How can I become a primary school teacher in Australia?

Question

Hey guys, I'm a 20 year old female and am currently studying at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand (my homeland) and hope to have my Bachelors degree finished by mid next year. My boyfriend and I are then planning on making the move to Melbourne, Australia where we will start our next big adventure. Although my majors will be in criminology and sociology, I have recently started to think about what I REALLY want to do in life, and primary school teaching is one of the things that has really stuck in my mind. I love children, I'm patient and love to teach as well as learn and I think I would make a fantastic teacher. The only thing is, is that I'm not too sure about prerequisites for primary teaching in Australia and where I would have to study, for how long etc etc. I have looked all over the internet but havent really found much information so was wondering if anyone knew about teacher training in Australia (because I have a feeling it may be quite a bit different from NZ).

I hope you can help it would be very much appreciated!!

Kind regards,

Amy

Answer 1

http://www.australian-universities.com/s...

This might be what you are looking for.

Answer 2

Hello my fellow kiwi :-D

I am currently studying to be a primary school teacher through Massey University. When I started the course here, it was a 3 year course, but has gone up to a 4 year course now (in which the student teachers will come out on a higher qualification than I will). However, there is the option to do an additional year (post-grad) to gain the same qualifications as them.

Anyway ~ I have been doing some searching of the web for you, and it seems that in Australia, they have the "Masters of Teaching (Primary)" which is a 2 year course (with some admission requirements) here's the link (it's in Melbourne too)-

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/handbook/2007/...

You may find that the 2 year course is no where near as intense as the NZ course, and therefore if you do become qualified, if you decide to come back to NZ and teach, you may be required to sit an additional year or 2 to get the Bachelor of Education (Teaching Primary).

Good luck with your ventures :-)

Answer 3

Each state has its own department of education, who may have slightly different requirements. I teach in Sydney, so I work under the New South Wales Department of Education and Training.

If you have an existing bachelor's degree, then you will probably only need one year of full time study to get a Diploma of Education or Master of Teaching. Starting from scratch, you would complete a Bachelor of Education, or double degree like a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Teaching, which is a 4 or 5 year degree (full time). You should look for something with as much student teaching time as possible.

Once you get yourself a qualification, you apply to the DET for approval to teach. You have an interview with them to assess your suitability, and from what i gather, as long as you don't bork the child protection question, you'll get an approval number.

Then it's just a matter of casual teaching until someone offers you a long term block or teaching (i'm on my fourth year-long block in a row) or better still, permanency.

(As a sidenote, one of the teachers on my grade did a bachelor in forensics or criminology or something - we use him to scare some of our more sneaky perpetrators :P - then a one year Diploma, and has been teaching with us for a bit over a year now.)