
Yarra Me School Students
Typically, Yarra Me School students are experiencing complex and significant social, emotional, behavioural, and learning challenges, contributing to profoundly disrupted engagement at their mainstream school. Students are typically in the Years F-6, whilst the Hurstbridge Farm campus supports students aged 10-17 years.
Yarra Me School Staff
Yarra Me School teachers are typically highly experienced specialist educators who are characterised by emotional intelligence, open-mindedness, determination, adaptability, collaboration, and visible commitment to person-centred approaches.
Yarra Me School Vision
We are deeply passionate champions for positive and respectful relationships, inclusive learning environments, and resilient people.
Yarra Me School Mission
We provide valued and respected programs that collaboratively deliver personalised, evidence-based trauma and social and emotional learning practices that support life-long learning for families, schools and students.
Yarra Me School Philosophy
Central to all Yarra Me School programs is the concurrent observation of Personalisation, Pedagogy, and Partnerships, which are exemplified in the following:
- Relationship development is the first and necessary step to enable learning; students learn via relationships and community, not in social isolation. The trauma-informed approach recognises that Adverse Childhood Experiences disrupt student development and that students will re-claim their capability with attuned, person-centred support and interventions.
- The Voice and Agency of the student and their parents / carers are crucial enabling factors for the student¿s development and the fidelity of the Team Around the Learner.
- Student success is achieved by building the student¿s Personal & Social Capabilities across multiple settings.
- This is achieved when the adults provide an environment that encourages the student to thrive.
- Thriving occurs when the student believes they are safe, that they belong, that they are understood and cared for, that their environment is predictable, that they are well-held by strong and clear expectations, and that interventions are attuned to their specific strengths, capabilities and developmental needs.
- To thrive the student also needs sustained relationships with adults that develop the student¿s understanding of their world and their place in it. Through these relationships, through the supports and expectations held, through the person-centred and other interventions provided, through the language shared, and through the efforts to help the student make meaning of their experiences, the student can develop better responses to their world. Thus, the student can achieve wellbeing and learning concurrently, which leads to increased engagement with schooling.
- Developing a well-coordinated Team Around the Learner is necessary to achieve student success, and also to sustain student success, especially when it provides consistency and predictability across home and school settings. The Team Around the Learner typically consists of the student, the parents/guardians, the mainstream school ES, teachers & leaders, and other professionals.
- The conditions for sustained student success are the concurrent engagement of student, parents/carers, and mainstream school teachers, education support staff, and leadership.
- Essentially, every response to the student is developmentally attuned, person-centred, and personalised; pedagogy is personalised and designed to promote the student¿s self-efficacy; and, in partnership, the adults provide a wrap-around student support team.
YARRA ME SCHOOL PROGRAMS
All Yarra Me School programs offer a time limited service for each learner. Yarra Me School conducts the Preston Program (classroom-based), which currently caters to students in the primary Years in a short-term intervention for students exhibiting significant disengagement from learning at tier 3 level; the Positive Partnerships outreach coaching service for Primary school students at tier 2 & 3 level of intervention; Hurstbridge Farm program (classroom-based, ages 10-17 years) conducted at a DFFH residential facility; and, a professional learning service.
In 2025 the Yarra Me School will provide educational services to approximately 110 students (Preston Program - 9 per semester; Hurstbridge farm - 4.5 per semester; Positive Partnerships - totalling up to 42 per semester). The Yarra Me Positive Partnerships Service provides outreach coaching to mainstream primary schools. Yarra Me School delivers programs predominantly for primary aged students.
** Please contact the Assistant Principal during early Term 3 to discuss the role in context of the Yarra Me School philosophy **
Please see www.yarrame.vic.edu.au]
Selection Criteria
SC1 - Leadership
- Outstanding capacity for visionary and exemplary educational leadership of a school.
- Demonstrated exemplary interpersonal and leadership skills.
SC2 - Curriculum
- Demonstrated exemplary ability to manage, direct and guide teaching teams to ensure key curriculum areas are personalised and reflected in accurate assessments, reporting, and record-keeping.
- Demonstrated expert knowledge of the relevant curriculum. Demonstrated ability to lead and manage the implementation of school priorities, and the teaching of the personal and social capabilities plus literacy and numeracy across the curriculum
SC3 - Pedagogy: Teaching and Learning
- Demonstrated exemplary ability to monitor and assess student learning at a class, cohort or whole-school level and use this data to lead improvement initiatives. Demonstrated ability to support others in using data to inform teaching practice and to provide feedback on student learning growth and achievement to students and parents.
SC4 - Partnerships
- Demonstrated ability to lead and facilitate Team Around the Learner, forging collaborative relationships with students, colleagues, parents, allied health and the broader school community ensuring student learning, agency, wellbeing and engagement are paramount.
SC5 - Professionalism
- Demonstrated ability to model behaviours and attitudes consistent with Department values and support colleagues to adopt these behaviours and attitudes. Demonstrated ability to reflect upon their own, others and whole-school practice and contribute to the provision of whole-school professional learning.
