Pictured: From left to right Chloe Hosking, Nicola Sorrell and Christina Chabros.

The Growth Team have once again had a busy and productive year.

From 1 January to 30 September, across 189 events and online interactions, the SSTUWA’s Growth Team recruited 492 financial members and 305 student members.

It is a wonderful result and testament to the hard work of the team, led by coordinator Chloe Hosking and officers Christina Chabros and Nicola Sorrell.

Graduate modules continue to represent the best opportunity for the team to reach new members. These modules provide the team with the dual purpose of recruitment to, and education about, the SSTUWA. These modules also provide an important opportunity for the team to support early career teachers.

Throughout 2024, the team have also attended university O-days, education-specific orientations and graduate and career events.

The student conversion project saw the team engage with more than 450 students with lapsed SSTUWA membership. Sixty-two of these student members signed up instantly at the point of contact. Many more joined at later graduate modules, school visits or of their own accord.

This year, the SSTUWA has presented to cohorts of the International Teacher Induction group.

Teachers are arriving from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, New Zealand, United States of America, Canada, South Africa and India. A large proportion of teachers from these cohorts are joining with the Growth Team during these induction events. In fact, 42 per cent sign up immediately, with others joining soon after.

Nothing beats direct contact and about 61 per cent of the Growth Team recruitment joins were from face-to-face conversations while a further 26 per cent resulted from recruitment phone calls.

We continue to see an increase of pre-service teachers obtaining contracts across our public schools, due to the teacher shortage. The team provides support and information to this group of members and have developed, in conjunction with the Education and Training Centre, a specifically designed half-day event, in an effort to build understanding and knowledge of important working conditions. Learn more about the Building a Strong Foundation for New Educators in Public Education course here.

Early career teachers, being trained or untrained, in their first five years of teaching, as well as SSTUWA student members, receive the New Educator Network (NEN) eNews, sent on the first Tuesday of every month. Curated by the team, the NEN eNews is packed full of new educator specific information, which continues to be very well received by the membership.

Any early career teacher or student who joins the SSTUWA receives an onboarding email. This email contains additional information about the team as well as other supports new educators can access.

In addition to direct recruitment, Nicola, who focuses on heads of departments/heads of learning areas, has worked throughout 2024 to connect with and engage the middle leader cohort through targeted emails, Western Teacher articles and in person during school visits.

An opportunity for networking and discussion was provided for middle leaders through a half-day event titled, the Meat in the Sandwich. Feedback provided by participants was very positive with 93 per cent rating the course as highly satisfactory to excellent.

Members continue to engage with the SSTUWA through a variety of different platforms from Facebook to webinars, reading the NEN eNews or listening to the podcasts. Thank you to Chloe, Christina and Nicola for adding their voices to podcast editions and sharing ideas, hints, tips and information. This has provided valuable content for our listeners, particular those in their first few years of teaching. If you haven’t had an opportunity to listen to these episodes, search for Western Teacher Live, wherever you get your podcasts, or visit the Western Teacher Live news tab here.

This year, the Growth Team received 22 expressions of interest to attend State Council Conference via our guest program. I would like to thank all the members who expressed an interest and congratulate this year’s successful applicants.

I would like to again acknowledge and thank Chloe, Christina and Nicola for
their hard work and dedication throughout 2024.

While the legacy of the SSTUWA sits with its existing members, the future of the union lies with its new members. In this regard, the Growth Team’s hard work has laid the foundation for that rich legacy to continue.