• 01 Your accreditation clock — it is already running 3
• 02 The week before students arrive — admin tasks that carry real risk 4
• 03 Duty of care — six areas new teachers underestimate 5
• 04 The workload reality — hours, tasks, and what to stop doing 6
• 05 Reading school culture — formal and informal structures 6
• 06 Sunday dread and the first really bad class — what is normal and what needs attention 7
• ? Frequently asked questions 7

The most commonly missed detail about a first permanent position: in most states, your provisional registration period starts well before you feel settled. In NSW, the clock began when you received conditional accreditation, not when you signed the contract for this role.

Every state manages the provisional-to-full progression differently. The table below summarises current requirements across all eight states and territories.

Sources: State/territory teacher registration authorities, 2024. Requirements change over time — always verify with your regulator before acting.

The single most common reason teachers struggle with provisional-to-full progression is leaving evidence collection until the final year. By then they cannot reconstruct why a unit worked, what they tried, or how they responded to student data.

Identify your Accreditation Supervisor (NSW) or equivalent mentor (other states) in your first week. This is not the same as a supportive colleague. It is the person formally responsible for endorsing your progress, and the relationship is better started early than awkwardly initiated six months before your deadline.

Most new teachers spend this week in a low-level panic about lessons. The lessons matter, but several administrative tasks carry higher risk if neglected.

Ask administration for your class lists as soon as they are available. Before day 1, you need to know which students have Individual Learning Plans (ILPs) or Personalised Learning Pathways, healthcare plans, and anaphylaxis action plans including where their EpiPen is stored.

Locate the first aid room, emergency assembly points for each room you teach in, and the staff bathroom nearest your teaching rooms. Find the duty roster — know your playground supervision area and schedule. Your timetable will not tell you which rooms have no working projector or which classes arrive late on certain days. Ask a colleague to walk you through it before students arrive.

Australian teachers and schools owe a non-delegable duty of care to students under common law. Non-delegable means that using an external provider — an excursion company, a sports coach, a digital platform — does not transfer your responsibility to that provider. [Source: Australian High Court authority on non-delegable duties]

Before any off-campus activity, read the risk assessment and know the emergency procedures. Supervision ratio requirements exist for a reason. Delegating supervision to older students while you handle another task is not adequate coverage.

Your duty of care obligation does not end when the bell rings. Negligence claims involving recess and lunchtime supervision are common. Leave your duty post only when relieved by another staff member. If you are running late to a duty, tell someone.

Do not release a young student at the end of the day without confirming a parent or authorised adult is present. If no parent arrives, take the student to the front office and follow the school's procedure. Releasing a child to an unverified adult is a documented liability scenario in Australian case law.

Know where the first aid kit is, where the nearest first aider is, and the procedure for calling an ambulance from your school's phone system. Know which of your students has an anaphylaxis action plan and where the EpiPen is stored before an emergency, not during it.

If your students are working on school-provided devices during class time, you are responsible for supervising that activity. Do not set a digital task and leave students unattended. Know how to use your school's content monitoring tools.

Mandatory reporting obligations apply from day 1. You do not need to be sure that abuse or neglect has occurred. You need to have formed a reasonable suspicion based on what you have directly observed or been told. Know your school's reporting procedure and the name of the designated child protection contact before you need them.

The median full-time classroom teacher in Australia works 50 hours per week during school terms, and 26% of full-time teachers report working 60 or more hours per week. [Source: AITSL Australian Teacher Workforce Data, 2023; n=50,556] Lesson planning and administration together account for approximately 33% of task time. In your first semester, with no existing resources and an unfamiliar school context, you are likely to be above the median.

The colleagues who leave at a reasonable hour in their first year are almost always doing one of two things: reusing and adapting existing resources rather than building from scratch, and being specific about what "good enough" looks like for each task. Ask your year-level or faculty colleagues what they used last year. In most schools, there are shared drives with resources that are yours to use.

