The essence of being a year nine teacher

Abstract

Abstract Year nine students present a perpetual problem to schools and teachers alike. Typically aged 14 or 15 years old, year nines simultaneously experience puberty and adolescence. These converging life stages result in students’ whom teachers have described as being lost, disengaged and, more alarmingly, in never-never land. A largely unrecognised group of schools and teachers in Victoria, Australia, have chosen a novel approach to engaging year nine students through specific schooling structures and targeted curriculum—I term these approaches year nine programmes. These programmes typically involve different structures to mainstream schooling, including residential components, a greater focus on learning through experience and the use of an integrated curriculum. This paper shares the stories of six teachers who work on one such programme. The stories of the teachers are shared using phenomenological found poetry in search of the ‘essences’ of being a year nine teacher. Through the presentation of these essences, I argue that teachers of year nine programmes are required to have an accoutrement of skills, in addition to the skills needed by teachers who work in more mainstream settings.