Planning for 2020 student free days
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 124 No 8, 8 November 2019, page no. 13
Under the new agreement, the timing of student free days will change.
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)
- 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.
The programming of these mandatory professional development hours throughout the year will occur following consultation and agreement through the LCC (in schools required to have one) or in accordance with the consultation processes prescribed for schools with fewer than 20 employees.