Every school has a formal structure (the hierarchy on the website) and an informal one (who people actually listen to). In your first semester, spend more time observing than asserting. Find the experienced classroom teacher who acts as the informal knowledge hub — usually not a head of department — and pay attention to what they say about how the school operates.

Your union representative is also worth locating in week 1. Your school-based rep knows your entitlements, the award conditions, and what to do if a situation becomes difficult.

45% of early career teachers in Australia received no formal induction in 2023. [Source: AITSL Induction Spotlight, 2023] If your school provides no structured induction, ask your head of faculty for an explicit first-week briefing on behaviour management approach, assessment schedule, and the reporting system. Request two weeks of co-planning with a colleague — NSW DoE explicitly recommends this for beginning teachers under Beginning Teacher Support Funding. Enrol in your state's beginning teacher network and register for your union's beginning teacher conference.

The Sunday dread — the low-level anxiety that arrives by Sunday afternoon and sits with you through dinner — is normal in the first semester. Most experienced teachers had it. Most do not have it by their third year. This is not a sign that you have chosen the wrong career.

The first really bad class is also normal. A lesson will fail to land. A student will say something you do not know how to respond to in the moment. You will give a direction that gets ignored. These are not signals that you are unsuitable for the profession.

A situation has moved from normal-hard to genuinely difficult when: a particular class is consistently unsafe over multiple weeks; you are regularly receiving no support from your head of department; or you are experiencing persistent personal distress including sleep disruption or health impacts. If the first condition applies, escalate formally and document what you have tried. If the second or third applies, contact your union and, separately, your GP.

The Black Dog Institute found that 47% of first-year teachers considered leaving within their first year. [Source: Black Dog Institute Teacher Wellbeing Survey, 2023] The actual rate of registration discontinuation in the first five years is approximately 5–6% total. [Source: AITSL ATWD, 2023] The gap between what teachers consider and what they actually do is significant.

1. What should I do in my first week as a permanent teacher?

Confirm your class lists and check for students with healthcare, anaphylaxis, or individual learning plans. Locate your duty roster and understand your supervision obligations. Identify your accreditation supervisor or provisional registration mentor. Ask administration about mandatory training (anaphylaxis, first aid). Co-plan your first two weeks of lessons with a colleague rather than working alone.

2. How do I start building evidence for provisional accreditation?

Start a simple log in week 1: a folder or document where you note what you taught, what you attempted, what the student response was, and what you changed. You do not need polished evidence from day one. You need a record. Annotate it as you go. Know your state's maximum provisional period and calculate when your deadline falls.

3. How do I handle a bad class as a new teacher?

After the class, write down specifically what went wrong — not "it was chaos" but what triggered it, what you tried, and what happened next. Talk to your mentor or head of department. If the pattern continues across multiple weeks, escalate formally and document it.

4. Is the first year of teaching always this hard?

For most teachers, yes. The workload is high and the learning curve is steep. AITSL data shows the median full-time teacher works 50 hours per week during term. [Source: AITSL ATWD, 2023] The first year typically runs above the median because nothing is routine yet. Most teachers who find the first year very hard stay in the profession.

5. What if my school provides no formal induction?

45% of early career teachers nationally received no formal induction in 2023. [Source: AITSL, 2023] Ask your head of faculty for an explicit briefing on the school's systems and expectations. Request co-planning time with a colleague. Enrol in your state's beginning teacher network. Join your union and attend their beginning teacher conference.

6. Do I need anaphylaxis training?

In Victoria and NSW, teachers who have students with a known anaphylaxis risk are legally required to complete training as soon as practicable after that student enrols. [Source: VIC Ministerial Order 706; NSW DoE policy] Other states have equivalent duty of care expectations. In your first week, ask administration whether any of your students have an anaphylaxis action plan. If yes, complete ASCIA's free online training before that student returns to your class.

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