Professional Growth Cycles

In 2020 the Teaching Council signalled the removal of performance appraisal and that teachers would not have to collect evidence to prove they meet the Standards for the Teaching Profession. 

Read more on the Teaching Council website.

School leaders and teachers have been asked to develop a Professional Growth Cycle (PGC) that works for their teachers, their learners, and their context for 2021. The PGC puts the focus back onto what is really important – improving professional practice to improve student outcomes.

• Using the Standards for the Teaching Profession to look forward rather than focusing on finding proof of meeting them (looking backwards).
• A greater balance between accountability and professional trust.
• Stripping back activities and compliance that are not productive for learning.
• A greater emphasis on peer and collaborative reflection and growth.
• A greater emphasis on professional conversations rather than checklists.
• A focus on what is naturally occurring within teaching and learning, rather than collections/suitcases of evidence.

Some appraisal processes have become over engineered and a focus on compliance has crept in. This has added to teacher workload and, in some cases, reduced the effectiveness of teacher learning for improved student outcomes. The change from ‘performance appraisal’ to ‘professional growth cycles’ allows the education profession to pause and refocus:

• What is working in our professional learning process that is helping us to improve our practice in terms of learner outcomes?
• How do we know?
• What can we stop doing because it is a distraction to this central focus?
• What do we need to have further clarity on as a staff?
• What do we need to do better?

In our conversations with school leaders and teachers we are hearing that schools are approaching professional growth cycles in different ways. After pausing and reflecting on their teacher learning and growth processes some schools are happy with their current approaches/foci and only need to remove some unnecessary aspects of compliance. Other schools have identified that they need to start the design process anew with the end in mind – supporting teacher growth to further develop student outcomes.

The following questions are ones school leaders have told us they are engaged with:

• How do we consider accountability?
• Teachers used to collect evidence related to their inquiries, how might school leaders reset this aspect of the new process and what rationale or evidence should guide this?
• What should observing teaching practice look like and are there useful models that can help us?
• What are the essential features of an effective professional growth cycle and how does it differ from an appraisal cycle that is development focused?
• Does it mean we throw everything out?

Before beginning it’s a good idea to develop a shared understanding of the Standards for the Teaching Profession in your context. This is also an opportunity to re-engage with the Code. The Code outlines the standards of ethical behaviour expected of every teacher and this influences the way the Standards are understood and enacted in your practice.

The Teaching Council has released an overview diagram of the professional growth cycle. Schools are telling us that they are finding this document quite useful as an overview of the full process, in supporting them to discuss the changes as a team/staff and to begin considering what the PGC might look like in their context.