Teachers, fixed-term contracts and school leadership: toeing the line and jumping through hoops

Fixed-term contracts are a relatively recent, yet growing category of employment for teachers in the public school system New South Wales (NSW), Australia. In this article, we draw on quantitative and qualitative data from large state-wide survey (N = 18,234) members public-school teacher union, NSW Teachers’ Federation, order to explore workload reports temporary employment. We find that overall, these report similar levels staff employed permanent basis. Experiences work are, however, qualitatively different, with many feeling they must harder than ‘prove themselves’ executive. argue such experiences precariousness may have particular ‘scarring’ effects employment, including gendered patterns career progression, discuss implications leadership policy.