Professional Skills and Abilities

3.1 Curriculum and Pedagogy

3.1.1 Plan effectively to meet learners’ needs

Professional actions

As a student teacher to demonstrate your professional skills and abilities you are required to:

• plan coherent, progressive and engaging teaching programmes which address the needs of learners
• plan learning in accordance with current curriculum guidance including Gaelic medium education where appropriate
• identify the potential barriers to learning and plan differentiated and appropriately challenging learning experiences to ensure learning is accessible for every learner
• communicate appropriately with every learner, modelling and promoting competence and confidence in literacy, numeracy, health and wellbeing and digital literacy
• ensure teaching builds confidence and promotes the progress of every learner

3.1.2 Utilise pedagogical approaches and resources

Professional actions

As a student teacher to demonstrate your professional skills and abilities you are required to:

• create meaningful contexts for learners through a range of different learning environments
• employ teaching strategies and resources, including digital approaches, to meet the needs and abilities of every learner
• use self-evaluation and professional learning to support and improve practice
• use a variety of questioning techniques and a range of digital and traditional approaches to enhance learning and teaching
• create opportunities for learning to be transformative in terms of challenging assumptions and expanding world views

3.1.3 Utilise partnerships for learning and wellbeing

Professional actions

As a student teacher to demonstrate your professional skills and abilities you are required to:

• contribute to a rights-respecting culture where learners can meaningfully participate in decisions related to their learning, wellbeing, learning environment and their school
• create and sustain effective working relationships with colleagues, parents/carers, families and the wider school community and partner agencies where appropriate, to support learning and wellbeing across the school
• practise self-care and support the wellbeing of others, seeking support where necessary
• develop partnerships which:
  
  • support decision-making that is compatible with a sustainable future in a just and equitable world
  • connect learners to their dependence on the natural world and develop their sense of belonging to both the local and global community
  • connect relevance of learning to skills for life, learning and work

3.1.4 Employ assessment, evaluate progress, recording and reporting as an integral part of the teaching process to support and enhance learning

Professional actions

As a student teacher to demonstrate your professional skills and abilities you are required to:

• record, analyse and use assessment data to evaluate learning and teaching
• use the results of assessment to identify development needs at class, group and individual level
• use a range of differentiated assessment strategies that ensures support and challenge for all learners
• use appropriate formative and summative assessment strategies to provide opportunities for challenge and growth appropriate to the needs of every learner and to meet the requirements of the curriculum and awarding and accrediting bodies
• contribute to clear, informative reports for parents/carers and the school which discuss progress in learning in a sensitive and constructive way

3.2 The Learning Context

3.2.1 Appropriately organise and manage learning

Professional actions

As a student teacher to demonstrate your professional skills and abilities you are required to:

• create a safe, caring and purposeful learning environment which is welcoming and inclusive, well managed and well organised
• plan and organise effectively to facilitate whole-class lessons, group and individual work and promote independent learning
• use a range of opportunities that stimulate and reflect ongoing learning in varied and dynamic learning environments
• enable learners to make use of well-chosen resources, including digital technologies, to enhance learning, teaching and assessment, as appropriate
• create opportunities for learning to be transformative in terms of challenging assumptions and expanding world views
• evaluate the impact of the learning environment on every learner and learning and to challenge assumptions, surface bias and adapt provision, as appropriate

3.2.2 Engage learner participation

Professional actions

As a student teacher to demonstrate your professional skills and abilities you are required to:

• value all learners and their participation, actively engaging children and young people in decision-making about their education
• demonstrate care and commitment to working with every learner, embracing diversity to ensure that every learner feels welcome, included and ready to learn
• demonstrate knowledge and understanding of wellbeing indicators and childhood development
• recognise that childhood experiences impact on the learning and wellbeing of children and young people and actively respond in appropriate ways, seeking advice and collaborating as required
• utilise strategies to nurture caring and supportive and purposeful relationships with learners and celebrate success

3.2.3 Build positive, rights respecting relationships for learning

Professional actions

As a student teacher to demonstrate your professional skills and abilities you are required to:

• promote and develop positive and purposeful relationships with and between learners, colleagues, families and partners
• use research-informed approaches to relationship building in a consistent way to build and sustain all professional relationships
• communicate appropriately with every learner, modelling and promoting competence and confidence in literacy and numeracy and health and wellbeing
• commit to and demonstrate equity and inclusion
• encourage learners to respect and care for themselves, others and the natural world

3.3 Professional Learning

3.3.1 Engage critically with literature, research and policy

Professional actions

As a student teacher to demonstrate your professional skills and abilities you are required to:

• identify and source appropriate literature, research and policy
• engage critically with research to challenge and inform professional practice and question and challenge educational assumptions, beliefs and values of self and system

3.3.2 Engage in reflective practice to develop and advance career-long professional learning and expertise

Professional actions

As a student teacher to demonstrate your professional skills and abilities you are required to:

• reflect and engage critically in self-evaluation using the relevant professional standard
• adopt an enquiring, reflective and critical approach to professional practice
• enhance learning and teaching by taking account of feedback from others including children and young people and actively engage in professional learning to support school improvement
• maintain a reflective record of evidence of impact of professional learning on self and learners