Research to support the national professional learning approach for Wales: Area 9: Schools as learning organisations and the Welsh government professional standards

Summary
1.1 There is some limited synergy between the Professional Standards and the elements of the Schools as Learning 0rganisations (SLO) model. Although both have much to offer they also have shortcomings.
1.2 Providing these shortcomings are understood, acknowledged and addressed, they could usefully contribute to a National Approach to Professional Learning that underpins all aspects of the Welsh Government’s national mission for education.
1.3 The extent to which these two approaches could support each other is inextricably linked to the interpretation and enactment of these policies. Further clarity and guidance, both on what is to be achieved and how to achieve it is required.
1.4 In the absence of this clarity and guidance, there is a danger that in practice these policies could be translated into checklists of specific examples and become oversimplified. When this happens it can breed conformity, cynicism and the very opposite of the goal to support a new kind of professional responsibility