School Improvement Episode 66: Preparing trainees for the classroom – the Teaching School Hubs program

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Hello and welcome to Episode 66 of our series on School Improvement. I’m Jo Earp and today I’m joined by St Columba Anglican School Principal Allan Guihot and Director of Professional Learning Chris Delaney. They’re in Port Macquarie, on the New South Wales North Coast, and the school is a member of the award-winning Teaching School Hubs program from Independent Schools New South Wales (ISNSW). The program brings together schools and partner universities to provide teacher trainees with regular, mentored experience while they complete their qualification. The aim is to increase their skills and their confidence in the classrooms, so they’re better prepared once they enter the workforce. It’s a paid placement – trainees get paid for one day per week for a year, which is co-funded by ISNSW and the school. And then, depending on the arrangement, the trainee could also be working additional days as a Teacher Aide (that might be a Teaching Assistant or Classroom Support Assistant where you are), and that additional work is funded by the school, so that is something that St Columba has chosen to do, as you’ll hear shortly. In our chat, Allan and Chris explain more about the program model and how it works, the school’s participation, and the benefits for everyone involved – including those teachers doing the mentoring. I hope you enjoy the episode.

Jo Earp: Allan and Chris, thanks very much for joining Teacher today. As I mentioned there in the intro, we're going to be talking about the Teaching School Hubs program and St Columba's involvement in that. To start things off, though, Allan I thought it'd be useful if you could give listeners a bit of an overview about the school context, where you are and the community and so on.

Allan Guihot: Yeah, thanks, Jo. So, we're an independent K-12 co-educational school in the beautiful Port Macquarie, New South Wales. We have about 1,275 students this year, which has grown, and this is our 25th year – so, we've gone from 0 to 1,275 in that time. We've managed to build quite an attractive campus. We retain up to 120 teaching staff, probably 180 staff in total. And we've been progressively soaking up, I think, the influx of seachangers from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane into Port Macquarie over the last 25 years.

JE: So, as I mentioned, we're talking about the Teaching School Hubs program today. That's an award-winning initiative from ISNSW. As you mentioned, you're an independent school and part of that organisation. It's described as an alternative model of teacher training. So, it links the schools with universities, but also schools with other schools, and it supports the trainee teachers in a slightly different way in terms of getting them ready for the classroom. Before we talk about the actual model then and how that works in the day-to-day, Allan I just wondered, you know, as a principal, what are some of the challenges that school leaders face in terms of that teacher pipeline – the fresh graduates, if you like, that recruitment – and getting teachers on board who are classroom-ready?

AG: Yes, so I don't think too many schools that I've had anything to do with are 100 per cent happy with how students come out of university for teaching positions – it would probably be true of every profession having said that; university doesn't necessarily prepare you for the day-to-day. So, we probably have a unique experience on the Mid-North Coast. And I was speaking on a panel the other day and someone asked me a similar question, Jo, about how you recruit teachers. And I said, well, we put a picture of the beach on the advertisement for a start. And that gets the ball rolling.

Yeah, so we probably have a smaller pool of teachers than a city school, an urban school. But we do have a lot of seachangers make their way up and down the coast – either temporarily or permanently – and so I think we still attract a good pool of teachers. But in regards graduates from university teaching programs, we're not a school that's readily taking them straight up without some prior knowledge. Maybe a teacher might have done a practicum here at school; that gives them a bit of a sense of what the Teaching Schools Hub does, in essence.

But the demands on a teacher in an independent school, I think, are reasonably high and sometimes there's a notion that if you have a graduate without too much experience or with little knowledge of independent schooling, they can be a bit consumed by it – not just by the workload, but by the expectations of students and parents. So, we're a bit wary of people straight out of university. Having said that, there's also the notion [in a] coastal environment that you can have people come here and never leave and therefore you have an aging school teaching population. So, the renewal of someone like a graduate is really important too.

