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The literature supports transformative models of professional learning and development (PLD) such as professional learning communities (PLCs). However, there is a research gap relating to PLCs for inclusive practice. This paper draws on findings from a qualitative study with 10 teachers in an urban primary school in the Republic of Ireland, who engaged in a PLC for inclusive practice facilitated by one of the researchers. Two years later the researchers undertook semi-structured interviews with nine of the original participants and five classroom observations to explore if and how teachers can sustain inclusive practices in changing times. The findings evidenced sustained changes in teachers' individual and collaborative practices, affirming an argument that PLCs can support teachers to develop and sustain inclusive practices in the longer term. This paper offers a conceptual framework for prospectively planning PLCs to narrow the values practice gap for inclusive practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper used three participatory methods- children's drawings, photographs, and group interviews- along with a short questionnaire to explore Grade 6 pupils' experiences and perceptions of the private tutoring (PT) they had received in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. The questionnaire data suggest that 316 out of 406 (79.87%) attended PT. The qualitative data from 30 pupils reveal that the participants' motives of having PT ranged from adult-imposed reasons (e.g. complying with parents' wishes by studying for an elite school place) to reasons associated with achieving their ideal selves by boosting their interest in learning and imagining themselves working/studying abroad or pursuing an international career. The participants acted as proactive agents by explaining not only the PT benefits but also its disadvantages, including the unethical practices of some schoolteachers, increasing tiredness and it being a potentially unfair advantage in a competitive context. This study suggested pedagogical implications and areas for ongoing research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines what we can learn from recent experience of National Strategies and teacher research, with a view to improving the development and warranting of good practice in teaching. Official evaluations report that the authoritative stance of National Strategies has failed to engage many teachers thoughtfully, so restricting deeper professional development and educational improvement. Likewise, recent stocktaking indicates that teacher research has emphasised professional development over knowledge creation, and effecting changes over examining rationales. This paper argues that research‐informed development of good practice could be strengthened through ensuring that National Strategies become exemplary in warranting their recommendations for practice, and in providing support for corresponding teacher research. Developing good practice in teaching calls for stronger interaction between teacher expertise in realising such practice and researcher expertise in analysing it. Methods of lesson study exemplify how teacher thinking about good practice can be not just shared, but codified, and informed by scholarly knowledge; while methods of design research hold promise as a rigorous means of developing learning resources, supporting pedagogies and guiding theories to underpin improvement of practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a critique of existing models of continuing professional development (CPD) courses for science teachers in the light of recent thinking about the nature of the subject (in particular, the arguments associated with ‘post‐normal science’) and the challenges presented by the teaching of controversial socio‐scientific issues (especially topics like bio‐technology and genetic modification). An analysis of the outcomes and limitations of an ‘up‐date/top‐down’ kind of CPD is used to argue that future forms of effective CPD must involve teachers in reflecting on the scientific, the social and the pedagogical dimensions to ‘new science’, and the relationships between them in the interests of improved classroom learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]