Presentation: School-based and Territory-based Professional Development

Abstract

Schools that engage in a process of review and improvement with the aim of becoming more inclusive, and that succeed in making sustainable progress in this regard, have in common, among other things, a concern for the continuing professional development of their teaching staff. This is one of the important conditions for the advancement of schools. The development of the competences needed by teachers who are concerned to ensure the presence, learning and participation of all their students (Ainscow et al., 2006) should be one of the aims of education systems, both in terms of initial and in-service training. A professional who, as can be seen from the profile of the teacher for inclusion proposed by the European Agency for Special Educational Needs and Inclusion in the project they developed called ‘Teacher Training for Inclusion’ (TE4I) must (AEDNEEI, 2011): (a) value student diversity (differences in learning should be seen as a resource and an educational value), (b) support all learners (teachers should have high expectations for the performance of all their students), (c) work with others (collaboration and teamwork are essential to the task that all teachers must perform), and (d) care for continuous professional and personal development (teaching is a constant learning activity and teachers must take responsibility for their continuing education, throughout their professional lives).

Undoubtedly, the development of teaching practices with the aim of ‘reaching all learners’, leaving ‘no one behind’ is one of the requirements for the achievement of the international challenge we have taken on in Goal 4 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. However, the distance we still have to travel to achieve this Goal (UNESCO, 2020a), urges us to be very mindful of the actions needed to move forward (Echeita et al., 2021). To this end, among other things, as pointed out by UNESCO (2020b), education systems should strive to support schools and teachers, contributing to the development of their competences to reach the diversity of students in their school, and fostering collaboration between the different actors involved in the education and well-being of their students, both in and out of school.