Chartered Teacher video transcript

(VO) Scotland needs great teachers so its pupils can flourish. Achieving this means giving teachers the opportunity to develop skills and reach new goals throughout their careers.

The Chartered Teacher Programme gives experienced teachers the chance to build on their success without even leaving the classroom.

Rosa Murray, Professional Officer for Chartered Teachers at GTC Scotland, explains more about the Programme.

(Rosa Murray) It was set up primarily to recognise and reward those teachers who were achieving high levels of accomplished teaching through programmes of learning and development, through the university they do a course, they do study there. The Programmes are based on critical evaluation, on reflection, being critically informed about theory and research and policy and crucially linking all that in to their practice in the classroom. The idea was to keep really good teachers in the classroom without them seeking career opportunities through management, which were the only routes that existed in Scotland. Now they can actually stay within the classroom, complete these programmes become Chartered Teachers and receive a financial increment in their salary. The teachers that are eligible for Chartered Teacher have to have been teaching about 6 years they'll have reached the top of their pay scale in Scotland. The programme could last up to 6 years; most of the providers are now doing this in double modules so teachers could actually do two a year and complete in 3 years.

(VO) Penny Browning is one teacher who has discovered the many benefits of becoming a Chartered Teacher:

(Penny Browning) I was looking for something in management but I was equally open to something that was going to extend me in other ways and I came across the Chartered Teacher Programme. It interested me at the time because it was an opportunity to develop myself professionally and engage in more research and reading that was going to be able to interest me and move my teaching further on, and I thoroughly enjoyed the process that I went through. It was a process that recognised, I think, my strengths, strengths that I think many teacher have across Scotland.

The programme itself seeks for you to engage in deeper research thinking more reflectively about what you're actually doing with the children rather than doing what you've always done. It sort of encourages you to use you're initiative so that you're solving problems rather than just being aware that a child is having a difficulty with something, actually thinking ok what am I going to do about that. It might be something that is quite a challenge to do something about it, it might involve an overall of the way that you teach or the way that you address a particular area of the curriculum. It's given me the opportunity to think about how I actually do that and how I solve the problem therefore and support the children and, you know, hopefully have a positive impact on their learning. I think it has given me more confidence in taking on more whole school initiatives or leading curricular projects and it's given me the recognition to be able to do that within the school. I do think there are lots and lots of people across the country who are performing as Chartered Teachers, but have not put themselves forwards for the recognition.

You never reach the end, you never do all you could possibly do as a teacher. I think the thing about Chartered Teacher as a whole initiative is that it is encouraging people to be on the journey, to keep wanting to improve and for there to be opportunities for them to improve.

Download the Chartered Teacher (pdf) video transcript.