Discover – GTPA

The GTPA generates large-scale evidence of beginning teacher quality to inform policy, practice and research.

The GTPA responds to calls for Australian teacher preparation programs to demonstrate that graduate teachers can apply teaching practices that positively impact on their students’ learning.

As an authentic, research-led teacher performance assessment, the GTPA aligns with the Graduate Teacher Standards and with existing state-based practices and partnerships between universities, teacher employers and other education stakeholders.

The GTPA is an authentic assessment in the way its core focus is on:

teaching practices and instructional decision-making based on student data and evidence of learning, and
the learning experience for both the preservice teacher and their classroom students.

The GTPA implementation sits within a significant longitudinal Standards and Moderation Project that will focus on developing a large-scale data collection and analysis to provide a strong evidence-base for the ongoing evaluation and improvement of ITE programs nationally.

The GTPA is integrally aligned with the research agenda that has been proposed for the assessment of the impact of initial teacher education by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL).

The objective of the GTPA is to enable preservice teachers to demonstrate their ability to engage with the full cycle of teaching practice in a final-year professional experience placement. Preservice teachers have to demonstrate the impact their teaching has had on classroom students in the GTPA.

GTPA Development

The GTPA was developed in 2015. An initial validation of the GTPA against the Graduate Teacher Standards was undertaken in early 2016, and a Pilot was completed in the second half of 2016. The Trial of the GTPA occurred in 2017 along with a second validation of the GTPA against the GTS. In 2017 a suite of web resources was developed to support consistent communication and implementation. In 2018, a Collective of HEIs implemented the GTPA and participated in cross-institutional moderation. These activities have continued annually since 2019 and are ongoing.

Resources

A suite of resources has been developed to support consistent implementation of the GTPA across a range of ITE programs. The resources are available to HEIs who form part of an ITE Collective participating in GTPA implementation. Fact Sheets overviewing the GTPA are available for a range of stakeholders including teacher educators, preservice teachers, schools and teachers, and wider stakeholders.

GTPA Collective

In 2024, 18 Australian HEIs have joined together as a Collective to implement the GTPA in ITE programs. These Institutions have selected a range of ITE courses in which preservice teachers will undertake the GTPA during a final-year professional experience placement.