Leading Teacher/mental Health and Wellbeing Leader

Location: Melbourne | Southern Metropolitan

Job type: Full time / From 28/01/2025 - 26/01/2028

Organisation: Schools (Government)

**Salary**: Salary not specified

Occupation: Teacher

Reference: 1432208

**Selection Criteria**:
KSC 1: Demonstrated expert knowledge of the Victorian Curriculum. Demonstrated ability to lead by influencing the work of others and managing the implementation of school priorities in the engagement, learning, mental health and wellbeing of students.

KSC 2: Demonstrated ability to lead the planning and implementation of high impact teaching and high impact wellbeing strategies that respond to student wellbeing and learning needs. Demonstrated ability to evaluate the impact of learning and teaching programs on students learning growth and mental health and wellbeing.

KSC 3: Demonstrated exemplary ability to monitor and assess student learning as a class, cohort or whole-school level and use this data to lead improvement initiatives. Demonstrated ability to support others in using data to inform teaching practice and to provide feedback on student learning growth and achievement to students and parents.

Demonstrated ability to support a students¿ mental health, well-being or learning by developing and maintaining connection with external services.

KSC 4: Demonstrated exemplary interpersonal, leadership, and communication skills. Demonstrated capability to establish and maintain collaborative relationships with students, parent, other employees and broader school community to focus on student learning, agency, well-being and engagement.

KSC 5: Demonstrated ability to model behaviours and attitudes consistent with Department values and support colleagues to adopt these behaviours and attitudes. Demonstrated ability to reflect upon their own, others and whole school practice and contribute to the provision of whole-school professional learning.

KSC 6: Demonstrated ability to influence and negotiate by gaining buy-in and ownership for ideas, gaining agreement to proposals, or involving experts or other third parties to strengthen a case.

**Role**:
**Leading teachers** will be highly skilled classroom practitioners and undertake leadership and management roles commensurate with their salary range. The role of leading teachers is to improve the skill, knowledge and performance of the teaching workforce in a school or group of schools and to improve the curriculum program of a school.

Typically, leading teachers are responsible for coordinating a number of staff to achieve improvements in teaching and learning which may involve the coordination and professional support of colleagues through modelling, collaborating and coaching and using processes that develop knowledge, practice and professional engagement in others.

Leading teachers are expected to lead and manage a significant area or function within the school with a high degree of independence to ensure the effective development, provision and evaluation of the school's education program.

Leading teachers will be expected to make a significant contribution to policy development relating to teaching and learning in the school. A leading teacher has a direct impact and influence on the achievement of the school goals.

Leading teachers are usually responsible for the implementation of one or more priorities contained in the school strategic plan.

The Royal Commission into Victoria's Mental Health System highlighted that primary schools provide opportunities to identify children with mental health and wellbeing challenges, who can then be referred to treatment, care and support.

**Mental health and wellbing leader role**:
The Mental Health in Primary Schools program is being expanded to every government and low-fee non-government primary school in Victoria. Scaling up across the state from 2023, by 2026 every primary school will be able to employ a Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader to implement a whole-school approach to wellbeing.

The Department of Education and Training has been piloting the Mental Health in Primary Schools program in Victorian schools since 2020 in partnership with the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. Evaluation of this pilot program has shown that 95 per cent of Mental Health and Wellbeing Leaders consider the Mental Health in Primary Schools model has improved their school¿s capacity to support students¿ mental health and wellbeing needs.

Participating schools receive funding to employ a **Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader**, a qualified teacher, to work across the school to implement a whole-school approach to mental health and wellbeing for students, staff and families based on a broad knowledge of the needs of the school community.

The role of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader is to:

- build capability of the whole school with regard to mental health and wellbeing (identification, promotion and preventi