Accreditation Supervisors
As an Accreditation Supervisor, you play an important role in supporting teachers developing their practice to achieve Proficient Teacher accreditation.
Accreditation Supervisor eligibility
You must be accredited at Proficient Teacher or above to become an Accreditation Supervisor.
If there is no teacher accredited at Proficient Teacher or above, a person on a Leave of Absence or accredited as Non-practising may be appointed as an Accreditation Supervisor.
Allocation of Accreditation Supervisors
Principals/Teacher Accreditation Delegates (TA Delegates) allocate Accreditation Supervisors to their teachers working towards Proficient Teacher.
In an early childhood service where the TA Delegate is the only Proficient Teacher within the employer, the TA Delegate may also be the Accreditation Supervisor.
NESA will allocate Accreditation Supervisors to teachers working for early childhood employers without access to a Proficient Teacher.
If a colleague asks you to be their Accreditation Supervisor, speak with your employer or service director, then email us: ECTaccreditation@nesa.nsw.edu.au
How to become an Accreditation Supervisor
Your principal/TA Delegate or NESA will nominate you to be an Accreditation Supervisor. They will assign you a ‘Supervisor’ role in eTAMS and allocate you to one or more teachers.
Accept your role in eTAMS
Once you have accepted your role, you will see a ‘Supervisor’ dashboard in your NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) online account (eTAMS). When you are allocated a teacher, a task will appear in your dashboard to accept this allocation.
When you complete the task in eTAMS, the teacher will be notified by email.
Complete NESA's training
We strongly recommend you complete our online courses and workshop for Accreditation Supervisors.
- Accreditation Supervisor Orientation Course in NESA Learning
- learn more about your role and responsibilities
- access guides and resources to help you.
- Making Consistent Proficient Teacher Accreditation Decisions in NESA Learning
- learn more about the characteristics of effective documentary evidence.
- become confident making judgements about a teacher’s documentary evidence.
- Accreditation Supervisor Workshop
- learn more about supporting your colleagues as they develop their practice
- this is an online workshop run each term. Check availability and register through the showcases, courses and events page.
Working with your teacher
Accreditation Supervisors support provisionally or conditionally accredited teachers to develop their practice, aligning with the Standards at Proficient Teacher.
Support the teacher as they begin their application
Get started
Assist the teacher to:
- get familiar with the process of applying for Proficient Teacher accreditation
- complete NESA’s mandatory online Proficient Teacher Orientation Course.
Help your teacher understand the Standards
Make sure both you and your teacher understand:
- the Standards at the Proficient Teacher career stage
- your employer’s internal procedures for gaining Proficient Teacher accreditation.
Developing the teacher’s practice
Work with them
Discuss a plan to help the teacher develop their practice to meet Proficient Teacher requirements. Encourage them to attend a NESA workshop for hands-on learning.
Meet with them regularly to:
- help them reflect on their teaching practice
- give them feedback.
As part of your ongoing discussions with the teacher, give feedback and develop a plan to specifically address any Standard or specific Standard Descriptor they are yet to demonstrate in their practice or evidence.
Documentary evidence
Support the teacher as they collect documentary evidence. This is produced as a natural outcome of teaching, and not created for the specific purpose of accreditation.
If the teacher is collecting documentary evidence across multiple schools/services or employers, you can ask them to get this authenticated in eTAMS.
Support the teacher to choose 5 to 8 items of evidence for submission to NESA which in total show that each Standard is being met. Each evidence item must link to 2 to 4 Standard Descriptors.
Review their evidence and annotations
Review and give feedback to the teacher on their collection of documentary evidence and annotations.
Use the Proficient Teacher evidence guide (PDF 605.99KB) to guide your feedback.
Support the teacher to finalise their application
Observe their practice
You must complete an observation of the teacher’s teaching practice. The observation needs to include the 3 phases:
- planning
- observing
- reflecting.
Where it is not possible to conduct the observation in person, you may arrange with the teacher to complete a virtual or recorded observation.
Observation report
You must write an observation report. The planning phase is the first part of the observation report and is filled in by the teacher.
The teacher will then complete a reflection on your report and upload the report to eTAMS.
Download the Teacher accreditation observation report template (PDF 960KB).
Make a holistic judgement that the teacher is ready to finalise their application
When you and the teacher agree that their application is ready, ask the teacher to submit it in their eTAMS. You will receive notification when this arrives in your eTAMS.
Your holistic judgement is based on:
- professional conversations with the teacher throughout their accreditation period
- your knowledge and observation of their practice over time
- the 5 to 8 items of annotated documentary evidence selected to represent their practice
- any feedback and support provided to the teacher (for example an improvement plan or other intervention, and the outcome of such intervention where applicable).
Review your teacher’s application
Review the application in your eTAMS to make sure:
- the evidence matches the chosen Standard Descriptors
- the annotation explains how the evidence demonstrates all the chosen Standard Descriptors
- there is enough evidence to fully demonstrate the chosen Standard Descriptors
- the teacher has ticked the correct descriptors in eTAMS when uploading.
Give specific feedback on any Standard Descriptors that are not demonstrated in the documentary evidence.
If revisions are needed
- You can request revisions in eTAMS. Continue to support the teacher to strengthen their documentary evidence demonstrating the nominated Standard Descriptors.
- If necessary, work with the principal/TA Delegate/employer to develop an improvement plan or other intervention to support the teacher to demonstrate the specific Standard Descriptors not yet demonstrated.
You identify an issue with the teacher’s practice
If you think that the issue(s) may impact the principal/TA Delegate’s accreditation recommendation, you must advise them and the teacher in writing within 28 days of becoming aware of the issue(s). Written notices cannot be sent in your NESA online account (eTAMS) – refer to your employer’s internal procedures for how to do this.
NESA-allocated Accreditation Supervisors should advise us at ECTaccreditation@nesa.nsw.edu.au for advice about providing written notice to the teacher within 28 days of becoming aware of the issue(s).
Complete your declaration
Make a declaration as to whether the teacher has met the Standards. Do this in eTAMS within 28 days of the date the teacher submitted their application.
The application will go to the principal/TA Delegate to make an accreditation recommendation to NESA within 28 days of your declaration.
If the principal/TA Delegate asks for revisions to the teacher’s application:
- advise the teacher via eTAMS that their application needs revisions
- continue to support the teacher as they make the requested revisions
- make a new declaration once the teacher has completed the revisions.
If the teacher has not met requirements
You may make a declaration that the teacher has not demonstrated practice at Proficient Teacher if:
- an improvement plan or other intervention has been developed and implemented
- it is still your holistic judgement that the teacher's practice does not yet meet each of the Proficient Teacher Standards.
Make this declaration within 28 days of the teacher submitting their application.
You must provide evaluative comments in eTAMS which outline the:
- issues
- Standard Descriptors not yet demonstrated
- feedback and support offered to the teacher
- teacher’s response to the feedback and support.
Discuss your intention to make this declaration with your principal/TA Delegate.
Principal or TA Delegate makes a recommendation
Your principal/TA Delegate will make a recommendation to NESA. They may request the teacher make revisions.
The revision request will go back to you as the Accreditation Supervisor in eTAMS for you to then discuss with the teacher.
NESA makes the accreditation decision
NESA makes the decision within 28 days of the principal/TA Delegate’s recommendation. The teacher will be notified by email.
First maintenance period begins
If NESA accredits the teacher at Proficient Teacher, they will start their first maintenance period on the day the accreditation decision is made. NESA will issue them a certificate.