Professional Standards for Teachers

Since December 2010 we have had the Professional Standards for Teachers (Standards). I was lucky enough to be employed by AITSL and worked with the University of New England on the validation process of these standard in 2009 and 2010 so that actual teachers gave AITSL the feedback so they were a workable document and usable for teachers to use in their every day practice.

Unfortunately even though they were created and validated to used that way it does not happen as regularly as they wished. I truly believe that Individualised Professional Development Plans need to be based around these plans by analysing what we do well and use it to identify where as teachers we would like to go to whether that be proficient, highly accomplished or lead.

One school that presented their findings at the ACER Excellence in Professional Practice Conference this year talked about how they developed their teacher plans and their goals. They broke their plan into four sections: the first three were the standards domains of teaching - Professional Knowledge, Professional Practice and Professional Engagement; though the fourth area revolved around the schools use of action research this was called practitioner enquiry. This involved creating a year long goal which looked at a common area which combined a school priority with an interest in professional learning teams. These professional learning teams provided opportunities for teachers to participate in some area of leadership or mentoring in an area they chose.

I believe this is really important for our college moving forward to develop these plans to suit our college PLC as well as the standards moving forward in this very important year of professional learning.

To be continued...