JCU Inherent Requirements for Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood Education) (109210) and Bachelor of Early Childhood Education (109510)
James Cook University is committed to enhancing student access, participation and success in higher education and embracing the diversity of the communities we serve. The inherent requirements listed for the each course are designed to assist prospective students and all current students to make informed decisions for study.
Inherent requirements
Inherent requirements are the identified abilities, attributes, skills, and behaviours that must be demonstrated, during the learning experience, to successfully complete a course. These abilities, attributes, skills, and behaviours preserve the academic integrity of the University’s learning, assessment, and accreditation processes, and where applicable, meet the standards of a profession.
Reasonable adjustments
JCU assists students who are experiencing a disability to participate in these courses, and achieve the inherent requirements of the course, on the same basis as someone who is not experiencing a disability. To do this, JCU works with our students and placement providers to develop agreed reasonable adjustments in accordance with the Student Disability Policy.
A reasonable adjustment is an arrangement, support, or modification, agreed in an Access Plan to enable participation in learning and achievement of course requirements. Contact JCU’s AccessAbility Services to discuss possible adjustments. Please note that the process of negotiating and implementing reasonable adjustments may take several weeks.
In assessing whether an adjustment is reasonable, the University is entitled, in accordance with the Disability Education Standards, to maintain the inherent requirements of a course. If inherent requirements cannot be met with reasonable adjustments, the University provides guidance regarding other study options.
How to interpret the inherent requirements
Inherent requirements are presented below as domains and sub-domains and contain the following information:
The definition of the inherent requirement
A rationale as to why it is an inherent requirement
Examples of the knowledge, skills, and capabilities that are required to satisfy the inherent requirements of these courses.
The inherent requirements for these courses should be read in conjunction with the Course and Subject Handbook. Students enrolled in these courses are required to meet graduate teaching standards in order to graduate and to be eligible to apply for registration as a teacher.
Compliance with Australian Law and professional regulations.
Rationale:
Knowledge and understanding of, and compliance with, legislative and regulatory requirements are necessary to reduce the risk of harm to self and others in professional experience placement settings; compliance with legislation and professional regulations ensure students are both responsible and accountable for their practice.
Examples:
Comply with Australian legislation, paying specific regard to workplace health and safety and anti-discrimination legislation, and meet any other legislative workplace, fieldwork, or professional regulations.
Enact relevant child protection safety legislation and reporting, including the acquisition and maintenance of a Suitability to Work with Children Card (Blue Card).
Uphold the Disability Standards for Education as they apply to practice in educational settings.
Inherent requirement:
Demonstrate knowledge of, and engage in, ethical and professional behaviour consistent with all relevant standards.
Rationale:
Compliance with standards, codes, guidelines, and policies that facilitate safe, competent interactions and relationships for all students/graduates and the people they engage with, supports the physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing of all.
Examples:
Uphold standards, codes, guidelines, and policies that facilitate safe, competent interactions and relationships within professional, academic and community environments.
Understand and apply key ethical and conduct principles, as prescribed by codes of ethics for teachers.
Pursue ethical decision-making, reflect on ethical dilemmas and issues, and take responsibility for ensuring awareness of ethical behaviour.
Enact privacy and confidentiality requirements in professional and academic settings.
Demonstrate respect for the diversity of individual, family and community beliefs, values, and practices.
Inherent requirement:
Safe and inclusive practice sufficient to meet professional and academic standards.
Rationale:
Safe practices protect the rights, interests, and safety of all stakeholders.
Examples:
Contribute to safe professional and academic environments, including adhering to the requirements of informed consent, privacy, and confidentiality in academic and educational settings.
Initiate and uphold relevant workplace health and safety policies in academic and educational settings.
Contribute to an inclusive learning environment and promote awareness of culturally safe practices.
Assess risk, and practice safety assessment and risk reduction in educational settings.
Identify and respond to alarm systems in a time-sensitive manner.
Knowledge and cognitive skills
Inherent requirement:
Demonstration of the necessary knowledge and cognitive skills to acquire disciplinary understanding and meet professional and academic standards.
Rationale:
The ability to acquire information, accurately convey messages, and read, decode, interpret, and comprehend multiple sources of information is fundamental for effective professional and academic practice.
