Student FAQ

General

What is the Difference Between ITE and EC?

ITE stands for Initial Teacher Education while EC stands for Early Childhood.

ITE is the name for all teacher education degrees that train people to be teachers in primary and high school settings while EC is the name for all teacher education degrees that train people to be teachers in Early Childhood Education and Care settings. Some EC and ITE degrees cross over so will be
referring to both, i.e. the Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood and Primary).

There are certain requirements for ITE and EC degrees that are the same and some that are different. For Example, pre-placement eligibility is the the same for EC and ITE* - Anaphylaxis, Child Protection and Working With Children Check - but the Literacy and Numeracy tests requirement before the final placement is ONLY a requirement for ITE students (and students studying the Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood and Primary)).

Please contact the Office for Professional Learning for further advice.

*Certain units, centres or schools will have extra requirements before placement can be undertaken.

How Many Placements Will I Need to Complete?

To find out about the professional experience requirements for your degree of study, the Courses and Units Catalogue (CAUC) has all the information you need.

For general advice, please visit the Professional Experience Placement Guide. The Guide is written from information on CAUC, however, information may vary from time to time. If any information on CAUC is different to the Guide, the CAUC will the contain the correct information.

Am I allowed to Complete a Placement Overseas?

UNE may allow 50% of placements to be completed in a school overseas with prior approval from the Office for Professional Learning. All other professional experience placements must be completed in Australia.

Please see the Key Information about your Professional Experience page for further information regarding overseas placement on this page.

Before Professional Experience Begins

PREXUS
The PREXUS Moodle site provides you with everything you need to know about professional experience. You should find it in your MyStudy list of units.

Inside the PREXUS Site you will find

  • Mandatory Certificates needed to complete your Professional Experience
  • - How to submit your Placement Forms
  • - Support for you before, during and after Professional Experience
  • - Dates for Professional Experience
  • - Important Rules and Information about your Professional Experience

Please Note: To be eligible to undertake a professional experience placement you must be enrolled in the relevant professional experience unit. Adding yourself to the PREXUS site does not mean you have automatically been enrolled in the professional experience unit.

Please do not hesitate to contact the Office for Professional Learning if you require further assistance.
InPlace

InPlace is used to manage all aspects of the professional experience component of all Teacher Education Students at The University of New England. InPlace provides a central hub for students and staff to manage, placement information and resources.

To log into InPlace, you will need your UNE username and password.

What Will I Need Before I Can Begin Placement?

Students are required to meet the following for all professional experience placements, regardless of state, territory or degree offered by the School of Education. All students must complete:

  • a NSW Working with Children Check (WWCC) or equivalent interstate check.
  • ASCIA Anaphylaxis e-training (updated every two years)
  • the Child Protection Awareness Induction Training (CPAT) module
  • the updated Child Protection Update (completed yearly)

All links to these documents are available Education Students Mandatory Certificates page then to be upload to InPlace, Where all these mandatory certificates are then submitted and checked by the Office for Professional Learning before a placement begins.

What Will I Need to Plan for Before I Undertake Placements?

It is important to prepare for your professional experience placement well before you arrive on your first day.

The OPL will do our best to guide you in your preparations, however, it is your responsibility to ensure all pre-placement requirements are met.

Placement settings that have accepted you for professional experience are taking time out of their usual routine to accommodate you for placement.

It is for this reason professional experience requires full commitment to the placement, you must take time to consider if you have prepared for all of the below concerns;

  • Childcare
  • family arrangements
  • accommodation
  • internet access
  • travel to and from the school or centre
  • work commitments
  • health needs

Placement Requirements

Will I Be Required to Travel for Placement?

There are many students seeking placement in schools, centres and agencies, not only other UNE education students but also students from other universities. This makes securing placements across the state competitive. Schools, centres and agencies will determine if they have the capacity to accept a UNE education student when approached by the Office for Professional Learning. Therefore, you will need to be flexible when negotiating placements.

Education students will be expected to travel for placement. This will mean accepting placements up to 110km or 90 minutes from their place of residence. Students bare the cost of this travel.

What Will I Need to Wear on Placement?

You should always dress professionally and appropriately, befitting a professional career. Remember to honour the requirements of the dress code of the school/centre at which you are completing the placement.

Please ensure you talk to your supervising teacher about dress before you begin the placement.

Attendance

Teacher education students must attend all of the days allocated in full (this means at the school 8 hours a day, this includes before and after school duties and attending scheduled staff meetings) in order to successfully complete each professional experience placement. They must comply with attendance rules for their placements in order to meet both degree and accreditation requirements. Completion of ‘make-up’ days will be in negotiation with the supervising teacher. You must comply with attendance requirements in order to meet both the UNE degree and NESA accreditation requirements.

As a teacher education student you are, in effect, an additional member of the staff of the school/centre and should be committed to working the required number of hours in the school/centre's day to maximise your development as a teacher. You must, therefore, observe the same hours of duty as regular members of the school/centre staff.

This means that you will be required to be at the school/centre for the full week even when not actually teaching. Your duties will be no different from those of the supervising teachers. Duties may include playground duty, sport, bus duty and some extra curricular activities carried out with the assistance of supervising teachers.

Your well-being on placements

Professional experience can be demanding, as you are expected to complete the hours of a working teacher, as well as keep up with your other university work, as well as managing all personal commitments.

For this reason it is important to look after yourself while on professional experience placements.

If you have any problems or concerns during your placement, feel free to reach out to the OPL through AskUNE or by phone on 02 6773 38

Compliance

Is There Anything I Need to Know About the Graduate (Final) Placement? - ITE Degrees

Before your final placement, Initial Teacher Education (ITE) students are required to complete and pass the Literacy and Numeracy Tests.

In your final placement, you will also be assessed against all of the Graduate Standards and Focus Areas. Please see the Final Placement and the Graduate Teaching Performance Assessment page for more information.

Final and graduate placements cannot be completed outside of Australia, without exception.

What are the Literacy and Numeracy Tests?

The Literacy and Numeracy Tests are tests required to be completed and passed before an Initial Teacher Education (ITE) student can undertake their final placement. The tests are mandated by the New South Wales Education Standards Authority. These tests are administered by ACER.

Early Childhood (EC) students do not require the test to complete their final placement (unless they are studying the Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood and Primary)).

More information is available on the Final Placement and the Graduate Teaching Performance Assessment page.

Can I Complete Placement Where I Currently Work?

The short answer is yes, however, not all placements.

For ITE students, if you are currently working in a school as a teacher with Conditional Accreditation, you may be a candidate for an In-Service placement. This means that rather than shadowing a supervising teacher as per a teacher education student, the school principal or their delegate completes an independent report based on teaching over a specified number of days for the required unit for teacher training.

The PREXUS site contains a checklist for In-service eligibility as well as the Key Information about your Professional Experience page.

Students who are enrolling in an Early Childhood Education (ECE) degree and are currently employed in an Early Childhood Setting may be able to complete placements in their current place of employment, providing: the centre agrees to the placement and it is approved by the Office for Professional Learning.

There are, however, some units where an ECE student will be required to complete placement outside of the centre (including any 'sister' centres) in which they are currently employed. Please check the Professional Experience Placement Guide to find out which placements cannot be completed in your current place of employment.