Public Service Announcement: Special Needs PD for Victorian Institute of Teaching renewal of registration.

Hi Everyone,

All us Victorians received an email last week outlining the Special Needs PD requirements being attached to our renewal of registration in the 2016 and 2017 reporting periods.In our collegial meeting last week we had a some concerns raised regarding this requirement and a number of associated worries surrounding it.  Some found the email confusing, others are receiving conflicting reports from various sources of information and so on.    I have also received emails asking very similar questions.

We have contacted VIT on behalf of Wodonga CRT Support Network members to get some straight answers for the most commonly asked questions on those who are feeling out of their depth on this one.

Are there hours attached to this requirement?

• No.  There has been confusion over 'hours' regarding this requirement because people have been told there are hours but they cannot find how many hours they need on the VIT website. The reason there is no mention of hours on the VIT website is that there is no time component to this requirement. We are required ONLY to have 'some PD' related to special needs (APST descriptors 1.5, 1.6 and 4.1).

The second issue is that we are required to declare two years worth of this PD.

Will anyone get 'in trouble' if they did not do any Special Needs PD last year (2015 reporting period)?

• No. If we have done PD hours regarding special needs last year and this year we can satisfy this requirement this year (2016 reporting period) but we do not 'have to'. If we did not do any special needs PD last year (2015 reporting period) we can do some this year, some next year and successfully meet this requirement in 2017 without penalty.

Do we need to do "Extra PD" to satisfy this requirement?

• No. This PD is included in the standard 20 hours fully registered teachers submit every year.

Do provisionally registered teachers need to do this PD?

• No. If a teacher is not a fully registered teacher they do not have to supply the 20 hours of PD each year to maintain registration so none of this PD must be referenced to special needs.  As a provisionally registered teacher they will demonstrate it as part of the process of moving to (full) teacher registration or early childhood teacher registration IF they undertake the full registration process. If they are provisionally registered and do not undertake the full registration process they do not need to meet this requirement in any way.

The VIT webpage providing more information can be found here:

http://www.vit.vic.edu.au/registered-teacher/special-needs-plan

Don't ruin a great day by stressing about special needs PD requirements!  This is honestly very easy to comply with and there is no reason it should prove an issue for any one of us.

Regards,

Melinda Lichnovsky-Klock
Wodonga/Shepparton CRT Support Network Coordinator.