Examples:
Capacity to research, recall, and process appropriate and relevant information, and evaluate its significance to make informed academic and professional decisions.
Ability to integrate the knowledge of the diversity of cultures and peoples, their differences, and their commonalities in educational settings.
Ability to critically review, analyse, consolidate, and synthesise information, claims and evidence to inform teaching practice.
Capacity to retain, reason and integrate and analyse knowledge in order to build a coherent argument.
Literacy
Inherent requirement:
Apply English literacy skills to accurately acquire and interpret information and convey appropriate messages.
Rationale:
The ability to read, decode, comprehend, interpret, and apply multiple sources of information is fundamental for professional and effective teaching practice.
Examples:
Capacity to meet national literacy requirements for graduate teachers.
Engage in discussions, make verbal presentations, and participate in tutorials and group work, conveying spoken and written messages, including complex academic perspectives, accurately and effectively.
Capacity to understand and implement academic conventions to construct written, digital, or verbal text in a scholarly and discipline-specific manner, and within a specific timeframe.
Interpret written and spoken language to enact verbal or written directions.
Communicate ideas, arguments, designs, and conclusions clearly and coherently in professional and academic settings.
Numeracy
Inherent requirement:
Accurate processing and reasoning with numbers and numerical concepts to meet professional and academic standards.
Rationale:
Competent numeracy skills are fundamental for effective delivery of teaching content and fostering numeracy development.
Examples:
Capacity to meet national numeracy requirements for graduate teachers.
Ability to accurately interpret quantitative data in professional and academic contexts.
Apply numeracy skills to interpret and solve problems in a range of professional and academic contexts.
Information and communication technology (ICT)
Inherent requirement:
Apply ICT processes and tools fundamental for effective professional and academic practice.
Rationale:
Competent knowledge and application of ICTs are necessary to provide an effective teaching and learning environment consistent with current pedagogy.
Examples:
Capacity to meet national standards for the use of ICTs in education.
Select and use appropriate ICTs to successfully accomplish academic tasks in a timely manner.
Effectively use ICTs in professional practice, including reports, student profiles, record keeping, lesson presentation materials, curriculum plans, assessments, and evaluations.
Verbal communication
Inherent requirement:
Effective, respectful, and professional verbal communication in English to meet professional and academic standards.
Rationale:
Verbal communication is the primary medium of communication in an educational setting, and high-level verbal communication skills are essential for interactivity, effective delivery of information, and to develop and maintain relationships with children, parents, and the community.
Examples:
Capacity to meet national standards for verbal communication.
Ability to process complex verbal information, convey instructions, and respond clearly, accurately, and appropriately, in time-constrained academic and professional environments.
Ability to communicate effectively with diverse linguistic and cultural groups and individuals across a range of social contexts.
Ability to communicate in a timely manner when speed and interactivity of communication are critical for individual safety and/or assessment.
Participate in meetings and presentations to groups in professional, community, and academic contexts.
Non-verbal communication
Inherent requirement:
Recognise, interpret, and respond to non-verbal communication skills that enable respectful communication with others.
Rationale:
The ability to recognise, interpret and respond to non-verbal cues, to communicate with congruent and respectful non-verbal behaviour, and to be sensitive to individual and/or cultural variations in non-verbal communication is required for safe and effective professional and academic interactions.
Examples:
Convey non-verbal behaviour that is respectful of others and consistent with the nature of discussions and presentations in both professional and academic environments.
Demonstrate the ability to recognise non-verbal cues.
Demonstrate sensitivity to cultural and individual differences in non-verbal communication.
Written communication
Inherent requirement:
Ability to produce English text to a standard that provides clear and professional communication, with language usage and style which can be tailored to a specific audience.
Rationale:
Effective written communication in English is a fundamental requirement of the teaching profession.
Examples:
Capacity to meet the national standards for written communication.
Construct and communicate complex professional and academic perspectives in writing, and in a time-constrained environment, using appropriate formatting and referencing when required.
Demonstrate applied skills in academic writing conventions and sustained and organised academic arguments.
Model effective written communication skills with learners during professional experience placements.
Ability to produce written feedback and artefacts and follow school protocols to communicate in writing with parents/carers.
