Northern Territory – news – 01/02/08

Eighty-six new teachers attended a two-day orientation seminar in Darwin on 22 and 23 January. Many are heading out to remote schools and were looking forward to the experience of working in an Indigenous community. The opening session conducted by Ken Davies, Deputy Chief Executive Officer Education Services, included a workshop where groups of teachers explored the values that have been adopted by the Northern Territory Department of Employment, Education and Training to guide practice in Territory schools: respect, inclusiveness, innovation, professionalism and integrity.

Teachers unpacked the values and collected examples of how each value could be demonstrated in their professional lives. These included: listening to their Indigenous teaching partners (respect); including cultural context in the teaching programme (inclusiveness); using community resources and the web to find appropriate and engaging material (innovation); being on time and meeting deadlines (professionalism); and ‘walking the talk’ by being good role models (integrity).