The other thing I think I like to do as a principal is, when we do advertise for staff is just to make that ad just a little bit interesting. And I'll give you an example. So, many years ago, I was reading the Herald (when the Herald used to be the paper that independent schools advertised in) and one particular school, I think it was St Peter's in Adelaide, had produced an ad where they'd produced a diagram of a triangle with angles and X in one corner. And it said, ‘if you can solve for X, you might be the maths teacher we're after’. Now, that really tickled my fancy. And I imagine for a maths teacher looking for a school with a genuine interest in mathematics, that would have tickled their fancy too. So, I've added a few things like that to our ads to try and give both graduates and experienced teachers a sense of that we're a bit relaxed about our thinking here, but we very much like people who love their subject.

So, yeah, look, that's a way of attracting teachers that don't necessarily have the feel of an independent culture, or the pedagogical frameworks that we operate under. Sometimes it just gives them a little in. But obviously, the Teaching Schools Hub is designed to address some of that. So, yeah.

JE: And, Oh great link Allan! I was about to do that link, but that's great, you've beaten me to it. So, let's talk about the program itself then. It is a different way of working, as you said. St Columba is [a] hub school for the North Coast participant schools, isn't it?

Chris Delaney: That's right, Jo. So, we've been involved now for 3 years. And as a hub school, essentially, we've got a commitment with ISNSW to take on trainee teachers each year and support them throughout the 2 years of the program. And so, in our first year, we took on 2 trainees. They were 2nd year students at our local university, Charles Sturt. In our second year of the program, those students obviously moved on, and we took on 2 new trainees. So last year we had 4 trainees in the system.

At the end of 2025, we graduated the first 2 and they went out into the big wide world, and they got jobs as teachers. Not here at St Columba, so, we're not making a promise to the trainee that we will give them a job, but we hope that we're preparing them for wherever they end up in the workplace. And so ongoing, moving forward, this year we've got 4 again. So, each year we pick up 2 and we graduate 2. And so, yeah, I guess it's an opportunity to really close that gap between, as Allan mentioned, life at uni, the theoretical nature of being a teacher, but then that in-school experience as well and knowing what it's like to be a teacher on the ground.

JE: So, Chris, you're the Director of Professional Learning there. Tell me about your role in the Teaching School Hubs program. I guess ultimately then you're sort of running things, linking with the unis, taking care of all the graduates. So, what does that involve?

CD: So, I guess I'm a bit of a bridge builder between the university and the school. So, in the initial instance, I will help oversee the advertisement and connect with some of our local unis and make sure that that message gets out to the universities. We obviously want our local students to know about the program and the more applicants we can attract, the better our chances of finding somebody that might be a really good fit for our school and the program.

I then seek expressions of interest from our staff. We've got lots of staff, we've been really fortunate to have lots of staff interested in the program who are willing to take on a trainee teacher, to take them under their wing. And then, ultimately, I'm involved with interviews, working with Allan, working with our heads of school to decide, ‘Well, what is a really good fit?’ ‘Where might be future gaps that we could look to get experience for students?’

And so, then the ongoing liaising with the university just to make sure that the students are travelling okay from the university side of things but also working closely with the mentor teachers to make sure that our trainees are thriving, not just surviving and keeping their head above the water, checking in with them regularly. And I guess, yeah, just sort of overseeing the program, making sure that everyone's ticking along nicely. It can be overwhelming for a trainee teacher to be juggling university commitments plus being in the school a day a week. But so far, our student teachers have been fantastic and taking it all in their stride.

JE: So, Allan, the aim of the model, I'll just quote this, is ‘to attract high quality, diverse education trainees from regional and metropolitan areas to the education profession’. That means tailored professional support as well. Mentoring, I know, is a big part of that, but explain to me how the actual model works then. What would that, Chris mentioned it's one day a week, I think, isn't it, for a year?

AG: Yes. So once students feel like they'd like to apply, ISNSW gives them a number of options. And so, we mostly have applicants within the region and a couple of universities might participate in that, Newcastle, UNE and Charles Sturt. And I guess that's a very practical thing. If they're studying up here or up this way, having a day of work a week in a school up here is, it means you probably need to be close by. Having said that, we have had applicants from Sydney and when quizzed on how they might manage that, they had to stop and think.