Visual
Inherent requirement:
Sufficient visual acuity to meet professional and academic performance requirements, and safely and effectively supervise learners.
Rationale:
Visual observations and assessment are fundamental to safe and effective teaching practice.
Examples:
Ability to process visual information from electronic displays, wall-posted information, instruments, and handwritten and electronic documents.
Ability to process the visual information required to perform duties and facilitate learning experiences, use resources, and provide a safe learning environment.
Monitor learner’s health, safety, and wellbeing in indoor and outdoor settings, and when engaging in activities at both near and far distances.
Auditory
Inherent requirement:
Ability to interact with auditory inputs sufficiently to meet professional and academic performance requirements.
Rationale:
Aspects of teaching practice are delivered by auditory means, and the ability to learn, from or respond to, these inputs is required to provide safe and effective professional and academic performance.
Examples:
Actively listen, and contribute, to discussions with peers, JCU staff, school staff, parents, carers, learners, and community members.
Respond to the verbalised needs of learners and teaching staff in a timely manner.
Capacity to provide learning experiences for hearing impaired students, including appropriate use of ICTs to support aural communication.
Tactile
Inherent requirement:
Respond to tactile input sufficiently to meet professional and academic requirements.
Rationale:
Aspects of teaching and learning environments are detected and measured by tactile means, and the ability to learn from, or respond to, these inputs is required to provide safe and effective professional and academic performance.
Examples:
Ability to respond to tactile input to perform duties and facilitate learning experiences, manipulate resources, and provide a safe environment.
Gross motor ability
Inherent requirement:
Strength, range of motion, coordination, and mobility sufficient to ensure the safety and wellbeing of others, and function effectively in professional and educational settings.
Rationale:
A range of gross motor skills is required for safe and effective performance.
Examples:
Apply gross motor skills to perform and coordinate tasks in regular classrooms.
Apply gross motor skills to prioritise care and safety in the classroom, at outdoor events and for field trips.
Complete learning experiences within constrained timeframes.
Set up safe environments with resources and equipment.
Fine motor ability
Inherent requirement:
Manual dexterity and fine motor skills sufficient to meet professional and academic performance needs.
Rationale:
A wide range of fine-motor manual tasks is required for safe and effective performance.
Examples:
Maintain effective fine motor control when engaging in a range of everyday educational tasks including writing and using ICTs.
Maintain effective fine motor control when engaging in a range of everyday education-related tasks, including writing, and manipulating technology and other resources for teaching and learning.
Apply fine motor skills to prioritise student care and safety.
Complete learning experiences within constrained timeframes.
Model the use of resources and equipment.
Inherent requirement:
Sustained physical, cognitive, and psychosocial performance sufficient for safe and complete professional and academic performance in a time-constrained environment.
Rationale:
Sufficient physical and mental endurance is an essential requirement needed to perform multiple tasks in varying periods of time to provide safe and effective participation in all teaching and professional experience activities.
Examples:
Ability to sustain study performance to sufficiently engage with the learning workload for a 13-week or intensive study/placement period, and for the degree, within a timeframe.
Ability to consistently meet the sustained physical demands of teaching practice within a learning environment.
Ability to perform all required activities with a level of concentration that ensures a capacity to focus on the lesson/activity/academic task until it is completed appropriately.
Provide consistent supervision, education/instruction, and care to children/young people over a negotiated timeframe.
Inherent requirement:
Demonstrate behaviour that adapts to diverse and changing situations in professional and academic environments.
Rationale:
Behavioural adaptability is required to work individually and in teams in changing and unpredictable environments. Students and student teachers can be exposed to highly complex human situations and are required to have behavioural adaptability to manage these events.
Examples:
Adjust ways of working within teams of varied personal and professional backgrounds and opinions to facilitate effective and professional decision-making.
Maintain respectful communication practices with children, students, colleagues, carers, and families in times of increased stressors or workloads.
Ability to manage your own emotions and behaviour effectively when dealing with multiple and/or changing demands in professional and academic settings.
Adjust to changing circumstances in a way that allows for self-care while maintaining the high level of professionalism required by teachers.
Demonstrate capacity and willingness to be receptive and respond professionally to constructive feedback from educational stakeholders to improve teaching practices.
Ability to function and adapt effectively and sensitively in complex and time-sensitive situations.
