GTC Scotland has introduced a new Professional Update (PU) revalidation process for employers involving the use of self-evaluation criteria.
What is Professional Update?
Our governing legislation placed a duty upon us to introduce a reaccreditation scheme, requiring us to set out measures to ensure that we are kept informed about the standards of education and training of teachers on our Register.
This scheme is called Professional Update (PU) and it was introduced in 2014. To maintain full registration with GTC Scotland, teachers must confirm their commitment to professional learning every 5 years through PU.
While we do not prescribe what form professional learning should take, we do require teachers to use the Professional Standards to structure their ongoing learning and development, based on what they identify as areas of need.
This ongoing process of engaging in, reflecting on and self-evaluation of professional learning against the Professional Standards helps to maintain and improve the quality of teaching and learning.
Employers’ role in upholding teaching standards
One of the roles employers have is to support teachers to uphold teaching standards through the reaccreditation process. This involves ensuring that teachers can appropriately record their professional learning with associated evidence of impact, access supportive Professional Review and Development (PRD) arrangements and use the deferral and appeals process where required.
Employers include local authorities, colleges, independent schools, higher education institutions and national education organisations. They develop their own processes to support teachers through PU and their systems are quality assured by GTC Scotland through the revalidation process.
Moving to self-evaluation
Over the last 10 years most systems have been validated and revalidated by GTC Scotland through a panel process with arranged visits to employers to analyse their PU process, policy and documentation. This has created a strong foundation of quality assurance, and given this, we are now moving to a new process where employers self-evaluate against their existing PU system.
The self-evaluation framework asks employers how they:
- engage with registrants to develop the employer PU process
- ensure registrants update their registration details annually with GTC Scotland
- engage with registrants on PRD and professional learning
- engage with registrants to facilitate reflection against the Professional Standards
- ensure registrants record and evidence their engagement with professional learning
- reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for registrants
- facilitate the 5 yearly PU sign-off
- ensure the overall process is helping to maintain and improve the quality of teaching and learning.
So far, we have invited 37 employers whose validation had expired, or was about to expire, to submit for revalidation using the new self-evaluation criteria. We will continue to engage with employers about this new process and they will be invited to self-evaluate against their existing system 4 months before their current validation is due to expire.
Read the Professional Update policy
What does this mean for registrants?
Most registrants will be using a validated system for PU. However, in instances where a system has not been validated or revalidated, registrants will follow our direct submissions process. You can find out more about direct submissions on our website.
Engaging in PU is an important part of registration with GTC Scotland and is key to maintaining teacher professionalism.
