This chapter provides OECD analysis of the results of the study on the Future of Teaching in Wales, including pathways for the current and future teacher workforce and lessons for transformation emerging from the set of preferred future scenarios. First, it summarises the input from stakeholders on the research questions for the study. Second, it provides an analysis of key elements that feature across the set of four preferred future scenarios. Third, it considers the implications for planning and moving forward by describing relevant strengths, barriers and specific ideas to support the transformation of teaching in Wales.
Constructing Scenarios for the Future of Teaching in Wales
Abstract
This study set out to explore four research questions related to the future of teaching in Wales:
1. How do we develop teacher professional identity and a more collaborative profession?
2. How could a career development perspective for all staff in schools contribute to a vibrant and thriving workforce?
3. How can all who work in schools encourage innovation and the examination of professional roles in schools as learning organisations?
4. How could investment in the professional identity of teachers, especially in secondary schools, make the profession in those settings more attractive?
These questions were developed by the government team as part of a focus on developing a long-term strategy for the future of the teaching profession in Wales.
During the workshops, each working group was asked to document how their preferred scenario addressed the research questions. Participants in the workshops and the debrief session had an opportunity to share further ideas. As a reminder, these scenarios were drafted using the ambition loops tool which was explicitly constructed using evidence-based statements as outlined in Chapter 2. Key input was distilled from the set of four scenarios that were constructed by the different groups and is presented in Boxes 5.1 to 5.4.
How do we develop teacher professional identity and a more collaborative profession?
Foster a collaborative professional identity by establishing peer-to-peer and school-to-school interactions through professional learning communities, mentorship and encouraging shared knowledge.
Encourage teachers to pursue personal interests and engage in joint learning within a professional learning community.
Promote the value of innovation as a key element of teacher professional identity.
Explore opportunities to create time and space to develop ideas, in collaboration with partners inside and outside the school.
Integrate educators into a community-centred and collaborative approach, fostering partnerships with multiple agencies that support and elevate their role.
Note: Material gathered as part of the OECD study on New Professionalism and the Future of Teaching in Wales.
How could a career development perspective for all staff in schools contribute to a vibrant and thriving workforce?
Provide flexible career pathways, lifelong learning opportunities, and professional growth to develop a dynamic workforce where educators feel valued, motivated, and invested in their professional journey.
Support a workforce where teachers feel motivated and engaged in their own professional growth by integrating continuous development, diverse progression pathways, and collaboration throughout a teacher’s career.
Provide opportunities to build, create and research more attractive, visible career development perspectives.
Encourage teachers to explore diverse opportunities through flexible career paths and community partnerships, enhancing the profession's visibility and value.
Note: Material gathered as part of the OECD study on New Professionalism and the Future of Teaching in Wales.
How can all who work in schools encourage innovation and the examination of professional roles in schools as learning organisations?
Support grassroots practices in structured professional learning communities, providing teachers with collaborative platforms to experiment and contribute to adaptive, innovative schools.
Foster collaboration, reflective practice, and partnerships with external organisations, helping educators experiment with new methods; enhance their active roles in learning organisations.
Provide time and space for teachers to explore effective community-based practices and innovations and to reflect on professional roles.
Teachers, schools, teacher educators, government and the inspectorate are required to recognise, support and identify what it means to be innovative and as an integral part of being a teacher.
Note: Material gathered as part of the OECD study on New Professionalism and the Future of Teaching in Wales.
How could investment in the professional identity of teachers, especially in secondary schools, make the profession in those settings more attractive?
Investing in continuous, bespoke support and professional development enhances teacher well-being, strengthens their professional identity, and makes the teaching profession more attractive and rewarding.
By positioning teachers as key community leaders, offering greater career flexibility, and enhancing the visibility and impact of their work.
Teachers are able to align their intrinsic motivation to their teaching, keeping their practice closer to their professional interests and qualities, and having a sense of autonomy in their work.
Meaningful development opportunities, recognition, and leadership roles enhances the profession’s appeal and fosters long-term commitment.
Note: Material gathered as part of the OECD study on New Professionalism and the Future of Teaching in Wales.
