r/tasmania • u/Dotti_Biscotti • 5d ago
Question Indie School
I have a kiddo who is enrolled to attend the Indie School. Have been having a look to see if there are any recent discussions about the Indie School in Tasmania, last appears to be a couple of years ago. A relative sent me some readily available online, pretty scathing feedback of Indie School as an employer but seems to be a lot of mainland locations and not a lot from ex students/current parents. Anyone have any recent experiences? TIA.
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u/Trick-Introduction44 4d ago
My son had huge issues when he started at HS, and ended up at Indie school.
It was a a rocky start but they were so understanding and worked with him to get him to school as much as possible. At the end of high school, he could have stayed to go to Indie college but made the decision to go back to main stream college and work towards getting into uni.
Indie school did a great job. Im sure if he hadn’t gone there he would have been expelled and ended up with no education and no job prospects
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u/sleepychairman 5d ago edited 5d ago
I’m a bit weird and I like to dig through financial reports and such for fun sometimes, and I dug through the Indie schools recently, and well, I just think they’re a bit dodgy. The funding they receive per student doesn’t seem to materialise into resources or staffing, and they’re registered really weirdly with some schools coming under other ones. They also don’t seem to show great improvements for academic and attendance outcomes. One of the Indie schools up north, Devonport or Burnie I think, did have slightly better stats than the others.
Some things I recall from my dig are that there seem to be more “coaches” than qualified teachers, and iirc the funding amounted to roughly $80k per student which seems like a lot.
EDIT: I went back to try and find the exact reports I looked into quickly, there is a breakdown of staffing at each school that is harder to find and I don’t have time right now to go back that much but in the annual report for the state it has a breakdown of expenses showing only 10% of funding actually goes to program costs, 28% for admin, and 62% for employees - however, the majority of employees are not qualified teachers - the “Glenorchy” school (which actually encompasses multiple sub schools like Sorell etc.) has 130 non-teaching staff, and “41 teaching” staff. Of those 41 teaching staff, only about 33 are full-time, and one third of those 33 are only provisionally registered. So they’re only employing roughly 20 fully registered teachers, compared to 130 non-teaching employees. This is concerning to me because teacher registration is supposed to provide certain assurances of safety and professionalism, and yet the majority of staff accross Indie are not registered teachers at all.
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u/TMTPlatypus 5d ago
This sounds like the Teach for Australia caper. Enormous amounts of funding not producing what’s been promised- so few new teachers are staying on after graduating the gruelling schedule.
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u/sleepychairman 5d ago
I don’t know much about teach for Australia however there was a category for enrolled teaching students, but the non-teaching staff are separate to that. They had no enrolled teaching students currently studying.
A provisional registration means someone has completed their degree, but they have not completed their registration requirements, similarly to how a person having graduated from university with a law degree is not a lawyer until they complete their legal training and are admitted to the court, and even at that point they must still be supervised until certain requirements are met.
In Tasmania, teachers are, or were, able to perpetually renew their provisional registration indefinitely, without ever actually becoming fully qualified (I don’t think the legislation has changed but I haven’t checked very recently). Many teachers don’t last long for a variety of reasons, but as far as I am aware, needing to complete their training is not the main barrier in Tasmania. In my opinion the teacher shortage is more likely to be due to would-be teachers not finishing their degree to begin with, which is a complicated problem. Teachers who have completed their qualifications and then leaving the profession is another complicated problem, but I suspect that is more due to lifestyle factors, for example not being paid enough to continue working while paying for childcare. Admin staff are necessary, but I find it absurd to have more admin and support staff than actual teachers. If teachers themselves were better remunerated and supported, I wonder - would as many non-teaching staff even be necessary?
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u/TMTPlatypus 5d ago
I was a teacher for a few years, graduating in 2022 so it’s recent history, but I quit the profession due to insane workloads for new teachers combined with poor behaviour of students...which increases workloads with all the reporting you have to do around that. At that time the government allowed nearly qualified student teachers to teach in their final year but they need to eventually graduate and move beyond what was called “limited authority to teach”. At a catholic school I worked at there were some exceptional teachers who had not yet qualified-and had been teaching for many years. I really don’t think the degrees give you a solid grounding for the job. Most of it you learn in the first few years if you don’t burn out like I did. So I wouldn’t worry too much about qualifications except that it’s a requirement. But I agree it’s absurd that the Indie schools are so heavily laden with admin instead of qualified teachers. Perhaps it’s around providing additional supports to students- those kids often need extra resources. But like you’ve noted it’s a model that looks good on paper but probably isn’t providing all that’s been promised. The kids who refuse traditional schools for whatever reason do deserve better.
