#Cook 🇦🇺 in the middle of no… err, in the middle of the #Nullarbor Plain. A fresh-air stop, as remote as it can get: #Adelaide and #Perth are each more than 1,000 kms away. And: it’s THE opportunity for everyone to take pictures of the #IndianPacific, its 27 cars and the loco.
The #IndianPacific 🇦🇺 from #Sydney to #Perth via #Adelaide has got a number of Lounge Cars in its consist: perfect places to unwind, to enjoy some really good coffee ☕️ or a drink.
Boarding the #IndianPacific 🇦🇺 at #Sydney Central. The train is almost 30 cars long. The 4,352 km long journey to #Perth, on the other end of #Australia, will last 65 hours they say. Plenty of mileage ahead then. And what a beautiful train!
@andreaswiedenhoff 30 normal length (about 25 m) passenger cars? That is rather extreme. Are these the longest passenger trains anywhere? Or are there as long ones in Russia or China?
A roofline with real character at one of our favourite Scottish castles, Elcho Castle, close to the River Tay a few miles south-east of Perth. The castle is believed to date back to about 1570 and was built by the Wemyss family. More pics and info: https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/perth/elchocastle/index.html
Wander up Kinnoull Hill in Perth today. I don't think I've been up here before, but it had really good paths and was pretty quiet so reckon we'll be back.
Today, like many other West Australian teachers, I'm not going to work this morning.
It's interesting that our industrial action is represented in the media as about pay. We're not striking over salary - we're striking because the system is broken.
My son has had no Phys Ed teacher all year. He's had a procession of relief teachers which, for a special needs child, is extremely distressing. He attends an inner city public school, but staffing shortages are statewide.
Speaking of special needs students, I'd like to look after my own without having to skip lunch to ensure their needs are met.
I'd like the Education Department to give me a personal device so I can do my job
(more efficiently). If I want a laptop, I have to lease one.
I'd like an acknowledgement of how teaching has recently become more difficult and demanding, especially during #COVID19, when we kept schools open and tried to keep students safe.
I enforced the mask mandate far more often than a rank-and-file police officer. I've probably been threatened and assaulted more times than many police officers too. And the statewide mobile phone ban? Guess who enforces that every single day.
So many of my colleagues have left teaching: re-trained or resigned due to burnout and stress. Who suffers? The students.
It's not about the pay. We're tired, and we need support. We're underfunded and under-resourced. We need to improve conditions for students. We need to fix the system.
@neenish_tart@FerdiMagellan I think higher pay would attract more people, I don’t know that it would retain them. We have the central, fundamental problem of the emotional workload of dealing with awful behaviour. How can we fix that? Either let us remove badly behaved students, or reduce class sizes to the point where we can manage it.
@neenish_tart@FerdiMagellan the main issue is that private schooling has concentrated the demographics with the most behavioural problems, the trauma, the violence, the poverty into one set of schools, while the students from the families without those issues (statistically, not deterministically) go to private schools. It normalises bad behaviour for those in the public system.