Educational Services (Teachers) Award

Most mistakes under this award come from assuming that all student-facing work is teacher work. Coverage has to be tested carefully before salary, load and attendance rules are applied.

• Check first that the employee is genuinely engaged as a teacher and not in one of the excluded support, coaching, tutoring, leadership or religious categories.
• Use the same coverage analysis for on-hire teachers.
• Where the employer is covered by more than one award, use the classification that is most appropriate to the work performed and the environment in which it is normally performed.

The appointment letter is a core compliance document under this award because it defines the teaching engagement that later drives salary, load and dispute issues.

• Appointment letters for non-casual employees must state the classification, starting salary, face-to-face teaching load and extra curricular commitment.
• For part-time teachers, the letter must also express the load as a percentage of a full-time load in the school.
• For fixed-term employees, the letter must state the reason for the fixed term, the commencement date and the period of employment.

Part-time teaching is tightly structured under this award, so informal load changes are a high-risk practice for schools and centres.

• Part-time teaching is ordinarily capped at 90 percent of full-time hours.
• If the load rises above 90 percent, the employee is treated as full-time unless the employee requested a higher-than-90-percent but still part-time arrangement.
• An employer cannot vary a part-time teacher's teaching load or days of attendance without consent, except through the written notice or salary-maintenance process in clause 11.5.
• The notice period differs for school teachers and early childhood teachers.

Casual teaching is meant to stay temporary, so employers should not let short-term cover drift into an arrangement that no longer fits clause 12.

• Casual engagements are for short periods only.
• In schools and preschools, the starting point is no more than 4 consecutive term weeks.
• An extension is possible only by agreement and only within the award's outer limits, with different limits for school or preschool teachers and other teachers.

This award runs on a school-year attendance model for most teachers, but early childhood services operating most of the year move onto a different hours framework.

• For teachers covered by clause 15, ordinary hours may be averaged over 12 months rather than treated as a simple weekly pattern.
• The maximum attendance requirement is 205 days in the school year, subject to the specific exceptions in clause 15.6.
• Those exceptions include certain weekend co-curricular activities, mutually agreed interstate or overseas trips in non-term weeks, some leadership duties in non-term weeks, boarding house responsibilities and exceptional pastoral care circumstances.
• Use Schedule A instead of clause 15 for teachers in early childhood services operating at least 48 weeks a year.

Attendance planning and allowance eligibility both depend on written role design and advance notice, not on informal practice.

• Provide written notice of required term-week and non-term attendance days 6 months in advance.
• Remember that annual salary and applicable allowances are paid for the school year or relevant part of it, with non-term week absence taken to include annual leave.
• Director's allowance applies only to eligible early childhood or preschool teachers appointed as Directors.
• Leadership allowance applies only to teachers in schools who are required to perform additional administrative, pastoral care or educational leadership duties, and the school must give written advice about the position and allowance.

PR799280, PR799357, PR799513

The current consolidated award incorporates these recent variation determinations. Use the consolidated wording when checking any affected clause, schedule, rate or allowance.

Affected: 17 - Minimum rates, 19 - Allowances, Schedule B - Summary of Rates of Pay, Schedule C - Summary of Monetary Allowances