SC6 - Wellbeing
- Demonstrated leadership capabilities to support student wellbeing and engagement and build effective relationships with all members of the community.
- Demonstrated high-level knowledge and expertise to lead the development, implementation, and evaluation of engagement and wellbeing initiatives to ensure all students feel safe, supported, and ready to learn and to improve student outcomes.
SC7 - Local Selection Criterion
- Demonstrable commitment to, and exemplary practice in line with, the combination of elements outlined in the Yarra Me School Philosophy.]
Role
The Acting Leading Teacher will lead the actions to achieve these key improvement strategies.
- Build teacher capacity and collaboration in curriculum and assessment design and documentation which is aligned with the Victorian Curriculum 2.0
- Embed a purposeful use of data to cater for all learning needs
- Use student learning data to enhance student agency and opportunities for feedback
- Improve teacher capability to implement instructional practices in line with the Victorian Teaching and Learning Model 2.0
- Build leadership capability to ensure collective responsibility to improve instructional practices
- Develop and embed a leadership framework for wellbeing and inclusion through a tiered approach to enable a positive learning environment across all classrooms
- Embed the Yarra Me School identity in a culture of excellence
- Strengthen student agency and voice in learning
The Acting Leading Teacher is committed to leading a student culture that enables:
- Students to learn in environments that promote good health, wellbeing and engagement.
- Students to exert influence on their learning and wellbeing and participate fully in the classroom, school and the community.
- Students to be at the centre of effective curriculum documentation, delivery and assessment.
- A shared understanding of highly effective teacher practice which is underpinned by the Yarra Me School Instructional Model and the VTLM 2.0.
- A learning environment that raises and maintains expectations of all students.
- Students to learn in a safe, orderly, routinised and effective environment.
- Students to engage deeply in learning that is interesting, relevant and appropriately challenging.
- Professional collaboration that uses data and other evidence to systematically improve practice in learning, engagement and wellbeing.
- A consistent, positive school-wide approach to student regulation and behavioural support by balancing relational and behavioural interventions whilst observing Child Safe Standards and OHS.
- Students to learn in classrooms with effective inclusive practices and in a culture of inclusion.
The Acting Leading Teacher will have the additional responsibilities and requirements to:
- Be an exemplary classroom teacher
- Lead a professional culture of learning and school improvement
- Be a key member of the Yarra Me School Leadership Team
- Lead the implementation of a multi-tiered system of support to address the academic, social-emotional and behavioural needs of all students
- Work collaboratively within the Leadership Team to ensure that student needs are at the centre of highly effective curriculum planning and assessment programs
- Lead the development, delivery, implementation of a wellbeing curriculum across the school
- Be a key member of the team that leads the implementation of Tier 2 and Tier 3 programs in a multi-tiered system to address the needs of students at risk of disengagement
- Contribute to the processes and procedures that enable the collection of effective student achievement and wellbeing data
- Lead the curriculum and pedagogical responses to student engagement and wellbeing data on individual, year level and whole school levels
- In collaboration with Leadership Team members, implement the Schoolwide student support framework and build capacity of teaching staff to consistently and effectively respond to respond appropriately to support students to regulated their emotions and their behavioural responses
- Lead the processes to ensure students are able to exert influence on, and participate fully in, the classroom and programs across the school.
- Enhance the capacity of all teachers to deliver a differentiated curriculum in response to student needs
- Lead the implementation of the Personal and Social Capabilities of the Victorian Curriculum 2.0 across the school
- Enhance the capacity of all teachers to embed common instructional practices based on the Yarra Me School Instructional Model and the VTLM 2.0
- In collaboration with team members, ensure Personalised Learning Plans, Student Support Plans and Student Safety Plans are effective and used by teachers to support every student at their point of learning.
- Lead a student culture based on the values of the school
- Lead a school culture focussed on high expectations and the celebration of achievement for all students
Responsibilities
The responsibilities of the Acting Leading Teacher at Yarra Me School include, but are not limited to, the following areas:
- In recognition of the importance of leadership and management combined with exemplary teaching practice for improved student learning outcomes, the key roles of the leading teachers may include but are not limited to:
- Leading and managing the implementation of whole-school improvement initiatives related to the school strategic plan and school priorities
- Leading and managing the implementation of whole-school improvement strategies related to curriculum planning and delivery;
- Leading and managing the provision of professional development and developing individual and team development plans for teaching staff within the priorities of the school;
- Leading and managing staff performance and development (review of staff);
- Teaching demonstration lessons;
- Leading and managing the development of the school's assessment and reporting policies and practices;
- Leading and managing the implementation of the school operations and policies related to student welfare and discipline;
- Leading the development of curriculum in a major learning area and participating in curriculum development in other areas;
- Responsibility for general discipline matters beyond the management of classroom teachers;
- Contributing to the overall leadership and management of the school;
- Contributing to the development of proposals for school council consideration;
- Developing and managing the school code of conduct.
Who May Apply
Teachers currently registered or eligible for registration with the Victorian Institute of Teaching and qualified to teach and/or have demonstrated experience in the curriculum area(s) specified for the position.