So yes, so they come in one day a week minimum. And so, the one day a week is the Teaching Schools Hub commitment. And that's a mentored one day a week. Most of our trainees would opt for a couple of days and they'd use their extra days in the Teacher Aide space – so they get experience in the school, feeling for the school, feeling for the student body, but aren't necessarily mentored for those extra days.

So, the mentors assigned for a day a week. We give those mentors some release from face-to-face teaching to spend time with the trainees and to also do their own professional development. ISNSW do offer some training to our mentors in how to be a mentor and how to be an effective mentor. So, Chris mentioned how enthusiastic our staff are to be involved in that process – doesn't always mean they had the paradigm of mentorship the way that ISNSW would like us to do it, so that training is really important. So, the day a week is spent and can be spent with the trainee doing some teaching, doing support, being the second teacher in the classroom, leading some lessons or units of work. It very much depends on how comfortable the trainee is and where they are in their degree. We would probably lose those trainees for a period of time in the year where they have to go off and do their own university practicums. Sometimes the university allows time at this school to count. I think that will develop more as universities see the value of this program. 

And the other thing that the mentor and the trainee do every year is participate in a whole Teaching Schools Hub professional learning experience. It's a conference, a couple of days, whereby each school that has hub trainees meet. There's some professional learning, some insights into teacher training and recruitment. Chris would go along and probably network with other hub leaders and coordinators and pick up things from each other that allow us to do it better next time. So, it's a pretty integrated program. ISNSW also offer an end of year celebration to try and say, well, okay, we've made it again through another year and you've achieved something of worth here. So, it's a fairly holistic program, it's a fairly nurturing program, the way I see it.

JE: Yeah. Chris, alongside that support for the trainee, Allan mentioned there about PL, professional learning, professional development for the mentor. And there's a lot of support that's needed for the teachers in the participating schools, otherwise, we know from any kind of implementation of anything, it just doesn't work. What does the day-to-day look like for a typical – if we can find a typical, it's probably different for everybody – but, what might that day-to-day look like for a teacher mentor and the support that you have to help prepare them for that and then during the experience itself?

CD: Yeah, for sure. So, the main professional learning, Jo, as Allan mentioned, ISNSW has some really great online mentor modules. So, they've been working in this space for a little while now and so there's almost an onboarding process. When you're a mentor teacher that's put your hand up to say, ‘yes, I would like to have a trainee with me’ there's some professional learning that happens in that online space. There are, I think it's twice a term, there are online professional learning sort of catch up, Zoom catch ups after school for sort of 30 minutes. And so then again, that's support where the mentor teachers can connect with other mentors. 

Obviously, we've got, at our school, we've got 4 mentor teachers that are part of the program, and so they're able to talk to each other and just discuss how are we meeting the needs and how are we supporting these trainees well. And then the Schools Hub Forum, which Allan mentioned, is another key sort of touch point.

In terms of day-to-day, our goal is to give the trainee teacher a real experience of what school looks like. So, for the mentor who has that trainee with them, they're going about their day and it's pretty much as usual and they've got a shadow for that one day a week, if you like, who is the trainee teacher. And so, when they're on playground duty, if they've got a staff meeting, if they've got a professional learning team meeting, whatever that teacher has on for the day, the trainee goes along to that to get the full experience. You know, coaching a sporting team before school or after school. It's the whole gamut of that teacher experience that we're looking to offer the trainee.

And we're really conscious that, you know, there's a pretty high dropout rate amongst teachers within the first 5 years of [graduation]. And so, we hope that our involvement in this program can do a little bit to improve the likelihood of that teacher, that young teacher staying, in the education system for a long time and having a wonderful career.

JE: Yeah. I want to talk about the impact then on, the benefits then for the mentor teacher. So, from your perspective. In terms of their skills and expertise, what does it do for them? We know that there's great benefits for the trainee, of course, but as the school, from your school perspective, what does that mean actually for the mentor teachers involved?

CD: For sure. So, Jo, one of the things that our mentor teachers have commented on is that they build a fantastic relationship with a young, keen, trainee university teacher. So that relationship is really key, and they really appreciate that relationship, which they foster over that 2-year period.

