Edinburgh Learns Teaching and Learning Team
The Edinburgh Learns Teaching and Learning Team was established in 2018. Our aims are to improve both the quality of learners’ experiences and the knowledge, skills and confidence of practitioners, leading to improved progress and achievement in learning for our children and young people. Our professional learning offer is clearly informed by the National Model of Professional Learning. We provide training which deepens knowledge and understanding of strategies to deliver high-quality learning and teaching, along with supporting establishments and educators to use enquiry to explore what works for their own learners.
Our focus is largely informed by our city’s Teaching and Learning framework which identifies 4 key areas – formative assessment, differentiation, skills and leadership of learning – to support high-quality learning, teaching and assessment. These 4 areas have been branded under our Teachers’ Charter which forms a core part of our authority and schools’ priorities.
Initially, we delivered professional learning face to face, but we have adapted this greatly since 2020. We now offer a hybrid model of live and self-led learning. Our live webinars, delivered online, allow staff to engage with interactive training without the need for travel. Our self-led training enables our professional learning offer to be differentiated for staff; they can move through learning as quickly/slowly as they would like, they can revisit learning over and over again and they can focus specifically on the parts they have identified they need to work on.
The impact of professional learning on learners’ progress and attainment is critical for us. We have a relentless focus throughout our professional learning on enquiry as a stance to challenge and inform practice. In addition, we have established lesson study as a tool for collaborative enquiry in a number of our schools and clusters. We offer support to establishments and educators on the use of data and self-evaluation which, along with our training and enquiry focus, help them plan and evaluate impactful improvement.
This session has seen the establishment of a new learning, teaching and assessment leads network across the city. These practitioners are keen to lead improvement in their local context in collaboration with the Teaching and Learning Team. A rich professional learning offer, along with regular network meetings, is helping develop their skills in leading impactful professional learning and in pedagogy. In the long term, it will be powerful to have professional learning co-delivered by these leads and the Teaching and Learning Team to give a perfect mix of research, practice and local context.
We have an ongoing, strong commitment to our own professional learning as a team. We engage regularly in professional reading and professional learning ourselves and often plan opportunities for professional dialogue around this. This helps ensure that our professional learning offer is up to date and well-informed.
Going forward, we are excited about the future and continuing collaboration with colleagues and establishments across Edinburgh. We will continue to adapt our offer to meet the needs of our educators and maximise our impact on learners. Covid forced us to change many of our practices and, coming out of the pandemic, we have an opportunity to move forward with a blend of best practice. An enduring online element within our offer will continue to give us the option to deliver shorter live sessions which would not have been worth travelling for, along with self-led training that staff can access where and when they want. We will re-introduce face to face work when possible for longer sessions to help build strong relationships and provide rich opportunities for dialogue and collaboration.