Professional development pathways for teacher aides
Departmental policies promote equitable access to professional development for all staff. Professional development for school staff, including teacher aides, is addressed in regional, district and school planning to enhance the delivery of educational services.
Schools provide development opportunities for teacher aides that:
- acknowledge the value of teacher aide work
- enable new skills and knowledge to be developed
- encourage shared understandings with teachers
- enhance opportunities for career development
The Department of Education and Training Teacher Aides Certified Agreement 2011 
requires schools to provide specific training for certain duties:
- Senior First Aid Certificate at no personal cost if teacher aides are required to provide this service to the school or when they are ready to move into classification TAOO3;
- access to Behaviour Management training and information consistent with their roles in a supportive behaviour management environment;
- adequate training to perform specialised health procedures for students;
- all teacher aides rostered for supervision of students on the playground and at bus stops are to be trained in supportive behaviour management techniques suited to situations outside the classroom as developed in the school Behaviour Management Plan.
A suite of accredited qualifications developed specifically for Queensland teacher aides has been assimilated into, and superseded by, the Education Support qualifications in the national Community Services Training Package CHC08
These qualifications are designed for those who wish to excel as teacher aides or to explore a range of career options.
Teacher aides have three ways to gain a qualification that will progress them to classification TAOO3:
RPL
- On reaching TAOO2 pay point 04, teacher aides are eligible to be funded by their school to gain a Certificate through Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). RPL requires the teacher aide and the school to supply evidence that he/she meets the competency requirements of the course.
School-funded course
- Many teacher aides prefer to undertake coursework at an earlier stage in their career. This enables the school to benefit earlier - from their increased capability - and to spread course payments over the period of study.
Self-funded course
- If the school is unable to financially support a teacher aide prior to them reaching TAOO2 pay point 04, they can choose to enrol in a course privately. Personal payment of course fees may be claimed when submitting a tax return.
Using one of the options above, a qualification can be achieved at any time in a teacher aide's TAOO2 career.
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This page was last reviewed on 22 Mar 2012
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