Value #1: Professional discretion Definition The trust’s definition of professional discretion is stated as teachers acting professionally. However, professional discretion is not a term which is easily found amongst searches of leadership literature. In looking under the term, ‘professionalism’, Eraut (1994) is one author who writes about professional knowledge and competence offering a set of tenets for those who claim to be acting as professionals. Those tenets paraphrased for a school setting include: adherence to a moral purpose that means the work being done is in the interests of students and their learning; accepting the concomitant obligation to selfmonitor one’s performance and reviewing the effectiveness of work practices; extending repertoires and engaging in reflection on experience in order to develop expertise. There is no one way to be a professional as there are multiple ways of thinking and acting to achieve the same aim despite the presence of professional standards. Professional values are often enshrined in Codes of Ethics which act as the foundation for the choices for action leaders and teachers make. They influence the exercise of discretion when the action needed is not rule bound or procedurally governed. Timperley (2015) argues that professionalism is promoted through conversations. Furthermore, she maintains it is important for school leaders to know how professional conversations and improvement-focused feedback can support the professional growth of teachers. The essence of learning through conversations is an active rather than passive type of learning, which is encapsulated in the terminology of ‘adaptive expertise’, which, like Eraut’s first tenet, makes mention of a focus on the moral imperative of improving a range of valued outcomes for students. Timperley follows this with the need for agency to ensure “the continued development of knowledge and skills through self- and co-regulated learning as new evidence comes to light or new students present new challenges” (p.7). Selfawareness is a further aspect highlighted and described in terms of “existing assumptions, and when they might be helpful or unhelpful” (p.7). Therefore acting as a professional means understanding one’s own capability to function and being adaptive and responsive to the work context and those whom one serves.
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