Teacher selection criteria examples for Victorian and NSW schools

My final placement and two terms of casual relief teaching taught me to plan from the Victorian Curriculum with literacy and numeracy built in, and to adjust when students aren’t where the plan assumed.

On my ten-week placement in a Year 2 class at Wattle Creek Primary School, I took over the daily phonics block. The start-of-term check showed 7 of the 24 students still confusing vowel digraphs, while 5 were reading well above the expected level.

I planned a three-week sequence from the curriculum’s phonics content: a short explicit lesson, then three groups. I taught the group of seven daily with decodable texts and word-building cards, gave the middle group partner reading with a fluency checklist, and had the confident readers write comprehension questions for each other. In maths I taught measurement words, so students read and wrote “longer” and “heavier” in a real task. Each Friday I checked every student in my group, and I moved two up when they were ready.

By the end of the placement, five of the seven could read and spell every digraph we had taught, and my mentor kept the groups for the rest of the term.

I use assessment data every week to decide what to teach next, and I report growth to students and parents, not just scores. I teach Years 9 and 10 mathematics at Kingfisher Bay Secondary College and lead the Year 9 maths team.

Our Year 9 results in linear relationships had sat around 58% for two years, and students said the tests felt like a surprise.

I wrote a ten-question pre-test mapped to each skill and ran it with my two classes. A colour-coded spreadsheet showed most errors came from one skill, finding the gradient from two points, so I reordered the first week to reteach it, used mini whiteboard exit questions daily and regrouped students twice. Each student kept a one-page tracker of their scores by skill, and at parent conversations I showed families the tracker and suggested one practice task instead of a grade. I then shared the approach with my team, and all six Year 9 classes used the pre-test in Term 3.

The end-of-topic average across the six classes rose from 58% to 71%, and 40 students improved on their own pre-test by more than 20 percentage points.

I build calm, predictable classrooms where students know what is expected and feel safe to have a go, including classes that start the year unsettled.

In 2025 I took over a Year 3 and 4 class at Banksia Ridge Public School in Week 4, after three relief teachers. Each transition was losing about ten minutes, and 14 incidents had been recorded in three weeks.

In my first week I wrote three class expectations with the students, linked to the school’s positive behaviour values, and taught and practised the routines that were breaking down: entering, moving to the floor and packing up. I used a visual timetable and a countdown timer, and acknowledged students by name when they met an expectation. For two students who found change hard, I met the learning and support teacher and their parents to agree on a quiet space and a check-in card. I reviewed the incident pattern each Friday with my assistant principal.

By the end of term, transitions took under three minutes, four incidents were recorded in the last five weeks, and both students were in class all day. The other Stage 2 classes adopted my routine in Term 2.

I build working relationships with students, families and colleagues so we can act together early when a student starts to disengage.

As a Year 8 homeroom and humanities teacher at Redgum Hill Secondary College, I noticed one student’s attendance fall from 95% to 70% in five weeks, and he had stopped handing in work.

I phoned his mother rather than emailing and asked what she was seeing at home. She said he was anxious about a group task and a falling-out with friends. With her agreement, I met the wellbeing coordinator and his other teachers, and we agreed on a weekly check-in with me, a changed role in the group task and one contact for the family, so messages weren’t coming from five teachers. I sent his mother a two-line update each Friday and asked him to help run our lunchtime board games club. After three weeks I reviewed the plan with the team.

By the end of Term 3 his attendance was above 90% and he had submitted every humanities task. The Year 8 team now uses a single family contact for students on wellbeing plans.