Aussie vs British-it's a dead heat.

Good afternoon from Brisbane!A momentous week has just passed, I have achieved two firsts in my life, 1.working in an overseas school for the first time and 2.my first ever days of relief/supply teaching. My reflections on the two aspects are wide ranging and only represent what I have seen so far, in no way are these the views of any determined group or the schools I have worked in!haha.

• Firstly, there are numerous similarities between the Aussie schools and the British ones I have worked in. Namely, the eternal battle between teachers, leadership members and administrative staff. The school I supplied Art cover in for two days had had no Art rooms for 10 weeks and I taught the subject in a Science lab. I was informed that this was due to the business side of the school not letting anyone move into new buildings due to a falling out between admin and teachers over timeframes. This was slightly reassuring as this seems to happen alot!There was a huge number of snide comments or points made to staff, even when a relief teacher(me) was in the room. So the airing dirty laundry in public notion seems to curry favour out here as well!
• The resources that Australian schools have, in my experience, are not really up to the job to be honest, very little technology, no projectors, chalk boards, budgets being cut left right and centre (I have to thank the departments I was working with for being so forthcoming with information, even after I had said I was writing a blog about my experiences!) and yet money being paid out for what were dubbed meaningless meetings and cover!
• Literacy is a huge factor here, as it is at home, yet the students still have the incredibly dim view or any literacy work."we just get a sheet and half hour","pointless,just a way of the school to fill our days up" were two opinions on the literacy topic as a whole! I asked a year 11 class what they thought of the literacy lesson I had just completed and they were pretty happy-"better than usual", but this was a lesson I composed 2 minutes before the lesson when I was given the content. If literacy lessons are to fully engage the pupils, they need to be as well planned as any other lesson, to engage, help and inform the pupils' learning.
• Working in Australia brings a range of challenges, the fascination with my accent, the fact I wore a shirt and tie blew the kids away "teachers wear fishing pants and awful shirts here sir, why are you so smart?", the banter that being a 'pom' entails, and the ever glorious question of do you know......in one school's case it was "do you know Matt Smith sir?".I politely said no, but then proferred a story about how a friend met him and he was a nice chap.
• Curriculum content is similar but I have yet to see what my training would have called a truly engaging lesson, it seems to be very much, sheet, desk get it done.Which seems to work here.
• The disparity between what standardising agents want and what leadership members think they want still exist. Schools, well the leadership aspects, still seem very keen on stats and figures and how to show progress through numbers whereas I was told a story by a very senior teacher that last year a governmental group came in to check progress and refused to look at any statistics, preferring to glean qualitative data from chats with staff, pupils and looking to see how well the actual teachers knew the progress of their pupils.
• The clothes issue is an interesting one. I wore the same clothes I would have done in the UK (smart shirt, tie, business trousers, smart shoes) but this was treated with wonder and no matter of intrigue from the pupils, aussie male teachers tend to wear jeans, and an open shirt, something that I would find difficult, as I am from the mindset of 'feel the part, be the part'. Women however, seem to dress very similarly to their Uk counterparts, which brings up some interesting social points I may reflect upon in another post.
• Relief work here is a bit of an old boy's club, schools seem to have had their favourites for a while and ask for the same teacher time and time again. This means that recurring supply is difficult to come by for someone like myself. As it is, I am having to apply for full time contracts as of january (the new academic year) and go back to the wonderful world of retail for a regular wage, picking up relief work as and when I can do. A little soul destroying but should be good for getting a social group going!
• One last piece of advice for any teachers thinking of coming out here to work, think about becoming more religious, I have been unable to apply for three jobs now as I cannot provide a 'church referee' for the position.Just something to think about!

Hope everyone is well and hope to hear from you soon!

P.s

Mr Howell, I have thought of an excellent CLUEDO GIS project for key stage 3 to get into GIS which I would love your collaboration on!And any jobs going for next September?haha.