School year shortened after teachers’ unions fight back against term four extension

Queensland’s school year will now end on December 9 as originally planned after teacher unions fought back against a State Government plan to push classes back a week.

The state government has backtracked plans to extend the school year after teachers’ unions argued the extra week would be “poor recognition” of their hard work.

Education Minister Grace Grace announced today that after a “constructive, helpful and productive” meeting with teachers’ unions, the extra week that was added onto the school year to make up for the start delay, would now be scrapped.

“I am satisfied that the full curriculum can now be delivered in the condensed semester. That’s over the next two terms,” she said.

Education Minister Grace Grace announced plans to shorten the school year.

This means the end date will now once again be December 9, instead of the proposed December 16 date.

Moving the end date of school was initially suggested to ensure students up to year 10 would still experience a full school year after the start date was delayed two weeks from January 24 to February 7.

The government described the move as a “common sense decision” to avoid having students return to school amid the peak of the Omicron wave, and to allow parents more time to vaccinate their children.

However, many teachers were left outraged by the plans to be slugged with an extra week of work at the end of term four.

A statement from Queensland Teachers Union last week said the union supported the delay in the start of school, but wouldn’t support the extension of the school year.

“The decision to extend the school year does not recognise the impact of the pandemic on the workload and wellbeing of school leaders and teachers and acts to reduce member working conditions and leave entitlements,” the statement read.

Meanwhile, independent Education Union Queensland secretary Terry Burke said the notion would be rejected by many teachers.

“IEU-QNT are dedicated professional who have put the safety and continued quality education of their students and school communities front and centre for the last two years and an extension of the school year would be poor recognition of that commitment,” Mr Burke said.

Ms Grace said that with some of the best school staff in the country, moving the end date shouldn’t disadvantage any students.

“Students will not miss out on any essential content due to the delay in the start of the school term.”