The NSW Independent schools’ sector has drawn global attention for its innovative approach to the essential task of nurturing early career teachers.

AISNSW won Platinum in the EdTech Mentoring Online category of the 2025 Asia-Pacific LearnX Awards, which were presented at a gala ceremony in Melbourne last week.

AISNSW chief executive Margery Evans says the honour is fitting acknowledgement of a program that is harnessing online learning to support education trainees and mentor teachers and to facilitate face-to-face networking, webinars, and school visits.

“Its design also enables self-directed learning, resource sharing, portfolio development, and seamless communication,” Evans says.

Eighty-seven per cent of education trainees who’ve taken part, she shares, have reported that the program has enhanced and extended their initial teacher education.

“Mentoring is an investment in the future of schooling; when early career teachers feel supported, they are more likely to thrive, remain in the profession, and contribute meaningfully to student learning outcomes,” Evans explains.

“Initiatives such as our Teaching School Hub and Early Career Experience exemplify how targeted support strengthens the workforce and ensures continuity of high standards in education.”

NSW’s 430 independent schools employ more than 21,000 teachers, and Evans says the Teaching School Hub program is about getting trainee teachers into schools and giving them a very practical experience.

“So they still go to university, they still do their practicums in other schools, but this gives them a day a week – for which they receive a sort of apprentice wage – in the school for the entire year.

“In order to make that a really positive experience, they need to have expert and supportive and experienced mentors, and so this online mentoring program does two things – it helps the mentors by working them through a training and support program and some scaffolding, and then it provides the platform for the mentors and the trainee teachers to interact.

“So, for example, if the mentor teacher observes a lesson, they can put their observations and their feedback on the platform and the trainee teacher can respond to that, or the mentor might want to set the trainee teacher some goals – they can put those up there and they’ve got a one-stop-shop place to put [all that information].”

Another important component of the Teaching Hub program is to ensure mentors are fully trained so that they can support teachers with the best experience possible.

“Experienced mentors help bridge the gap between theory and practice by providing new educators with guidance, emotional support and professional insight that fosters confidence and resilience,” AISNSW chief executive Margery Evans says.

“Experienced mentors help bridge the gap between theory and practice by providing new educators with guidance, emotional support and professional insight that fosters confidence and resilience,” Evans says.

“Effective mentoring programs such as ours not only enhance teaching quality but also reduce attrition rates, a critical issue across the education sector.

“By creating a collaborative environment, mentors help early career teachers develop strong professional identities and refine their classroom management skills.”

One would expect that recruiting mentors might be a difficult undertaking given how time poor teachers are already without having that extra responsibility of guiding and nurturing new teachers, but Evans says experienced teachers really want to give back to the profession and so are willing to find time in their busy days – but also, that the experience proves hugely beneficial to them.

“They learn more about their own teaching; they have to research the things that they’re wanting to support their mentee on, and so it really feeds back to them,” she explains.

“And that’s why this online training program has been so good, because it does try to minimise the time requirement for people, so they can do it in their own time, outside school hours, at night if they want to, and they’ve got this platform within which they can interact, and it doesn’t always have to be in real time.”

Encouragingly, the Teaching Hub is going from strength to strength.

“So in 2023 we had 11 schools participating in the program and in 2025 we’ve got 25 schools taking part.

“Originally we were talking about 21 pre-service teachers, now we’re looking at 75, so given that it’s a prerequisite that you have to have mentored teachers ready to take on this responsibility, I think that’s a clear demonstration that people are willing and able to do this.”

The quality of teacher graduates and the standard of preparation and job-readiness provided by ITE providers is much debated at present, with many principals highly critical of the job being done by universities.

Speaking at the Australian School Improvement Summit in October in Sydney, a panel comprised of principal Manisha Gazula, from Marsden Road Public School in Sydney’s south-west, deputy principal Dr Greg Ashman from Ballarat Clarendon College and principal Sue Knight from Ararat West Primary School in Victoria, suggested that initial teacher education, bar for a few notable exceptions, actually makes their jobs harder as school leaders. 

Gazula said new graduates who came to Marsden Road needed to be retrained from scratch before they could effectively teach a class.

But Evans says from her perspective she has no complaints.

“Let me just say we are finding that there are certainly enough young, and sometimes not so young, teachers coming out of universities who are able fulfil the demanding requirements that independent schools have.

“So if that’s the measure of what’s happening in university, I’d say that there are enough universities doing enough good work to make sure that our principals are well placed to make some pretty good choices in our schools.”