This study on the Future of Teaching in Wales sought to create space to collectively consider opportunities that can inform longer-term transformation, shorter-term improvement and continue building on current strengths. As a basis, this section identifies key elements that feature across the set of scenarios, incorporating the input received from different stakeholders during the study on the degree of change required to current policy and practice.
As a first step, there are seven key elements that feature across a set of four preferred future scenarios. These reflect the choice of specific ambitions and collegial discussions within the working groups. Arguably, all of these elements would be important to the future of teaching in Wales. Figure 5.1 provides an overview of the extent to which each element appears in each of the scenarios. The figure clarifies that many ideas have a large degree of commonality to several of the scenarios for the future of teaching. A diversity of professional roles, healthy work environment and community support/ partnerships featured to some extent in all four scenarios. School leadership, school-university partnerships, innovation and mentoring featured in some of the scenarios.
Note: This figure indicates the OECD analysis of key elements features across the set of four preferred future scenarios.
Note: Material gathered as part of the OECD study on New Professionalism and the Future of Teaching in Wales.
There is consensus across the scenarios that there is opportunity to foster collaborative teacher professional identity to encourage teachers to pursue their interests and passions. To achieve this there is a need to create, time, space and opportunities to collaborate with partners inside and outside the school. Explicit action can draw out visible, desired career pathways and lifelong learning opportunities for teachers where educators feel valued, motivated and invested in their professional journey. There is a need to further explore how innovation can be framed by teachers and the system as an integral part of being a teacher. This would be informed by collective partnerships. Investing in continuous, bespoke support and professional learning enhances teacher well-being, strengthens their professional identity, and makes the teaching profession more attractive and rewarding.
More detail about these ideas is shared below, focusing on current strengths, barriers and specific strategies. Where possible, ideas for transformation and first steps are separated. Transformation requires longer-term change approaches. First steps build on current strengths or seek shorter-term improvement of current aspects within the system. This section includes action strategies developed as part of the workshops as well as additional analysis by the OECD team.
Box 5.5 describes an approach that can be used when using the strategic intelligence shared in this publication to consider other specific questions as they emerge.
As well as the research questions developed at the beginning of the project, the strategic intelligence gained through the strategic foresight exercise can be used to support other questions. Below are some steps that can be used:
What do the responses to the research questions offer to the new question?
Which of the scenarios are most relevant to consider? What key elements can we focus on? Which ambition statements (and related research) support thinking about the question?
How do the personas challenge us to consider the question in new ways to create more sophisticated responses?
How can we plan for action using the two-path planning process? What transformation can we plan for and what first steps can build on strengths or improve current aspects already within the system?
What else do we need to know?
Note: Material gathered as part of the OECD study on New Professionalism and the Future of Teaching in Wales.
During the study, several strengths identified in the Welsh system were relevant to progressing the future scenarios. These include:
“Seamless connections” across partners.
Appetite for co-creation.
Mobilising community as a strength in the Welsh context.
These are discussed further in this section.
“Seamless connections” across partners
A strength of the education system in Wales that was evident during the study, is the seamless connections between different partner and stakeholder groups. This includes partnerships between teacher education and school heads (Furlong et al., 2021[1]), as well as school heads and other teachers working as secondees within the system. There is opportunity to reflect on this strength and to consider ways it can support transformation.
A key concept of the SLO models is that schools are working towards becoming learning organisations and the system becomes a “learning system”. The benefits include evidence that “improving the learning culture ultimately supported innovation and change” (King Smith, Watkins and Han, 2020, p. 74[2]). When harnessed, this approach supports genuine transformation at all levels (OECD, 2018[3]).
The ambition loops framework (McGrath, 2023[4]) that was used as part of the methodology for this study could also be used to build on this current strength in Wales. The framework uses a “What if…” statement to list an overall idea which is then broken down into ambition (action) statements for different partners. Explicitly connecting the actions across different roles can align actions that build synergies, coherence and demonstrate a commitment to work together towards the same goals. These connections can be focussed on the priorities for supporting learning, teaching and leadership.
