Professional Learning: Leadership and Teaching
Professional learning is defined as career long developmental opportunities undertaken by the education profession which improves individual practice, a school’s collective effectiveness and the wider education system.
Professional learning will be most effective when it takes place within a culture where the entire workforce expects and are expected to be active learners, to reflect on, receive feedback on and improve their pedagogical practice, and by doing so develop learners as:
- Ambitious, capable learners
- Enterprising, creative, contributors
- Ethical, informed citizens
- Healthy, confident individuals
As defined by the OECD, a high quality professional learning culture will be characterised by:
- Developing a shared vision centred on the learning of all learners
- Creating and supporting continuous learning opportunities for all staff
- Promoting team learning and collaboration amongst all staff
- Establishing a culture of enquiry, innovation and exploration
- Embedding systems for collecting and exchanging knowledge for learning
- Learning with and from the external environment and wider learning system
- Modelling and growing learning leadership
The EAS offers a wide range of professional learning to support all staff including leaders, teachers and those that assist teachers, on their career pathways which helps develop a high-quality workforce.
The regional professional offer is both comprehensive and wide ranging and supports the realisation of our curriculum for Wales , supports the development of the schools as learning organisation dimensions and the professional teaching and leadership standards and assessment arrangements, which is underpinned by the Excellent Teaching and Leadership Frameworks. It focuses on the following four national key enabling objectives.
- Developing a high-quality education profession.
- Inspirational leaders working collaboratively to raise standards.
- Strong and inclusive schools committed to excellence, equity and well-being.
- Robust assessment, evaluation and accountability arrangements supporting a self-improving system.
Improved teaching and leadership is supported by a “self-improving school” model that builds capacity for individual and collective improvement.
These are developed through a range of opportunities which include but are not limited to:
- school based and accredited professional learning
- specific off site and remote professional learning
- eLearning
- coaching and mentoring
- effective school to school collaboration e.g. learning communities, clusters
- opportunities to signpost and broker support
- enabling the workforce to reflect and explore research that challenges and improves their practice secondments