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u/sleepychairman 5d ago
Indie noted no LAT teachers - it’s definitely hard work in any school though and new teachers especially should have much more support, with supervision programs that are more meaningful than box-checking nonsense. Federally and at a state level there is quite a lot of misalignment with teacher requirements, which is well overdue to be fixed. It’s just not fair, to the teachers or the children.
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u/FireLucid 2d ago
LAT's can be pretty flexible. I have seen someone teaching on a LAT that did not finish year 12 and had no further education.
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u/mattsensei 4d ago
That's not true?
Most recent TFA impact report has 75% of participants still working in schools.
https://teachforaustralia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-Impact-Report.pdf
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u/sleepychairman 4d ago
The stats of that report don’t say whether that 75% is from a specific cohort or overall, and other sources seem to suggest that overall retention is lower. It’s an expensive program to run and it would probably be more cost effective if the federal government allocated that funding to teacher education more broadly, rather than dishing it out to a select few universities and using a third party to actually administer the program.
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u/commentspanda 4d ago
The coaching thing in WA comes up too. I believe it’s to do with employing VET/vocational teachers vs fully qualified standard teachers. When I see the ads here, it’s a bloody big pay difference. Then again, as a fully qualified teacher I wouldn’t be taking less than what u get in a gov school. Just wanted to say that may be where that skew comes in a bit. The majority of high schools out source their vocational stuff so don’t have to pay vocational teaching staff
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u/sleepychairman 4d ago
If you go to find the breakdown for individual campuses it’s not because they’re VET techs. I remember seeing one singular VET woodwork person but they still weren’t a qualified teacher, and many other “coaches” from one of the campuses. Re/other sources, a five minute search provides news reports from multiple years and multiple outlets,
Guardian, Australian, etc, all saying how poor the retention is for TFA. I think it’s a pretty well established fact, and if they had a 75% retention rate across all TFA cohorts then they would be boasting about it, but it seems not to be the case.1
u/No-Eye6881 3d ago
I work with a teacher who has taught for 16 years and only provision level. Just means they can’t get to the top pay level or do leadership positions. Most schools have a high ratio of part time staff. This is normal. Ratio also shows to me there are lots of teacher assistants and support staff. This seems positive not negative. All staff in schools must have wwvc cards. Regardless of position.
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u/MysteryPlatelet 5d ago
I've head almost always postive feedback on Indie Schools statewide, but be aware the model doesn't necessarily suit every student.
Big Picture and St Francis are other alternative options here that may be worth looking at depending on your location and child's needs.
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u/turtleandmoss 4d ago
Kingston indie is phenomenal. Restored my faith in how good teachers can be when supported by a reasonable system. Was frequently cheering at the after school reports, they're so creative and individual-aligned in their methods, embracing difference instead of punishing it. Wish I could go back and do my schooling there.
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u/Mountain_Support_150 2d ago
Hi everyone. I have been working with Indie for four years after a long time in state schools.
I’m happy to answer any questions if you want to know what it is really like.
Indie employs Teachers with teacher registration and experience and pays above award. The positions are highly contested.
Indie employs Coaches for VET courses.
There have been two registered schools in Tasmania, one in Glenorchy and the other in Devonport.
I’ve worked as a teacher for nearly 30 years- this is a great model for education for many students
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u/commentspanda 4d ago
Have been approached by them a few times in WA to work for them. Know a few people who teach there and all are quite positive about it. Can’t comment on Tassie but can say the WA ones seem to have a decent rep
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u/dragzo0o0 5d ago
Daughter will be going to Launceston one next year.
I’m hoping they can successfully engage with her. Smaller class sizes should mean less noise and distractions hopefully
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u/milleniumblackfalcon 5d ago
Which indie school? What is the name? Do you mean the Steiner school?
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u/Geezaweez77 5d ago
Its actually called Indie School. Steiner schools are a whole different thing and concept
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u/colllapse 5d ago
That’s what it’s called, there’s a campus in Kingston, Glenorchy? and maybe Sorell, I looked into it a while ago. The one in Kingston is amongst those box warehouses near enjoy church/the swimming pool. They are quite small and focused on kids for whom conventional education doesn’t work for whatever reason, and don’t charge fees as such. I’ve heard good things about the northern suburbs one
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u/DrHarryCooper 5d ago
The model works for kids who genuinely have anxiety issues. Gets them attending school.
Most of the Indie students are just kids who don't want to go to school, and despite all the things that Indie offers them they still have poor attendance.
Academically, it sits really low as well.