Exactly who gets to decide what a teacher is?
I’ve been thinking about this a fair bit of late. Because right now – without much fanfare – that question is being answered on behalf of every teacher and school leader in Australia by people who will never even enter your school’s foyer.
The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers just closed a national review consultation. On the surface, that might sound like routine administration. In reality, decisions made in the next few months will shape what teachers are legally required to be – and how they’re trained, assessed, and registered – for the next generation.
The concern raised by researchers and teacher educators is this: the review’s remit embeds “core teaching practices” as distinct from “broader professional responsibilities.” It’s a phrase that seems innocuous until you dwell on it for a bit. It effectively sorts what teachers do into a hierarchy (the approved core) and… everything else. And the 37 existing professional standards are already being accompanied by an additional 64 prescribed elements that initial teacher education programs must demonstrate.
That’s a grand total of 101 checkboxes standing between a hopeful teacher and the classroom.
In Restoring Teaching, I write that, “From around the age of four, you began committing to memory a definition of what a teacher does. That definition, that picture of how teachers are supposed to work, is still within you.”
Most of us built that picture through our own lived experience. I do acknowledge that some of those experiences were negative. But I also contend that the very best teachers in our memories were not desperately adhering to standards, checklists and frameworks. They were built through relational trial and error.
The national review has now closed, meaning that the policy machinery is turning as you read this. And there’s a real risk that what emerges from it is a picture of a teacher that fits neatly into a table but bears bugger all resemblance to the teacher your community needs.
If you’re a school leader, I need you to know this – you are the local custodian of the definition of teacher in your school.
Not AITSL. Not a Department. Not a review panel in Canberra. You.
You decide every day – through what you celebrate, what you protect, what you prioritise and what you push back against – what teaching authentically looks like within your gates.
You decide whether the teacher who spends forty minutes with a kid who’s falling apart gets recognised, or gets ushered back to their lesson sequence.
You decide whether professional judgement is something you trust or something you mitigate against.
The APST review will do what it does. But no set of standards has ever guaranteed the production of a great teacher or captured the thing that makes a student remember someone for the rest of their life.
Guard that unwritten element ferociously in your school.
Keep fighting that good fight,
P.S. If you’re thinking about the great teachers already in your school – and how you keep them there – join me for The Teacher Retention Solution on 8 September.
We’ll get practical about what school leaders can actually control when it comes to attracting, developing and retaining great people, even in the middle of a national teacher shortage. It’s live online, $100 per school and your whole leadership team can join.
The Teacher Retention Solution Online Workshop
Tuesday 8 September 2026
2pm – 3.30pm
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