The people who teach your son, and why they stay

Ask a teacher about their best day, and you learn a lot about why they teach.

For Mr Waterhouse, Dean of Students, it's a specific moment. "You get those light-bulb moments as a teacher, when a boy who's been struggling with a concept, and the light switch goes. That's made my day. That's why I'm here."

It's one of the things a parent really wants to know about the people who will spend six years teaching their son. Are they here for the right reason? Ask the staff at St Augustine's College, and the answer keeps coming back to the boys.

What makes a good teacher?

Listen to the staff and the answer isn't really about technique or credentials. It's about who they're here for.

When Mr Danson, the College's Chief Information Officer, thinks back to his interview, one line stuck. The Principal, Mr Byrne, had distilled the whole mission down to something simple: turning young boys into good men. Years on, he still repeats it. A mission means little on a website. It means something when a staff member can tell you what it is without looking it up.

You hear the same warmth about the boys from the people who teach them. "The boys are usually very welcoming and very polite and very respectful," says Mr Ravenscroft, a Learning Enhancement teacher. Ms Quirke, Assistant Head of Religious Education, puts it plainly: "They're very forgiving. They're really kind. It's just so nice to walk around the campus, you can't not smile."

What the research says

Teaching quality matters more than almost anything else a school can offer. The educational researcher John Hattie, whose work the College draws on, found that the teacher is the single biggest in-school influence on how well a child learns, ahead of class size, facilities, nearly everything.

Which puts a sharper question to any parent choosing a school. Not how good are the teachers today, but how hard does the school work to keep making them better. That's the part that compounds over six years.

What should a parent look for in a school?

On the teaching, at least, cut through the marketing and ask two things. Does the school invest in its teachers, and do they stay. A school that keeps developing its teachers and holds onto them is one where your son will be taught by people who know him, and who get better at it every year he's there.

How the College backs its teachers

The College invests heavily in that. There's professional development every week, and the scale behind it isn't small: in 2024 the staff logged more than 1,700 hours of it, across dozens of internal workshops and external conferences, including the international boys' conference in New Zealand.

"We have professional development every single week, which has been fantastic," says Mr Wickham, a Dean of Students, "but also opportunities to go to external conferences." Mr McMahon, a Head of Year, points to the College bringing in outside expertise: "not only relying on the experience we have in staff, but also seeking experts in the field of academia. That's really supported my development." Four of the College's teachers were recognised for excellence at the 2023 Teachers' Guild of NSW awards, external recognition of all that internal work.

It's collegiate rather than competitive. "There's teachers here from all backgrounds and all stages of their career," says Mr Fong, who teaches Technological and Applied Studies. "We all share best practice and we all look after one another." A teacher who feels backed by the people around them has more left over for the boys in front of them.

Teachers who stay

The payoff is quiet, but it's the one that matters most to a family. Teachers are more likely to stay when they're supported, challenged and given room to keep learning. And teachers who stay know your son. They teach him in Year 7 and they're still there, still interested, when he's in Year 12.

Ms Earle, Deputy Principal, describes what holds them. "Everyone is part of something bigger. It's not really individualistic." It's the same phrase the boys reach for when they describe the College, which is probably not a coincidence. "That sense of belonging is really strong here," she says. "Working together as a community, we become the place we want to be."

The boys feel it because the adults around them do.