Teaching Scotland’s Future – building professional learning
Education is at the heart of our aspirations for all our children and young people. Teachers and other professionals need to use their skills, knowledge and experience to make sure that education unlocks the opportunities that learners need.
Evidence shows that, in that context, the most important ways to improve outcomes are by strengthening both the quality of teaching and of leadership among educators. Career-long professional learning for those involved in educating our children must be at the heart of improvement, with implications for its philosophy, quality, coherence, efficiency and impact.
In Scotland we have a strong platform on which to build but to improve further professional learning must be developed as a partnership between universities, local authorities, schools, individual professionals and national organisations.
Those different groups have now been brought together in a national partnership group that the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning has asked to take forward the recommendations Graham Donaldson set out in “Teaching Scotland’s Future”
The group met for the first time on 3 June and I was delighted to chair the meeting, representing the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland. I will be sharing the chairing role with colleagues from the Scottish Teacher Education Committee (STEC – representing the universities) and Scottish Government, signalling our shared responsibility for taking this agenda forward.
We agreed that together we want to see:
- Career long professional learning clearly focused on achieving the best possible outcomes for learners.
- Effective approaches to professional learning fostering, and sustained by, a culture of professional and collegiate responsibility.
- Professional learning making best use of available resources and the full range of available expertise.
Further information on the group and our initial discussions are available on our web-pages here.
Importantly we recognise that others will have a strong interest in this work and we have already been discussing how we can build wider links to engage all of those whose energy and thinking will be needed. If you are interested in how you might be involved, please email the secretariat for the group. NPGTeacherEducation@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
Building on the ambitious agenda set out by Graham Donaldson is a daunting challenge – but a necessary and exciting one, if we are to further build excellence in learning and teaching across Scotland.
Glenn Rodger
Vice-President ADES
Director of Education & Lifelong Learning, Scottish Borders Council