The SUNCETT ethos...
A Guiding Principle
A guiding principle of the SUNCETT approach to professional development is that teachers need to be given relevant opportunities to develop their own expertise in planning and implementing improvements in teaching and learning through critical enquiry into their own practice. This involves the exercise of professional judgment in context and the evaluation of improvements in their practice in collaboration with colleagues. In order to do this, teachers need to have a sense that they belong to, and have rights and responsibilities in, a community of professional development and practice. They also need to have confidence that their voices will be heard and their experiences and concerns will be taken seriously within that community.
A Core Value
A core value of the SUNCETT approach to professional development is to encourage teachers to think carefully, critically, creatively and collaboratively about their practice, identify ways to improve it, and work with the SUNCETT team and their colleagues to implement and evaluate improvements in their teaching.
Central Purpose
The central purpose of SUNCETT is to demonstrate how collaborative enquiry, joint practice development and shared practice can lead to sustainable improvements in teaching and learning. SUNCETT is developing innovative approaches to raising standards of practice which bring together student teachers, teachers, teacher educators, mentors, placement providers and employers across the region. Using a combination of virtual/actual environments and networks, practitioners are able to share ideas, resources, experiences and expertise. The University of Sunderland will support, recognise and accredit these activities through an extensive range of professional development programmes and services from Access to Masters Level.
With the creation and development of vibrant communities of professional development and practice, SUNCETT is bringing pedagogy to life in ways which recognise and value local knowledge and contexts. SUNCETT, in collaboration with practitioners in its Constituent Organisations, is developing deeper understandings of pedagogy. By applying these to the issues and problems teachers face in their everyday work, SUNCETT is generating innovative, thoughtful, practical and relevant solutions to real situations in teaching and learning.
The collaborative ethos of SUNCETT
aims to re-energise the creative capacities of teachers in the sector, enhance confidence, and increase standards of teaching and learning and levels of self-belief and self-worth in both teachers and learners alike. By introducing a radically different approach to the professional development of teachers, SUNCETT is raising the possibility that valuable new perspectives and new approaches to the improvement and quality assurance of standards of teaching, learning and achievement might be identified across the North East of England. In the longer term, it is envisaged that the SUNCETT approach will both inform, and at times lead, the national debate in relation to the identification and development of 'Best Practice' and 'Excellence' in PCET.