Are teacher aides paid during the school holidays?

State by state: holiday pay for teacher aides

NSW: 26 equal pays, earned as you work

Permanent and long-term temporary SLSOs and other SASS staff are paid 26 equal fortnightly pays a year. The fortnightly amount is hourly rate x weekly hours x 52.17857 / 26, so there's no drop in January. Behind that, vacation pay is earned with the formula N = C x S / T: vacation days earned equal student vacation days (C) x your days of service in the preceding period (S) / term days in the year (T).

Short-term temporaries, employed for one term or less, are paid only for hours worked, with a 15% loading in place of recreation leave. For an SLSO 1 that is $44.09 an hour instead of $38.33. Details: NSW SLSO pay.

Victoria: 52 weeks, with leave covering the breaks

Victorian education support staff are paid 52 weeks a year. A full-time ES employee gets 152 hours (20 days) of annual leave plus 228 hours (30 days) of additional paid leave, and together they cover the school vacations. The school can require you to attend for up to 6 days of the additional leave, at the start or end of a vacation, with 4 weeks' notice; you're paid a leave purchase allowance for those days. Casual ES staff are paid only for hours worked. Details: Victorian ES pay.

WA: vacation pay earned day by day

WA education assistants don't attend when the school is closed and are paid ordinary wages for student vacation days, earned in proportion to the days worked (including paid leave). Working on a school holiday is paid at double time and a half.

SA: three ways to be paid

South Australia's SSO pay table shows three arrangements side by side. We read the labels as follows, but the department doesn't define them in the table, so check which applies to you.

The loaded arrangement pays more per hour worked but less across the year, because you aren't paid for the holiday weeks. Details: SA SSO pay.

ACT and NT: paid stand-down

In the ACT, school assistants take their 20 days of annual leave from the end of Term 4 to Australia Day, alongside public holidays and the Christmas shutdown. Any remaining working days before school starts, and the working days between terms, are paid stand-down, and the agreement says annual salary isn't reduced for them. The catch: if you don't have enough leave built up to cover summer (for example, you started mid-year), the rest of that period is stand-down without pay, unless the head of service decides otherwise. Details: ACT school assistant pay.

In the NT, staff on school-based conditions, including Aboriginal Team Teachers, are stood down during non-term periods and paid stand-down salary, as long as their employment continues into the next term. Details: NT education support pay.

Queensland and Tasmania

Both states publish annual salaries for aides, but an annual salary on a scale doesn't tell you how holiday pay works for your job. We couldn't confirm the holiday pay rules for Queensland teacher aides or Tasmanian teacher assistants from a primary source, so we're not going to guess. Check your letter of offer, a payslip from a holiday period, or ask your school's business manager. See QLD teacher aide pay and Tasmanian teacher assistant pay.

Casual aides: a loading instead of holiday pay

Checklist: make sure your holiday pay is right