Teamkracht! Professional learning community makes your school team powerful

New understanding of teacher professional development

Vanblaere (2016) indicates that there is a changing view of teachers' professional development. This is no longer just a matter of in-service training, but increasingly 'school-based learning' is gaining importance through mutual cooperation, exchange and consultation. Indeed, there is much to learn from and with each other.

School professionalisation plan

CAO XI requires schools to draw up a 'professionalisation plan', which replaces a 'refresher training plan' (Crevits, 2018). The professionalisation plan must address professionalisation needs of team members and the school's priority goals. The school:

• hereby encourages the implementation of professionalisation initiatives;
• encourages internal expertise sharing and professional dialogue and reflection on learning and teaching (ROK, 2017).

Learn from fellow teachers at school

By encouraging this, the school seeks to form a professional learning community. In this study, we define a professional learning community (PLG) according to the characteristics also used by Sharmahd et al. (2017) in their publication on PLGs in ECEC settings:

• (1) reflective dialogue on educational matters;
• (2) practice de-privatisation;
• (3) shared responsibility within a (4) shared vision with (5) the presence of leadership.

Instrument for forming professional learning communities

Teamkracht! explores how a professional development tool can support a school team in forming the school as a professional learning community. A second aim of the instrument is to use team learning as a means of connecting strategic and developmental policy-making in a primary school. This way, you get policy-powered schools that are broadly supported by a professional team, which ultimately results in improved student learning processes and outcomes.