21 October 2019

Planning for 2020 student free days

The impending certification of the new agreement will mean that the timing of student free days will be different from the commencement of the 2020 school year.

There will now be:

• three gazetted student free days (staff professional development days)
• 10 hours of mandatory professional development to be undertaken in addition to the student free days (formerly referred to as flexible student free day hours).

The gazetted student free days are Thursday 23 January, Friday 24 January and Friday 4 September (moved from term four to term three).

However, the hours of the term three student free day may be used flexibly if agreed to at the local level following consultation through the LCC.

In lieu of gazetting flexible student free days in the Easter holidays, teachers must undertake an additional ten hours of professional development each year. These can be utilised in a number of ways:

• as an additional student free day at the start of the year (e.g. Wednesday 22 January = five hours (or possibly longer, e.g. 6-8 hours)
• added to the gazetted student free days (e.g. rather than being five hours each, these days might be eight hours each)
• accessed as after-school professional development at a later time during the term/year
• in lieu of undertaking mandatory training online and outside school hours.

 Authorised by Kate Ruttiman, General Secretary, Queensland Teachers' Union
21 Graham Street, Milton, QLD, Australia, 4064