Lucy McNamara and other final year ACU teaching students land classroom jobs for 2023

About a third of the current crop of final-year teaching students at ACU Ballarat already have jobs lined up next year, according to lecturer Dr Linda Parish.

Early childhood and primary teaching student Lucy McNamara was offered a job at a school in Geelong in July, so great is the shortage of qualified teachers following the pandemic.

"It is certainly unprecedented times since I have been in education," Dr Parish said.

"The majority of them have taken up the opportunity to get 'Permission to Teach' registration this year and have been doing casual relief teaching work in schools."

Many are being offered jobs at the schools where they do CRT work, or where they have completed placements, but for Ms McNamara it was a job ad she saw in July that led to her job offer.

"I grew up in Bendigo, I've been in Ballarat for four years and I felt like going somewhere a bit different," she said. "I saw the ad, researched their website and when I went for an interview I liked the atmosphere and the people. It was the last week in July that they interviewed me and offered me the job the next day."

Because she was offered the job so early, she is unsure yet what year level she will teach because classes have not yet been confirmed.

"I've done the double degree in early childhood and primary teaching and I've done placements with prep, grade one, two and grade five and I enjoyed them all so I'd really be open to any grade at the start of my career," she said.

Ms McNamara said it was a relief and it was "good to have that peace" of a job lined up so she could concentrate on the final months of her studies and assessments.

This year she, like many other final-year teaching students, have been working as casual relief teachers in schools struggling to have enough staff because of sickness and leave.

"I have been doing CRT work at my placement school, and at Ballarat North Primary to get that experience and I really enjoy it," she said.

"I'm putting all those skills in to practice and all the theory from university. When you are on placement you always have a mentor teacher so CRT is a bit different in that you don't have that person there. It's still structured in the sense that you get everything to teach, you walk in to the room and teach it but it's like a stepping stone."

She said her favourite moments in the classroom were the "a-ha moments" where a child mastered a new skill or understood something for the first time.

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Dr Parish said previously most students began applying for jobs around September or October as schools began advertising vacancies for the next year, but the number of students landing jobs from mid-year was higher than she had ever seen, and was a trend also being seen across other states.

She said the Permission to Teach scheme had given students extra confidence and had been a driver of job offers.

"They really appreciate their ability to be able to put in to practice the things they are learning at the same time as they are learning them," she said.

"Their final year is very full-on, especially the early childhood and primary teaching double degree, so the fact they have got jobs already lined up eases the stress for them to apply for jobs at end of the year while they are trying to finish their course."

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