IEU member Michael Chalkley: teacher, unionist, principal

Retiring IEU stalwart Michael Chalkley worked at three schools over four decades, and Bendigo education is all the richer for it.

“Pretty early on we decided we loved Bendigo, we’d just had kids and it was a great place to raise a family, so we stayed put.”

Michael was never consciously seeking leadership roles so he never “moved around schools”, the proven method for ladder-climbers.

Michael Chalkley.

Michael “simply put his hand up” when colleagues encouraged him to take on a deputy principal position at Catholic College Bendigo. He’d been teaching for ten years and held many other leadership positions, including Head of Catholic Identity.

He was also an interim principal of Catholic College Bendigo for a year in 2014 but found the “massive” role – overseeing two campuses, 2000 students and 278 staff – wasn’t “life-giving”. Overall, his stint at CCB lasted 27 years.

Michael did end up being a principal, spending the final five years of his career sharing the role at St Peters Primary School.

“I’ve loved the aspect of sharing the role with Jenny Roberts. I’ve always seen myself as a team player so the idea of sharing the role was fantastic for me.

“It’s a model that we think would work in a lot of other schools. I think there’s a lot of people who are reluctant to take on a role on their own, but if they have an experienced mentor help them for a couple of years the transition can be a lot smoother. There are many people who would like to lead but they just need the encouragement of having someone walk alongside them.”

Michael became a union member in his first year in schools, 1987. He maintained his IEU membership once he became a school leader.

“Even as principal, I’ve always said to people ‘you should be part of the union’. In the early days, I saw it as insurance. Later, it was more about ‘we’re all in this together’. I certainly always enjoyed working with the union.”

He says principals “can be some of the best advocates” for the IEU.

“The only way to get better conditions is having active union members sticking together; employers need to be pushed to do the right thing. Unless the union advocates on your side, you don’t get improvements.”

Michael believes the biggest challenge for the union movement is to engage and sign up more young people as union members.

His concerns for education are familiar – there are too many forms to fill out, too much documentation keeping teachers from doing their fundamental work in the classroom. The documentation workload also means Principals are “doing more managing than leading”.

“That’s why I got out – I understand we need to do it (compliance), but it’s gone too far. Hopefully the pendulum will swing back.”

Compliance demands and “meetings that are almost out of control” are “not what brings teachers and leaders joy in their jobs”.

He says workload issues mean “the current state of schools is not that great”.

But when he started in schools, married women had to resign when they got pregnant and there have been “amazing advancements” to make schools more family friendly thanks to the work done by the union across many consecutive Agreements.

He says one of the next big challenges is “changing things to make it easier for part-time workers in schools”.

“It’s a great profession but we must continue to attract more people and I’m not sure that work from home is making teaching attractive. Frontline workers like teachers don’t have that opportunity to work from home.”

Michael says education is still a great career and being a leader is a privilege.

“You’re allowed into people’s lives. I got to get to know families and help them at big moments in their lives.

“Every day at work is so different – no two days are the same.”

Proof of how much Michael loves education, and his team player ethos, comes when he’s asked about retirement. While there’s a 20-acre property with a few grapes on it to keep him busy, he’s also going to work a day or two a week – as a CRT!