But our teachers have talked about the fact that it's really caused them to pause and reflect on what they're doing and why they're doing it. You know, sometimes we just get in the habit as a teacher just to rinse and repeat and we do the same things over and over. But when you've got a prac teacher with you, or when you've got a trainee, and if you know that that's every Tuesday, you're really forced to think a little bit more, ‘I've got to have an extra set of eyes in the room. What could I do differently?’ or ‘what might I want to show this week to my trainee that maybe I haven't tried for a while?’

Also, the trainee is able to give a little bit of feedback (from their limited experience) about, ‘well, actually, I was working with this group of students, and I noticed that they were ...’, and so there's an extra set of eyes in the room. It's an extra [trainee] in the room. But yeah … our teachers have commented that it's been a real sort of source of their own professional growth, which sometimes they'll say that in a way that they didn't expect that to be a benefit, but it has been. It's forced them to sort of reflect on their experience and sort of what they're offering the students. So, I think they'd be the main benefits I think that people would talk about.

JE: And I understand as well that they can earn sort of, they can earn towards accreditation for HALT – which for those people not in New South Wales or the systems that use that terminology, it's Highly Accomplished and Lead Teacher – so you can sort of work your way towards that through this kind of thing as well.

CD: Absolutely, yeah. So having a trainee really helps you to hit a couple of standards and demonstrate evidence that you are really working at that Highly Accomplished or Lead Teacher level. Yeah, for sure.

JE: Okay, finally then, Allan, the positive impact on the school, on staff and of course, student outcomes. And we talked at the beginning about that pipeline, sort of confident, classroom-ready teachers, but what are those positive impacts from more of a school perspective?

AG: Chris touched on the ancillary benefits of having young, enthusiastic trainees in the school. I don't think you can understate that. Teachers love to teach and I think they see a trainee as another opportunity to pass on knowledge and expertise; they like to teach the trainees. And Chris also mentioned there's that sense that we learn a little bit from the young person – if they are young or the more mature trainee teacher – we learn things from them also. And I think that permeates throughout the school in terms of giving us an opportunity to reflect on our practice. 

The one great benefit, probably more to the trainee than the school, is this idea that you enculturate the trainee in independent schooling practices and pedagogy and protocols. And passing that on to someone who will either work for you, if there's an opportunity for them to do that, means that you're almost participating in a quality assurance process where you're producing the sort of teacher that you'd like to work for you on an ongoing basis. And so, when the day comes, and it probably will come soon, where one of the trainees seamlessly segues into a job with us, there isn't that need to worry about them as much because they're there, they're ready and they know the school. So that's a great benefit. Should they not be employed with us because we don't have the position, we can be pretty confident we're sending them out ready for any school to tackle any job. And we have some anecdotal evidence of that being the case. So, that's a good thing.

The program's good for the trainee, it's good for the mentor, it's great for the students. I think the students do appreciate if they've had old Mr Guillot for a number of years that the younger, more attuned teacher might have some part in their education. They often form good friendships with those students because they do have often, they have youth on their side. They're a little younger, a little hipper. And the seasoned practitioners in the school are reminded, I think, of that lovely time when they first started and the enthusiasm and the aspiration that they had. So, I think, whilst I've said that we're enculturating them, I think they're also enculturating us because as we move on in our careers it's easier to lose touch with where young people are at. So, there's mutual benefits. It's a great program.

CD: Jo, if I can just pick up on one thing Allan said, just as a way of example. One of our trainee teachers this year is a mature age student who's been a chef for about 10 years. So, worked in industry, has lots and lots of great experience and is now becoming a teacher. I know that the mentor of that young guy has said, ‘I'm learning a lot from him within the hospitality space’. So, he brings a wealth of experience from industry. And so, while he's new to teaching, his mentor teacher’s able to learn a lot from him in terms of his professional experience. So, there's some real benefits, real benefits there, which is lovely.

That’s all for this episode. Thanks very much for listening. Thanks to Allan and to Chris for being my guests today, really enjoyed that chat. If you enjoyed the episode, please take a quick moment to hit follow on your podcast app (if you haven’t already) and leave us a review. Both of those things help more people like you to find our podcast and they’re a really big support for the Teacher team, so thanks for that. We’ll be back with a new episode very soon!