This paper outlines the complexities of teacher professionalism as advocated in the Professional Standards for Scotland’s teachers, alongside a consideration of the central role of GTC Scotland in enhancing trusted teaching. In a current context of educational reform, the positioning and core purpose of GTC Scotland is considered, offering implications for international contexts in defining and supporting individual and collective teacher professionalism.

GTC Scotland as one of the oldest teaching councils in the world was established  to address concerns about teacher quality in response to increasing numbers of uncertified teachers. GTC Scotland is now the teaching profession’s independent registration and regulation body, and works to support and promote teaching  in a complex landscape of governance, policy and professionalism. This complexity has resonance across all education systems where there is an expectation that teachers operationalise imperatives created in other parts of the system.  

GTC Scotland was granted independence from Government in 2011, meaning, unlike other jurisdictions, the profession has responsibility for its own teaching standards under the guardianship of GTC Scotland. The refreshed Professional Standards published in August 2021, define what it means to become, be and grow as a teacher in Scotland and aims to scaffold current practice, encouraging teachers to develop new ways of working to ensure learners needs are met. Therefore, we argue that GTC Scotland is not an external agent in the Scottish education system, but integral to teacher professionalism at individual, group and system level.

 GTC Scotland refreshed the suite of five Professional Standards in partnership with stakeholders from across the education system these refreshed Professional Standards illustrate what professionalism means in practice. However, it is acknowledged that professionalism is “mutlifaceted” (Kennedy, McGregor and Barlow, 2012) and is “mastered through acquisitions” (Gee, 2015, p.189). Therefore, the role of GTC Scotland in the Scottish context to support the “enculturation” of teachers into the social and political world of teaching through scaffolding and supporting professional actions and illustrations, as outlined in the suite of Professional Standards will be discussed.

Central to Scotland’s Professional Standards for teachers are shared professional values, supporting a shared understanding of professionalism and outlining the responsibilities and accountabilities that are inherent, in belonging to a profession. The professional standards work with a number of other factors such as agreed entry criteria, a commitment to ongoing learning, a code of professionalism and conduct, and a regulatory system to provide the “privilege of self-regulation” (Teaching Scotland, 2021). This offers  the opportunity for the profession to make decisions on the knowledge, understanding, skills and abilities that matter most. 

GTC Scotland as the teaching profession’s independent registration and regulation body supports the complexity of the self-regulating Scottish education system. This is based on a legislative framework outlined in the Public Service Reform (General Teaching Council for Scotland) Order 2011 and it is through this legislation that GTC Scotland play a major role in the balance between the ownership by the profession and accountability of the profession for the education system. Like other education systems, education in Scotland abounds with complexity, which has many interrelated levels. As with any complex system, education develops and changes over time and has a unique and collective identity (Morrison, 2006). Therefore, ownership does not apply to one body or level, but is constructed by the myriad of connections and the individual accountabilities that lead to collective responsibility, meaning the system is always “emergent and unpredictable, although not random and not inexplicable” (Cochran-Smith et. al., 2014, p. 6). Teacher professionalism is formed by and is demonstrated in complex and uncertain learning environments that are influenced by policy, history, and experiences, which means teachers navigate social, cognitive and moral domains, and make many decisions with partial information and under time pressure (Le Fevre et al., 2020). This requires teachers to be adaptive and responsive professionals with a multitude of teaching strategies to meet the needs of their learners. As Kidd (2018) describes, “our ways of seeing and our willingness to accept complexity, very much impacts on our values and what we can tolerate in terms of uncertainty in education” (p. 65). It is in this complexity that teachers navigate and continue to develop their professionalism. GTC Scotland promotes teacher professionalism and provides a system of professional accountability. This balance of accountability and responsibility is necessary to maintain an “intelligent accountability” (Didau, 2020) of the teaching profession. The main aim of ’intelligent accountability’ is to increase ownership of teachers for their own learning and practice, where the accountability mechanisms in place, support teacher professionalism.

The 2011 Order gives the legislative backdrop to GTC Scotland, with governance provided by a Council of 37 members, which has a registered teacher majority. It is the Council that sets the strategic direction of GTC Scotland including the checks and balances that allow the teaching profession to have the ‘privilege of self-regulation’. This strong foundation of self-regulation is enhanced by having an all-graduate teaching profession, with all teachers holding academic and teaching qualifications (Finn & Hamilton, 2013) and showing a commitment to continuing professional learning to enhance their individual and collective professionalism. This governance model also underpins a system of regulation in the most extreme of circumstances, when consideration is required as to whether an individual teacher should be removed from the profession. A commitment to continual professionalism was defined as a re-accreditation scheme, which was a requirement of the 2011 Order. This re-accreditation scheme was rebranded more positively as ‘Professional Update’ (Finn & Hamilton, 2013, p. 971) by GTC Scotland. Professional Update is not a measure of competency but an opportunity for teachers to share their professional learning and the impact of that learning on themselves, children and young people, colleagues and their learning community. This supports teachers to have ownership, reflecting against the Professional Standards that are core to being, knowing, thinking and doing, “they describe teacher professionalism in Scotland, our ‘way of being’” (GTCS, SFR, 2021, p. 3). It is these Professional Standards which make effective connections between ongoing Professional Review and Development, Professional Learning and Professional Update confirmation.

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