During this financial year, the professional learning grant has been awarded to the 6 local authorities in the region (& not to GwE). The funding is to be delegated in its entirety to schools. The method used to determine the level of funding has been calculated following the terms and conditions specified by Welsh Government, i.e. the method used to determine funding at school level is calculated on FTE teacher numbers at the latest verified census point. This is the data that will drive the WG funding allocation to LAs for 2019/20, which is based on the same principles as the allocations for 2018/19.

The individual school allocations have already been confirmed to you by your local authority & will be transferred directly to your school’s budget via your local authority.

The terms & conditions of the grant, as detailed by Welsh Government are as follows:

• The expectation of the funding is to help schools meet the demands of the new National Approach to Professional Learning (NAPL) and enable investment in the elements of the model. For example, it enables investment in practitioners’ individual professional learning journeys and investment in collaboration.
• The primary purpose of the funding is creating time in schools for practitioners to make the changes to practice they need to make in advance of the realisation of the new curriculum.
• The funding is to be targeted at the learning required by teachers and learners to prepare them for the new curriculum.
• The expectation of the funding is that every practitioner is to be given the opportunity to engage with professional learning utilising the funding. It is not reserved exclusively for the use of teachers and leaders and should be used, for example, to also enable access to professional learning for teaching assistants.
• The funding is not exclusively reserved for support of teachers and leaders and is to be used to support all practitioners who support teaching and learning in classrooms including TAs/LSAs.
• The funding should be utilised to support engagement with the regional professional learning offer, or a professional offer, for example an HEI, or to support professional learning collaboration across schools.

In line with this, the funding should be used to support areas such as:

• the general release of teachers and TAs to engage in professional learning activities;
• the remuneration of individuals, creating roles and posts, to support the co-ordination of PL activities across a school or group of schools. These roles would support colleagues, departments or whole school approaches to critical enquiry, change management and SLO activities;
• the release costs for practitioners to engage in research activities and critical enquiry, funding release time to investigate the implications of the new curriculum for their own teaching and assessment practice;
• the release costs to enable practitioners to collaborate both within school and across clusters and networks of schools – engaging with collaborative professional learning and collaborative planning;
• supporting the development of the roles such as school (or cluster level) Professional Learning Coach.

There is an expectation that schools will maximise the efficacy of the funding by pooling their resources appropriately across clusters/structured networks to maximise the impact and level of funding.

Monitoring requirements by Welsh Government

Schools should publish their Professional Learning plans (either on a school or cluster level) outlining how they plan to support the professional learning needs of all practitioners within their schools and report annually report against those plans (again publishing a short report on their web-site).

Supporting Improvement Advisers within the regions should work alongside schools to consider the plans and in essence sign off to confirm that the plan meets the needs.

In order to support schools in complying with this expectation, a template has been developed and is available on G6. If the funding can be identified within the current school development plan and is published, this will meet the conditions of the grant.

Schools are required to upload their school development plan and (if used) the completed template on to G6.

A Frequently Asked Questions document has been developed and is available on G6.

If you have any queries about this funding, please contact the following in the first instance:

• For any queries regarding the allocation of funding and how you should access it, please contact the finance team in your local authority;
• For any queries relating to eligible spend activities, monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the spend, please contact your school’s allocated Supported Improvement Adviser.

DOWNLOADS:

Professional Learning Grant FAQ 2019-2020