Abstract:
The devolution settlement of the late 1990s and the establishment of the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament has increased the potential for divergence of policy and practice within the differing educational systems in the UK. The established view of teacher professional development and learning historically has been that it is haphazard, rarely relevant and had little impact on professional learning. This paper focuses on the Welsh and Scottish approaches to teacher professional development and learning and includes a review of policies adopted since 1998 including consideration of their 'political' derivation - the issue of how you must do it; the 'professional' element - how you should do it and the 'pragmatic alternative' - how we will do it. These approaches are compared and contrasted with international examples of how similar issues associated with re-culturing the teaching profession and performance management are being addressed.