This Final Report to the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) presents the products and findings of research conducted to provide expert advice, and design and develop an Assessor Training Program for national certification of Highly Accomplished and Lead teachers. The research design and development of the Assessor Training Program, the associated expert advice and the Final Report were underpinned by participatory qualitative methodologies, informed by international research findings and delivered by a proven, highly respected and experienced research team from the SiMERR National Research Centre at the University of New England.

This report represent a partnering of AITSL, the SiMERR National Centre (SiMERR) and a range of significant Australian educational organisations. The purpose of this collaborative research endeavour was (i) to trial the use of the National Professional Standards for Teachers (Standards) and (ii) to determine the support required for implementation of the Standards nationally. These aims were addressed through the conduct, data collection and subsequent analyses of the findings of 17 separate Pilot Projects. These were undertaken throughout Australia and drew on expertise from teachers, educational administrators and researchers from each State and Territory.

This study extends the initial Pilots Study undertaken in 2011 by a SiMERR Research Team and referred to as the Phase 1 Study. This current investigation Piloting Implementation of the Standards and Certification - Phase 2 had a similar purpose. The rationale of the Phase 2 Study was to build on the data and findings in the Validation Study of the (then) Draft Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (the Standards) by probing more deeply into issues that have arisen from teachers in their Survey responses and commentary in Workshops. This Consolidated Report of the Phase 2 Study has three key areas of focus, referred to as Research Themes: 1. the transition from provisional to full registration, i.e., attaining the Proficient Career Stage, 2. the application of the AITSL Self-Reflection Tool to inform strategies for improved performance, and 3. the evidencing requirements for attaining certification at the higher-level Career Stages of Highly Accomplished and Lead, including Assessor training needs.

This paper adds to the growing literature on the emotional aspects of teachers' work. It reports on the analysis of semi-structured interviews with 14 teachers located in rural and regional NSW. The interviews were conducted in-situ and addressed the teachers' biographies, professional trajectories, notions of 'good teachers' and rural pedagogies. Corpus-assisted discourse analysis was used to analyse the semi-structured interview transcripts, which form a corpus of almost 100,000 words. The Appraisal framework was used to structure the analysis, which focuses on unsolicited comments that address emotions, with particular attention to happiness. The findings demonstrated that the participants frequently animated their talk with unsolicited references to emotions and, whilst a range of emotions was referenced, the vast majority of references were to happiness.

Socrates is credited with saying 'An unexamined life is not worth living'. Following this maxim, a life that is worth living requires self-reflection. If such self-reflection involves evaluating our actions as 'good' or 'bad', 'right' or 'wrong', we enter into ethics. Ethics is about how we ought to live, but how are we to determine how we ought to live? Responses to this question can include intuition, experience and an understanding of ethical theory. If, however, a defensible justification is required for a particular belief or course of action, only the latter two responses will suffice and Singer (1993) insists in the necessary interplay of both. For Singer, ethics involves a fusion of ethical theory and lived experience, framed within the context of specific circumstances. Kant, however, who expounded that an ethical life involved fulfilling one's duties in relation to universal ethical truths, would assuredly reject Singer's stance. Ethics, then, is a contested field.