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Implement: Teacher professional development

• Teacher professional development has been identified as a crucial component of developing a values-centred school culture. Both the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians and the National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools affirm that education and schooling is 'as much about building character as it is about equipping students with specific skills'. The role of the teacher in this task is central. In this view of education, the position description for the teacher includes the role of values educator. The underpinning assumption is that all teachers are values educators. This fact has major implications for the whole school and its community of practising teachers.
• The vision of the National Framework is that schools will 'ensure values are incorporated into teaching programs across all key learning areas' at all levels of schooling. Further, it nominates quality teaching as one of the key elements of an effective approach to values education and urges that 'teachers are skilled in good practice values education' and that 'teachers are provided with appropriate resources to support their efficacy as teachers of values in all areas of the curriculum and total school life and to monitor this efficacy on an ongoing basis'.
  
• One of the key lessons demonstrated by the schools in the Values Education Good Practice School Project – Stages 1 and 2 is 'how explicit values education professional learning – at a local, state and national level – can lead to transformed teacher practice. Professional learning can be the critical factor between success and failure in developing sustainable values-based schooling'. Accordingly, one of the ten good practices in values education distilled from the project urges schools and systems to 'provide teachers with informed, sustained and targeted professional learning and foster their professional collaborations'. (Principle 8, VEGPSP Report– Stage 2)
• Professor Terry Lovat's analysis of current research in quality teaching and values education has highlighted the central role of the teacher:
  I suggest that the nature, shape and intent of values education has the potential to refocus attention of teachers and their systems on the fundamental item of all effective teaching, namely the teacher her or himself, including naturally the quality of the teacher's knowledge, content and pedagogy, but above and beyond all of these, on the teacher's capacity to form relationships of care and trust and so establish a values-filled environment and, along with this, to teach about those values and so promote in students commitment to live by those values and to build a society where justice and respect are assured. (Lovat, T & Toomey, R (eds) 2007, Values Education and Quality Teaching: The Double Helix Effect, Australian Council of Deans of Education, David Barlow Publishing, Terrigal NSW, p 12)