What local / national / international networks is your school a part of?

We are also part of Erasmus+ schools: although it is not an official network, it is a fact that the schools that always run Erasmus+ project are connected and do things together.

Thanks to the eTwinning School label I have succeeded in making understand that our school can do great things if we work together and we do our best with the skills that we can put in place. I can finally say that at my school there is now a good team of teachers who learn and work jointly.

I am firmly convinced that doing things together is the best way to foster motivation, self-esteem and willingness to improve.

What role does the head teacher play with school staff professional development?

Head teachers should in theory play a major role in promoting the professional development of teachers.

However, in Italy the role of the head teacher is separated from that of the teacher: even if head teachers come from the ranks of the teachers, once they pass the competition they stop teaching to devote themselves completely to their task. This makes them lose a bit of contact with the daily teaching reality and even the question of training is actually managed in a rather different way depending on the personality of the individual head teacher.

There are head teachers who care very much about the training of their teachers and therefore do everything to encourage participation in courses and seminars. Unfortunately they are not the majority: more and more often colleagues say that their head teacher does not authorize their participation in training courses because he/she does not know how to replace them in the classroom.

Moreover, in many schools, head teachers often change after a few years and therefore the training situation also changes according to the person.

I have the luck to have always had head teachers who have supported me in my training .... maybe that's why I'm here today!

Can you estimate a percentage of teachers at your school who participate in online professional development?

I think that I can involve more or less 15 teachers (10% of the amount of teachers at Laura Bassi).

In the Italian school it is not easy to think of a system of recognition of the skills learned. Unfortunately, there is no regulatory system that officially recognizes the value of training.

However, participating in a working group in which ways are studied to put into practice in daily teaching what has been learned in online courses, receiving certification from the Headmaster about the activities carried out in class and in the project group can already be a starting point to motivate colleagues and encourage them to involve other fellow teachers in the class and in the department in a more active teaching.