Area 4 of the National Approach to Professional Learning: The national Professional Learning offer and allocation of time

1. Key Messages

1.1 There are a number of different ways of allocating time for professional learning in operation in high-performing school systems, and these different modes are often blended together.

1.2 There is limited research evidence to support claims about how effective these different ways of allocating time might be, so there is no convincing consensus that a particular way of allocating time for professional learning is preferable.

1.3 Representations of professional learning, in official documentation and academic literature, tend to emphasise key facets (e.g. professional learning as collaboration), and these tend to imply that increased allocation of time would be beneficial. There are, therefore, frequent calls from a variety of stakeholders for more time to be made available for professional learning, but these are rarely quantified.

1.4 There is also a strand within the literature which suggests that a commitment to teacher agency, and a culture that encourages teachers to view professional learning as a continuous element of their professional behaviour, may have more impact than the simple allocation of time itself.

1.5 There is a potential tension between adopting a universal, minimal allocation of time for all practitioners, and awarding substantial allocations of time to selected practitioners.