An unnamed Melbourne high-school drama teacher reportedly told TikTok account @getahead.app that he earned “just north of $160,000” after 27 years in drama teaching. PerthNow reported the claim on 8 November 2024, but its story does not independently verify the pay or establish that it is typical for drama teachers.
What the teacher reportedly said
PerthNow’s 8 November 2024 report says the unnamed teacher had tried acting before entering teaching and had spent 27 years teaching drama. He encouraged aspiring actors to consider teaching, saying: “There’s a lot of wannabe actors out there, and doing drama teaching is the next best thing. You get to do your craft every day, and you get to teach the future actors, and it’s fantastic.” He also said: “Do what you want to do until you can’t do it anymore, and then find something else that will be good to do, but you gotta follow your passion first.” The report notes that he described the workload during term time as heavy. (PerthNow, 8 November 2024)
The article describes him as a high-school drama teacher but does not give his name or a more formal job title. Its salary figure is a claim attributed to him in an interview, not a salary record or representative survey.
Is $160,000 a normal teacher salary in Australia?
The report does not establish that it is. Commenters disputed whether the figure was accurate, but their reactions are anecdotes, not independent verification or a representative comparison. The claim should be understood as one individual’s reported pay, not a typical Australian teacher salary.
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PerthNow also reported two Western Australian public-school examples, attributing them to the WA Department of Education: $82,317 for a starting teacher and $132,143 for a level 3.2 classroom teacher. Those are WA figures, not a matched Melbourne benchmark. They cannot establish how much drama teachers make in Melbourne or directly confirm or disprove the interviewee’s claim. (PerthNow’s report of WA figures)
What determines a meaningful salary comparison?
Victoria’s Department of Education describes classroom-teacher roles as having two salary ranges, with a primary focus on planning, preparing and teaching programs to achieve student outcomes. Its remuneration policy says a new classroom teacher’s starting salary is determined by classification and range, subject to rules that can account for prior teaching service. (Victorian Department of Education: Roles and Responsibilities — Teaching Service; Victorian Department of Education: Remuneration — Teaching Service)
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To compare a reported salary with another teacher’s pay, the relevant details include:
- State and employer: pay structures differ across states and between employers.
- Classification and range: these affect the applicable salary band.
- Recognized service: prior teaching experience may affect starting salary or progression.
- Responsibilities: leadership or additional duties can make two roles unlike-for-like.
- Employment fraction: a full-time salary and part-time earnings are not equivalent.
- Remuneration included: the figure may or may not include other components beyond base pay.
PerthNow’s report does not identify the teacher’s employer, classification, school, employment fraction, any leadership or additional duties, or what remuneration components were included. It therefore does not support attributing the figure to a standard classroom-teacher role—or inferring, as some commenters speculated, that he was a principal or vice-principal.
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How to read the viral salary claim
The story offers a reported personal account, not enough information to calculate a typical Melbourne drama-teacher salary. The most defensible conclusion is narrow: one unnamed teacher, described as having 27 years in drama teaching, reportedly said he earned just over $160,000. Without independently verified pay details and a comparable role, the figure cannot answer what drama teachers generally earn.
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