Eligibility Information about Enrolling in and Completing a Professional Experience Placement
Professional Experience
All Teacher Education degrees require professional experience in a relevant educational setting for the enrolled course. Teacher education students. Teacher education students must ensure they have allowed for professional experience when creating their study plan by arranging time off work, ensuring care is arranged for children or other dependents, etc, and other external factors that may affect the quality of placement.
Before accepting a place at UNE, please consider these important requirements and familiarise yourself with the Professional Experience Policy.
The number of days to be completed for the particular professional experience placement unit in which a teacher education student is enrolled is indicated in the UNE Course Handbook.
When a teacher education student is enrolled in the unit with professional experience for their degree they will be given access to the PREXUS myLearn site as well as InPlace which manages your professional experience.
Eligibility to Undertake Professional Experience
The following are required for eligibility to undertake professional experience: Before accepting a place at UNE, please consider these important requirements and familiarise yourself with the Professional Experience Policy. 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: Please read the Mandatory requirements and checks, arranged by state or territory with links to the relevant agencies. All mandatory certificates must be obtained and submitted to the Office for Professional Learning before placement begins. Please submit your forms through InPlace under the my details tab (the person icon). NSW students will also require for their final placement a paid WWCC before they begin. This number will have an 'E' at the end instead of the Volunteer WWCC which ends in a 'V'. Teacher Education Students are required to obtain a Working With Children Check (WWCC), or equivalent for the state in which they will be undertaking placement. Prior to undertaking your final placement you will need to hold a paid employment Working with Children Check. Things to remember: Before Teacher Education Students enrolled in accredited Initial Teacher Education degrees can be approved to undertake their Final Graduate Level Placements, they are required to have completed and to have passed the National Literacy and Numeracy Test (LANTITE). LANTITE is a requirement for all Initial Teacher Education Students* (without exception) including those enrolled in the Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood and Primary) Teaching Degree. *Early Childhood students whose degrees do not include a primary teaching component are not required to complete the test, nor are students enrolled in Bachelor of Education (In-service Conversion) degree completing PREX304-6. The OPL encourages all students to complete LANTITE as early in their degree as possible to account for any unexpected delays in the testing process. These tests are administered by ACER Please Note: The Office for Professional Learning (OPL) will not confirm or seek a placement for you unless we have your passing grades from the Literacy and Numeracy Tests. Exceptions and waivers regarding this rule will not be considered under any circumstance. 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 school would need to verify that the teacher education student takes sole responsibility for the planning, teaching, and assessment of a class or classes and must work with the In-Service candidate on improving teaching skills and application of pedagogy. They must also verify the independence of the assessor. Considerations will need to be made regarding the two school rule. Please also note, the final placement there are a few requirements that must be met for the satisfactory completion of your course during the final, Graduate Level placement. Please see the Final Placements and the Graduate Teaching Performance Assessment for more information. Approval for In-Service placement is at the discretion of the Office for Professional Learning and will require certain documentation to be assessed. For more information regarding In-Service placements, please contact the Office for Professional Learning through AskUNE. 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 use the Professional Experience Placement Guide for assistance when arranging study plans for professional experience and for more information. UNE Initial Teacher Education (ITE) degrees are accredited with the New South Wales Education Standards Authority (NESA), who state: Providers require that [the] supervised teaching practice is undertaken mostly in a recognised Australian school setting over a substantial and sustained period that is relevant to an authentic classroom environment. This means that professional placements must be undertaken in a school in Australia using New South Wales syllabuses or equivalent Australian Curriculum and be assessing teaching proficiency against the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. However, NESA acknowledges the benefits of completing placements in settings overseas and has allowed UNE to accept placements overseas if the placements can meet the following: The Office for Professional Learning requires all placements in an overseas setting be in context with the degree of study, for example, a student studying to become a teacher of French completing a placement in France. Information will be required for submission to the Office for Professional Learning who will assess it for validity, acceptability and context to the degree of study. The 50% rule means the courses requiring 80 days of professional experience can have a maximum of 40 days overseas or a maximum of 30 days overseas for the courses requiring 60 days, as long as the placement setting can meet the above requirements. The number of days completed in an overseas setting must be equivalent to the number of days required in a unit containing professional experience, e.g. a 20 day placement overseas will only be matched to a 20 day placement in a unit; completing 25 days in an overseas setting will not mean the additional five days will be applied to another unit. Any student permitted to complete placement overseas will be required to meet that country's Working with Children Check equivalent and meet all other requirements for said country. If the country of placement does not have a Working with Children Check equivalent, UNE will require a statutory declaration to be completed. All professional experience placements in an Early Childhood Education and Care setting must meet the following requirements to be counted for placement. The Early Childhood Education and Care setting must: A placement overseas in a setting that does not meet the above requirements will not be acceptable for a placement.School
Early Childhood
Overseas School-based placements
Overseas Early Childhood-based placements