Learning to Flourish programmes are designed to align with school, teacher leadership and careers standards. We’ve provided information separately on the teacher leadership standards that our programmes meet and the careers standards that apply to our pupil life learning services.
Our leadership and professional learning programmes – Navigating Change, Team Uplift and Coaching for Professional Development – help school leaders work with General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTSC) standards for professional learning and leadership as well as meet guidance on using coaching for professional learning. Schools are also better equipped to drive changes in How Good is Our School 4.0 quality indicators (see boxes alongside).
Our programmes are a strong fit with Scottish standards as both are underpinned by the same positive psychology research. In brief:
- Navigating Change equips middle leaders to drive changes and deliver agendas that enhance learning and teaching.
- Team Uplift helps improves the cohesion and performance of teacher middle leader and senior management teams.
- Coaching Conversations for Professional Development trains middle leaders reviewers to coach their reviewees effectively so that teachers feel ownership of their personal development goals and can have meaningful professional dialogue during conversations with colleagues.
We’ve provided more details of the areas of leadership and professional development covered by our programmes in current and forthcoming standards in the boxes alongside.
The Standards for Middle Leadership and Headship
2.0 Professional Knowledge and Understanding
- 2.1.4 Have knowledge and understanding of Leadership and Management related to your context
- 2.2.2 Understand and demonstrate self-awareness and inspire and motivate others
3.3 Professional Learning
- 3.3.2 Enable and sustain approaches and processes which support colleagues to engage in critically reflective practice as an integral part of career-long professional learning
3.4 Self-Evaluation
- 3.4.1 Develop and sustain a range of inclusive and supportive relationships, processes and practices which promote a culture of self-evaluation in line with agreed strategic and operational priorities
Sources:
Learning Standard for Career-Long Professional Learning:
Professional Review and Development and Professional Update
3.3.2 Engage in reflective practice to develop and advance career-long professional learning and expertise
As an accomplished teacher you consistently demonstrate the enhanced skills and abilities working both individually and collaboratively to:
- identify and engage in meaningful career-long professional learning, including postgraduate study as appropriate, and maintain a reflective record of evidence of impact on self, colleagues and learners;
- show professional courage and judgement to support and challenge system improvement through:-understanding and exploring local, national, and global contexts and the complexity in which teachers interact;
- and-contributing to a learning culture that supports and facilitates professional dialogue, debate and constructive feedback;
- lead and contribute to the professional learning of colleagues, including student and probationer teachers;
- and engage with the Professional Update process.
How Good is Our School? 4.0
1.2 Leadership of learning
- Professional engagement and collegiate working
- Impact of career-long professional learning
Leadership of improvements in learning and teaching. It highlights the importance of professional commitment to improving pedagogy through a range of approaches to career-long professional learning including collegiate working. It focuses on leadership which improves outcomes for learners through enabling them to lead their own learning.
1.3 Leadership of change
- Developing a shared vision, values and aims relevant to the school and its community
- Implementing improvement and change
Collaborative leadership at all levels to develop a shared vision for change and improvement Helping senior leaders should ensure the need for change is well understood and that the pace of change is appropriate to ensure the desired positive impact for learners
1.4 Leadership and management of staff
- Building and sustaining a professional staff team
- Staff wellbeing and pastoral support
Building and sustaining a highly- professional staff team. Effective empowerment of staff and partners with due regard to wellbeing and positive relationships is a key feature of a successful professional team.
Source: How Good is Our School? 4th edition, Education Scotland, 2015
Our teacher training programmes – Success Beyond Schools and Explaining Me are designed to help teachers satisfy Career Education Standard (3-18) requirements for careers advice and guidance and, for schools that follow them, the meta-skills 4.0 model for future work promulgated by Skills Development Scotland (see boxes below).
The content of our programmes is based on the same insights of positive psychology that underlie Curriculum for Excellence positive educational capacities of confident individuals, responsible citizens, and effective contributors.
Both Success Beyond Schools and Explaining Me provide teachers with ready-to-go lessons to be delivered during Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education sessions for S5 and S6 pupils.
- Success Beyond Schools, our six-lesson series, helps pupils build leadership qualities, gain resilience to navigate change and succeed in life beyond school.
- Explaining Me, a single lesson, helps S5 and S6 pupils understand and articulate their aspirations. The programme aims to help pupils be confident in drafting their personal statements for further education and describing their career goals during employment interviews.
Career Education Standard (3-18)
Expectations – teachers will
- …design and deliver appropriate personalised curriculum that takes account of the individual needs of children and young people; and genuinely equips them for learning, life and work in all settings including colleges and other learning providers.
- engage children and young people in meaningful discussion about their skills development and assist them in profiling to support their career journeys;
- encourage diverse thinking in children and young people to consider a broader view of subject choices, career options and job opportunities;
- facilitate young people’s learning and their ability to engage with a rapidly developing landscape of work/career and learning opportunities;
- take account of individual needs when planning to support children and young people with career information and guidance (CIAG) and draw on the expertise and support of partners as appropriate.
Source: Developing the Young Workforce: Career Education Standard (3-18), Education Scotland, September 2015.
Skills Development Scotland meta-skills 4.0
Adapting
- Openness: Being open to new ideas and approaches – having a growth mindset
- Adaptability: Flexibility when handling the unexpected, adapting to circumstances as they arise
- Resilience: Ability to respond positively and constructively to constantly evolving challenges and complexity
Initiative
- Courage: The ability to manage and overcome fear in order to take action
- Independent thinking: The ability to think for one’s self and trust one’s own judgement
- Risk-taking: Doing something that involves danger or risk in order to achieve a goal
- Decision-making: The act of making a considered choice after appropriately using intuition and careful thought
- Self-belief :A feeling of trust in one’s abilities, qualities and judgement
- Self-motivation: The ability to act without influence or encouragement from others
- Responsibility: The ability to follow through on commitments, be proactive and take responsibility
- Enterprising: Willingness to take risks, show initiative and undertake new ventures
Collaborating
- Teamworking and collaboration: Working with others toward shared goals. Creating group synergy in pursuing collective goals
- Social perceptiveness: Being aware of others’ reactions and understanding why they react as they do
Leading
- Inspiring others: The ability to energise and create a sense of direction, purpose, excitement and momentum
- Influencing: Working to gain the agreement of others to a particular course of action
- Motivating others: Encouraging others to achieve goals, accomplish tasks, and complete objectives
- Developing others: The ability to coach and constructively review the work of others to improve and advance their skills, knowledge and performance level
- Change catalyst: Having the ability to ignite change
Source: Skills 4.0: A skills model to drive Scotland’s future, Skills Development Scotland, February 2018