Kindergarten to Grade 12 public schools across the Emirate of Abu Dhabi are undergoing a one week school-based Professional Development, PD, programme, as part of Abu Dhabi Education Council's, ADEC, mission to encourage schools to come up with individualised school improvement plans.
Speaking about the initiative, which is running until April 2nd, Mohamed Al Dhaheri, ADEC's School Operations Executive Director, explained that schools participate in a variety of professional development trainings organised by ADEC throughout the year to help improve their overall standard as part of ADEC's directives to drive education forward.
"Schools are now familiar with ADEC's vision to become a world class leader in education, and have taken part in all of our professional development programmes which have all been catered to help improve the overall performance of the school, whether professionally, academically or morally. Now, it is the schools responsibility to help create a school based professional development programme for its own staff. This initiative is meant to hold each school liable for its own progress, which should be the case at all times," he explained.
In preparation for the school-based PD week, every school, in collaboration with Cluster Managers, submitted a plan detailing what will be done during the five day programme. Academic Quality Improvement Officers and Education Advisors were supporting the preparation plans as needed or required.
Schools are required to review their school improvement recommendations and current school improvement plan in order to set priorities for the week. The focus of the week is to strategically implement strategies for maximum impact. The school leadership team in each school is required to develop an agenda based on the individual school's needs and priorities.
With the help of their providers and access to a vast library of materials, schools were able to identify pertinent professional learning resources to support their plans.
Prior to the week-long training, school facilitators across the Emirate of Abu Dhabi took part in a three-day capacity building programme to help equip them with the tools and resources necessary to drive the programme forward during the week.
Source: WAM