How Your Placement Is Allocated
Work begins 3–4 months before placement. Schools are contacted and matched to student needs. Sonia details, learning areas, conflicts, and transport are checked. Travel limits: ≤1 hr by car or ≤1.5 hours by public transport.
What We Consider
| Eligibility | Partner school availability; conflicts avoided. |
| Equity & Access | Travel time, transport, sole carer/AAP. |
| Diversity | Year level, sector, context, geography, learning area. |
| Fairness | Ensuring placements are balanced and fair across the whole cohort. |
What ‘Diversity’ Means
- Year levels, learning areas, and school contexts.
- Government, Catholic, Independent sectors.
- SES mix, multicultural settings, co-ed/single-sex, rural/metro.
While not all diversity categories can be guaranteed, students can expect a range of varied experiences across learning areas, year levels, sectors, and school contexts.
Placement Allocations – Master of Teaching (Secondary)
For teacher candidates admitted with double senior learning areas, or with learning areas less commonly offered in schools, the Professional Experience team may encounter challenges securing placements in specific learning areas, due to school location, learning area availability and mentor teacher availability.
If a senior or less commonly offered learning area is unavailable, an approved junior‑equivalent subject will be allocated. For example, candidates with a business learning area may complete a placement in Years 7–10 Mathematics or Humanities. This is an important experience as all teachers, regardless of career stage, will teach across all year levels. Full time teachers will not have a class load of only VCE subjects and graduate teachers are unlikely to teach at senior levels unless working in regional, rural, or hard to staff schools. Offering you the opportunity to increase your breadth is an important part of your preparation.
Candidates will be informed by the Placement Team if they have been allocated a junior‑equivalent placement, and Mentor Teachers and Clinical Educators will also be notified.
The Faculty will provide additional support to candidates undertaking a junior‑equivalent placement. Please note that it is widespread practice in schools for staff to teach across junior and senior levels and that teaching registration in Victoria is not dependent on subject specialisation. This experience will increase your graduate employment opportunities.
If you have any question relating to your placement allocation, please contact the Professional Experience team via Stop 1.
Common Placement Allocation Questions
-
Placement supply varies by area. We balance long and short commutes across your placements.
-
No. For equity and DoE agreement reasons, student sourced placements are not allowed.
-
We try, but it depends on mentor teacher availability. This does not affect VIT registration.
-
Matching hundreds of students to schools with multiple constraints takes months to coordinate.
-
No. All approaches must go through the PE Team.
Who to contact
Participant Experience Team Stop 1 — all placement queries.
Master of Teaching Course Coordinators — all academic queries.