Teach for Australia’s leadership program retains rural NT teachers

As schools battle to keep their top teachers, a leadership program with a focus on remote education equity could be the key to solving the NT’s retention crisis.

Educators from the NT, WA, and Queensland gathered in Darwin for Teach for Australia's Future Leaders Program. 30 of the attendees taught in the Territory. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

A federally-funded leadership program targeting rural and remote teachers could be key to retaining the Territory’s top educators and forging strong teacher-student bonds.

Understaffed outback schools are struggling to maintain deep, engaging connections with students because they don’t have a “pool to pull on”.

A Department of Education spokeswoman said there were currently 45 teacher positions available across the NT.

She said 2756 teachers and 174 school leaders – including principals and deputy principals – were currently employed in NT schools.

Nhulunbuy Primary School teacher Bridie Schroeter is one of 76 fellows enrolled in Teach for Australia’s 2023 Future Leaders Program. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Nhulunbuy Primary School teacher Bridie Schroeter said student engagement in the face of a rural schools’ transient workforce was buoyed by a teacher’s leadership skills.

As one of 76 fellows enrolled in Teach for Australia’s 12-month Future Leaders Program, Ms Schroeter hopes to bring a fresh skillset to her classroom and better connect with her students and colleagues.

“It’s (about) finding ways to build connections quickly so that you can have good relationships with students and then have good results,” she said.

“Otherwise, you usually see poor behaviour or really challenging behaviour that then disrupts other students learning.”

Ms Schroeter said the additional leadership training meant she could better pass on her skills as a remote teacher to new colleagues.

Miriam McDonald joined Teach for Australia's Future Leaders Program. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Program coach Miriam McDonald – who was previously Taminmin College’s principal – said the course was a pathway to educational equity.

Ms McDonald said “scaling up” remote teachers’ understanding of colonisation and culturally safe practices was critical.

“We’re very focused on understanding First Nations learners and two-way learning, and I think that’s a real strength of the program that other leadership programs don’t focus on as much,” she said.

“It’s really about high expectations for every single learner and working two ways with communities, creating an environment so you’ve got that really beautiful, nice relationship that will increase learning.”