South High Grafton teachers federation teachers stop work staffing crisis claims

Teachers Federation makes claims of teachers under stress supervising 70 students, while being unable to prepare lessons and not being replaced over past 18 months.

South Grafton High School main entrance. Teachers have walked off the job over staffing concerns.

Concerns of an alleged crisis at South Grafton High School have led some teachers to stop work for a period yesterday.

The teachers stopped work for twenty minutes after a lunchtime meeting to address issues with staffing levels at the school, with replacement teachers unable to be found to fill vacancies or to cover for colleagues on leave for more than a year.

Almost 50 teachers voted to stop work for a period after lunch while maintaining supervision levels

NSW Teachers Federation Deputy President Henry Rajendra said the situation at South Grafton High had resulted in some classes being combined when casuals were unavailable. In some cases, individual teachers were forced to supervise up to 70 students at a time.

South Grafton High staff are demanding that the NSW Government immediately appoint five additional teachers to allow normal timetabled classes to proceed.

“Teachers are being forced to take extra classes and playground duties when they should be preparing lessons or taking a lunch break,” Mr Rajendra said.

“What is happening at South Grafton is unacceptable and a direct result of the NSW Government’s failure to adequately staff public schools across the state.”

“Every child in every class has the right to be taught by an appropriately trained teacher and it should be the responsibility of the Education Department to provide enough teachers for every school.”

Mr Rajendra said morale at the school was very low. Teachers had been working under extremely stressful conditions for the past 18 months because of the teacher shortage.

“The staffing crisis has been caused by the failure of the NSW Government to address the teacher shortage over more than a decade.”

“They have let down students, parents and the wider community.”

“Previously successful processes that ensured adequate staffing of all schools across the state have been weakened.”

Mr Rajendra said the recent Gallop Report showed that the recruitment and retention of teachers will require a significant increase in salaries.

The Department of Education spokesman has so far not responded to any specific questions on the issue, but said that across NSW, teacher vacancies were down compared to this time last year.

“The number of teacher vacancies in NSW public schools represents approximately 1.5 per cent of overall teaching roles. Given we have 74,000 teachers, this is a very low vacancy rate for an organisation our size,” the spokesman said.

“The majority of the vacancies are filled by qualified teachers in a temporary or casual capacity and we have active recruitment underway for employment across our schools.

“Over the next 10 years the Department will be implementing a staffing supply strategy that will help mitigate factors that effect supply, factors including sudden enrolment changes, professional development, illness, the economy and graduate availability.”

Their response to the Daily Examiner questions will be published as soon as they are received.