Early Career Teachers -
Your Employment Contract

Your contract is a legally binding document outlining many of your conditions of employment, including your rate of pay. If you have been offered a fixed term contract, it is particularly important that you contact your union to know your rights.

  • Do you have a contract/letter of offer? 

  • Have you contacted the IEU Victoria Tasmania office to check that it meets its obligations?

  • Have you signed the contract and returned a copy of it?

Your contract should also refer either to an Agreement or an Award, which provides more detail of your conditions. Agreements (including the Multi-Enterprise Agreement covering all staff in Catholic schools) are negotiated between the IEU and your employer, and provide you with improved pay, conditions, and rights. If your school is not covered by an Agreement, the relevant Award provides a basic “safety net” of minimum standards. See the industry-specific detail below.

Information Specific to Independent Schools

 

Ideally as a beginning teacher you should be assigned a mentor and given a reduced load.

Many schools have made collective agreements through negotiation with the IEU. This is the first place to look to ascertain your conditions of employment.  Below is a link to a list of Enterprise Agreements: an Enterprise Agreement is the most secure and efficient way of improving conditions of employment in your workplace. If your school has such an agreement, it is legally binding. Does your school have an Enterprise Agreement?

If your school is not bound by an Agreement, your employment conditions will be underpinned by the relevant Award, the Education Services (Teachers) Award 2010. This document contains the minimum set of conditions and protections that a school is obliged to provide, and does not represent the industry standard.

Information Specific to Catholic Schools

 

If you are working as a beginning teacher at a Catholic school, your employment conditions will be contained in one of our Victorian Catholic Education Agreements, which have been negotiated between the IEU and the Catholic education employers. These documents outline your rights at work in relation to such matters as salary, hours of work, teaching load and other conditions

Reduced Load

As a beginning teacher, having a reduced load of face-to-face teaching hours will allow you to prepare your full VIT registration application and also to settle in to your new career.

In Victorian Catholic schools, primary teachers in their first year may be allocated a maximum of 19.5 hours of scheduled class time per week, for secondary teachers the maximum is 16.5 hours per week in their first year.

Additional Qualification and Accelerated Advancement

If you have successfully completed a qualification of Master degree, its equivalent or higher, you will be entitled to advance up the incremental scale by one sub-division (clause 52 of the Agreement) from 1 May following the date on which the extra qualification was attained. Obtaining a second or subsequent higher qualification will entitle you to advance further up the scale. You must notify your employer in writing of the acquisition of any additional qualifications attained and provide satisfactory evidence.

Information Specific to Casual/Relief Work

 

In addition to the provision of relevant employment information, schools offering you casual relief work should ideally provide you with opportunities to undertake activities required for you in respect to application for Full Registration. Some of these activities may include classroom observation sessions, collegial activities and meetings.

The IEU runs regular PD conferences for CRT members to assist them to meet the minimum VIT/TRB requirements – check our website for details.

Rates of pay for relief teaching work will vary across independent schools, and are often contained in individual school Agreements (see tab above for further information about conditions in independent schools).