Professional Development Policy

Professional Development Policy

St Monica School B’Kara

 

“What we want for children … we should want for their teachers: that schools be places of learning for both of them, and that such learning be suffused with excitement, engagement, passion, challenge, creativity and joy.”

A. Hargreaves (1995)

“Teacher development in a postmodern world”

By professional development we mean an ongoing process of staff education and training taking place in school or outside school aimed at

  • promoting the development of their professional knowledge and skills
  • promoting values that enhance the vocation of the Spinellian teacher
  • helping them to react proactively to change and
  • enabling them to provide a quality education to our students.

 

 

Our ongoing professional development for teachers and LSAs is deigned to encourage them to be energetic and continuous learners throughout their professional life.  We recognize that the quality of teaching depends on the opportunities the staff are given to access ways and means of improving their practice and responding effectively to the changing needs of their students and the whole community.

 

 

To achieve this the professional development of teachers and LSAs is carried out in our school through

  • reflection upon and improvement of classroom practice
  • introduction to new educational issues
  • onsite coaching and mentoring.

 

Professional Development must be

  • regular and ongoing
  • inclusive of all staff
  • interesting and energizing
  • varied in subject and methodology
  • dependent upon teachers’ educational needs
  • related to educational issues and concerns
  • up to date and relevant.

 

 

Specific Professional Development sessions during the scholastic year

 

  1. On the first of two working days before the first day of school (the 4th Monday of September) – whole day
  2. On the day before school restarts for the 2nd Term in January – whole day
  3. On three designated occasions (one per term) for two hours after school finishes at 2.00 pm
  4. A 40-minute session per term focused on spiritual cum professional development
  5. Optional sessions during SDP Day in June.

 

 

Animators of the Sessions may be

 

  1. lecturers from the University of Malta or from foreign universities e.g. Faculty of education, Psychology, etc.
  2. experts in various fields e.g. Health & Safety, Information Technology, etc.
  3. educational practitioners e.g. Heads of School
  4. peers e.g. teachers.