ENHANCING LEARNING AND TEACHING THROUGH THE EFFECTIVE USE OF ICT A STRATEGY FOR EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY, PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND COLLABORATION
The Critical Importance of Teacher Quality
Aim: ‘All young people should be learning with, through and about the use of digital and online technologies’. ******************************* We require appropriately trained teachers and a confident and competent workforce for the 21st century. Our goal is to secure a supply of good quality teachers to suit the system predicated on Raising Standards. We need to ensure that: our workforce has the pedagogical skills and expertise to instruct effectively ( and to contribute in a changing landscape); teachers have extensive subject knowledge, a good knowledge of pedagogy, the skills and competences required to guide and support learners, and an understanding of the social and cultural dimension of education; we develop new teachers to understand learning and how children learn, build capacity and take on change; and teachers become reflective practitioners who engage in self-evaluation leading to improvement. We recognise that individual classroom and subject teachers are at the heart of any efforts to raise standards and to tackle educational underachievement. It is through their professionalism and expertise that individual pupils are encouraged and supported to learn and to succeed.