Roslin Primary School

Roslin Primary School is incredibly proud of the professional learning culture that has been fostered here. The school is driven by its core values of support, learning through play, individuals, trust and relationships and respect.

A culture and ethos of prioritising learning for all staff and children forms the bedrock of what you see at Roslin Primary. This is supported and nurtured by the Senior Leadership Team (SLT), but also by a strong sense of distributed leadership across the school. The teamwork and trust between these are vital to learning and its impact on children.

Professional learning is deeply embedded in the culture of the school where conversations about learning are frequent and valued. Risk-taking and innovative learning and teaching are encouraged, supported and shared. In line with school policy and the Professional Standards for teachers (2.1.1, 2.1.2, 2.1.3, 2.1.4), there is an expectation that staff apply current educational research to their practice and understand its impact. Whilst this was already part of the learning environment at Roslin PS, we formalised this approach most recently in our work on Practitioner Enquiry. SLT allocate professional development time throughout the whole academic session to teachers being able to select, research and carry out their own projects. These are then shared at the end of the year, with impact on learners being the main focus. Practitioner Enquiry projects are also embedded into the Professional Review and Development process and discussion.

The dynamic relationship between learners and the educator’s professional learning has been best showcased through our work in flexible seating, science and play-based learning. Collaboration with colleagues both within and beyond our school has been pivotal to the positive effect on learning.

Throughout the pandemic, as with many schools, we focused on three core areas – literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing. However, staff also continued to engage with practitioner enquiry projects and time was allocated for this. In spite of the challenges, staff were still able to discuss how research and professional learning had impacted their learning and teaching in that session.

As we move forward, collegiality, shared leadership and evidence-based practice will be at the heart of what we do.