2026 Primary Teacher (Full-Time)

We are on the lookout for an experienced and exceptional Primary Teacher to join our growing teaching team at Blue Gum Community School in Hornsby NSW, as we expand to Year 3 in 2026. The role will be working in direct collaboration with our Principal, Jill McLachlan and the educational team, in the delivery of a K-3 curriculum that sparks, joy, wonder and engagement from students and adults alike!

We are a small, independent, co-educational Primary School, co-located on the same site as our Preschool, built within the re-imagined heritage listed home and gardens of Mount Errington – a quick walk from Hornsby’s centre and train station.

Our primary classes offer high student:teacher ratios, reflecting our commitment to working closely alongside our students, establishing relationships of significance with them, ensuring we are able to design learning with our students, in a way that draws from best practice nationally and internationally, and from both inquiry driven and more explicit approaches to curriculum and learning.

At Blue Gum, we see all our students as competent, capable, creative, responsible, resourceful and resilient citizens of the present, with influence and responsibility in our school community. We recognise children as active and involved voices, and designers of curriculum. Our programs are couched in meaningful, real-life experiences and are characterised by depth and excellence across all the Key Learning Areas. Students are invited to develop deep understandings of concepts through cross-disciplinary research projects, whilst also building foundational skills in literacy and mathematics.

We intentionally resist compliance driven and non-thinking approaches to educating students in school. We are opposed to providing a program that is one-size fits all, and we intentionally avoid worksheets and pre-set programs that can be implemented without thought by teachers and are forced upon students. Instead, we see school as a place of thinking, learning and meaningful connection - for adults and students, marked by collaboration, commitment and engagement.

Our learning spaces are intentionally designed to provoke wonder and invite thinking with others. Our spaces carry traces of the students’ ongoing thinking, inviting relaunches into areas of inquiry, that often bring different perspectives into conversation with one another. Learning ‘as a group’ is foundational to our approach, providing multiple opportunities every day for the students to bring their ideas together, so we can go deep in our understandings together.

Thinking together is something we expect of our educators as well as our students. We come together as a team regularly to think deeply about our work. We resist the notion of the school as a factory, instead we see school as a living, active and ever-changing community, where we learn together what it means to be more human! As such, we support students by recognising them as whole people, celebrating their strengths and challenges across the breadth of the human experience. We see difference as an opportunity (not a stumbling block) and as such design our experiences to bring out the importance of multiple perspectives with a humility that recognises others as essential to our own identities.

If you:

Are longing for 'something more' as a teacher, where your days are shaped by learning, 'light bulb' moments and 'deep dives' with students, meaningful connection with others, and joy (not mindless compliance, time wasting, interruptions or huge class sizes!);

Are as passionate a LEARNER, as you are a TEACHER, willing to question your own, as well as your students’, thinking and always searching to discover more about the world around you;

Love to explore ideas with students, as co‐researchers and co‐learners, committed to interactive, collaborative and authentic learning, as well as confident in your approach to teaching students in the all the Key Learning Areas.

Have retained your sense of curiosity about how the world works and love the challenge of investigating the unknown;

See the outdoors, and the wider community, as a natural and essential extension to the classrooms inside the school;

Want to work in an environment that is inspired and influenced by the Reggio Emilia Educational Project and explore with others how the principles that flow out of this project can inspire new ways of being and doing life in school!

Then YOU may find Blue Gum the best place for nurturing and stimulating your professional and personal development in this next chapter of your teaching life - the possibilities are endless; you certainly won't be bored!!

Who are we looking for?

Primary/EC Teacher – Full-Time in 2026.

Consideration for applicants interested in part-time relief or casual work in our Primary School in 2025 or beyond also welcome.

How do I apply?

Please email your current CV with a covering letter to the Principal (details below). In your covering letter, let us know a bit about you and why you would like to explore working with us at Blue Gum in Hornsby. We would like to gain an understanding of your personal educational philosophy and what you would bring to the team at Blue Gum, from your letter.

Although not required, a knowledge of emergent/negotiated curriculum, inquiry and cross-disciplinary project work, and social constructivist approaches to learning, is desirable. If you have had previous experience supporting students’ engagement with real‐life projects, please let us know!

Please include the details of two current and professional references.

Ability to meet, but also critically question School Registration requirements, is essential.

Applicants must be Australian residents; Blue Gum does not offer Sponsorships.

Principal, Blue Gum Community School NSW

[email protected]

02 9138 2019

www.bluegum.nsw.edu.au