In NSW teachers get sacked for doing nude photo shoots with their partners in the Cleo sealed section.

A Sydney primary school teacher has been sacked for participating in a magazine nude photo shoot with her partner.

[…]

Mrs Tziolas appeared in the sealed section of Cleo magazine with her husband and nine other couples talking about their sex lives.

[…]

“As teachers we’re expected to be somewhat superhuman and not have a private life,” she said.

“It’s denying the fact that teachers are normal. Yes we have sex, yes we enjoy it…”

In Victoria teachers get cautioned by the offensively useless Victorian Institute of Teaching for buying students grog, discussing sex lives and swapping phone numbers.

A TEACHER who helped a student buy a slab of beer and discussed her sexual habits has been allowed to remain in the classroom.

And despite claims the teacher also talked about using marijuana to “wean herself” off painkillers, the price of cocaine and losing her virginity, Victoria’s teaching watchdog has found she deserves a second chance.

The Victorian Institute of Teaching found that Louise Margaret Huntington engaged in “misconduct” by failing to engage in “professional relationships” with her students.

A panel of three teachers found Ms Huntington displayed “professional immaturity” when she swapped phone numbers with a 17-year-old male student from another school in December 2006 and began seeing him outside school hours.

The secondary school teacher — who talked to the student about her lesbian relationships — allowed the teenager to stay the night at her house after driving him to a supermarket to buy beer.

Somewhere in the middle is the right approach.

Details are still sketchy but news is spreading around the teacher gossip network like bird flu. It seems that teachers — who have been locked in negotiations with a government that didn’t really want to negotiate for 18 months — have successfully told education minister Bronwyn Pike to stick her sub-inflation offer of 3.5% per year and instead grant Victorian teachers (the worst paid in the country) pay parity with their NSW colleagues. With virtually no productivity trade-offs teachers have been offered payrises of between $5000 and $10,000 with a John Howard-style $1000 once off bribe payment thrown in for good measure. Again, I’m not sure of the exact details but will update this post when they are officially released.

UPDATE: From ABC Online

The Premier John Brumby says the salary of a graduate teacher will rise by about $5,000 and senior teachers will get a $10,000 pay rise.

“We’ll make the classroom teachers the highest paid anywhere in Australia,” he said.

Mr Brumby, says they gave the teachers more than the original offer of 3.25 per cent because the union has agreed to boost productivity by spending more time with students.

“They will get an extra 10 minutes of tuition everyday.”

The Education Union’s Mary Bluett says top teachers will get a 15 per cent pay rise and graduate teachers 9.5 per cent over three years.

“The salary will actually reflect the importance of the job of teaching,” she said.

“That would do a lot to retain the teachers that we have here in the state.”

Under the deal, three of the four pupil-free days will be moved to before the start of the school year and teachers will get a one-off $1,000 cash bonus.

UPDATE II: Check out the ABC’s apostrophe problems.

I blame teachers.

Billybob and I were sitting in the pub last night with my laptop and some free wireless internet looking up timetables for a train journey we were thinking of taking. Tuesday night is really party night in Ed and BB’s worlds. But we both had to laugh our arses off when the V/Line timetable search returned this result.

Sorry there has been a problem…

Regrettably our system has experienced a problem when looking up journeys to match your requirements.

Some possible causes and solutions:

1) The Plan Your Journey tool cannot currently plan journeys from one part of regional Victoria to another. We are currently working on a replacement system, to eliminate this issue.

V/Line: serving regional Victoria by failing to provide any real service information.

I’m as surprised as anyone. I’m sure The Ed will have more to say on this in coming days, but for now….

NOT THWAITES!

ANYONE BUT THWAITES!!!

Update: As you were.

The horror:

Prize-wielding Victorian police will be on the lookout for law-abiding cyclists in October in a bid to cut the number of people injured on the roads.

[…]

Cycling gear and accessories will be awarded to cyclists spotted by police as being responsible road users. Those spotted will have their names placed in a draw for the prizes.

I’m tellin’ ya, if the cops pull me over for stopping at a red light with my helmet on while I’m riding to meet Billybob for squash tomorrow and try to give me a Captain Supa SafeT Award I’m gonna go postal. Can you imagine the indignity of being pulled over by a couple of smarmy, cynical cops so they can take your details to put in the prize draw?

How about Victoria Police allocate a few cops to booking the motorists who try to smash me to the ground with their door opening antics or turn in front of me when I want to go straight and have the right-of-way?