Changing role of Professional Learning Communities

At the beginning of the pandemic, it was necessary to prepare our school teachers for distance learning.

At the beginning, we set up small groups of teachers in the school, with IT teachers experienced in using ICT tools as mentors to support the rest of the group. These groups worked quite well during the periods of distance learning. However, as a leader, I would have liked these groups to support each other professionally during the “normal” education and to contribute to the general uptake of digitalisation in schools. We set aside time for these groups to meet, rewarded participation, and made it compulsory.

However, despite all my encouragement, these groups disbanded as soon as we went back to face-to-face teaching. I think this happened because the internal informal groups in the school, led by teachers of more prestigious subjects (maths, fractions), automatically became strong again when we returned to presence teaching.