Appetite for co-creation
There appears to be genuine interest and engagement in being part of co-creation processes that positively inform change. There was also support for the reform agenda that has been mapped out over time (OECD, 2020[5]). The implementation of the Curriculum for Wales will represent a significant milestone in this reform era (OECD, 2020[5]). There will be value in reflecting and acknowledging the changes that have occurred. Wales is well positioned to move to the next phase by building on the platform of change already undertaken, including the bold and significant steps to create an education system that is ready for the future.
As part of scenario development, a first steps action recognises the role that policy initiatives including the Curriculum for Wales, Schools as Learning Organisations, Teacher Professional Standards have paved for innovation (Scenario A).
Mobilising community as a strength in the Welsh context
There is opportunity to build on the existing strength of teacher-student bonds in Wales. This would allow educators to focus on their core teaching responsibilities while still contributing to a holistic, community-centred education model. This work should add to teacher satisfaction and opportunities without overloading teachers. During the workshops, speaking to researchers with intricate knowledge of the Welsh context, and also in literature and in policy documents, Wales identifies the ties that its inhabitants have to the communities they live in as a particular strength (Egan, 2016[6]; Egan, 2024[7]; Welsh Government, 2023[8]; Evans et al., 2024[9]). At the same time, there is also as a necessity to move forward in creating more equal access to high quality education (Egan, 2024[7]; Egan, 2016[6]; Welsh Government, 2023[8]; Evans et al., 2024[9]). Teachers are in a unique position to identify potential issues (Nilsson Brodén, 2022[10]), which may require other professional input to address the overall needs. Teachers can maintain strong relationships with students and families which can add to the overall support available for a student (Giles-Kaye et al., 2022[11]) and confidence in other government institutions.
As part of scenario development, actions for transformation included:
Education needs to benefit from the Welsh society to innovate and be innovative (Scenario A).
Society can both contribute and learn from the education system, but also provide directions; what do young people need to know? (Scenario A).
Schools can enhance their role as community hubs by building strong, sustained partnerships with local agencies, businesses, and Non-Government Organisations (NGOs), which would help address social needs, making schools central to student and community well-being (Scenario D).
Flexible, personalised learning pathways can better cater to students’ individual interests and skills by involving local businesses and educational institutions. This would shift the focus from traditional academic success to a broader view of student achievement (Scenario D).
Cross-ministerial collaboration can create a more integrated and efficient provision of public services within schools. Local authorities would facilitate coordination between different government departments to meet community needs effectively (Scenario D).
As part of scenario development, first step actions included:
Initiatives take the community voice, as well as the students’ voice into account and considers partnerships as a contribution to what is possible (Scenario A).
Introducing or expanding family liaison roles can strengthen teacher-student relationships by connecting schools, families, and communities while alleviating teacher workloads (Scenario D).
Learning from established community-focussed schools can help Welsh schools quickly adopt proven strategies to build stronger ties with their local communities (Scenario D).
Maximising the use of school facilities for community activities can enhance the school's role as a vibrant hub and strengthen connections with the local population (Scenario D).
Working together with parents is not always an easy task and has to be learned (Leenders et al., 2019[12]). For teachers, addressing parent or guardian concerns was reported as a source of stress by a third of lower secondary teachers on average in the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018 (OECD, 2020[13]). While teacher-parent/ guardian co-operation is a feature of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and early years of schooling (Moss, 2012[14]), it is less of a priority in older years of schooling. The TALIS 2018 results also show a decline in interest for training activities on teacher-parent/guardian co-operation compared with TALIS 2013 (OECD, 2019[15]). Teacher learning must support working effectively with individual parents and developing an understanding about how the professionalism of teachers plays a role in creating a welcoming school (Epstein, 2018[16]; Epstein and Sheldon, 2022[17]; Ryan, 2021[18]).
For parents, some argue that family life has become more intense generally, including more interest in being involved in their children’s learning (Gordon and Louis, 2009[19]). As well as changes within families, the role of parents to support their child as part of their schooling has changed (OECD, 2022[20]). This includes a paradox whereby parent engagement is becoming more intensive but with the aim of supporting young people to be self-regulated and to lead their own learning (OECD, 2019[15]). As part of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 survey, nine OECD systems collected feedback from parents on some of the issues hindering their involvement in school-led activities. The most frequent barriers reported on average were inconvenient meeting times or not being able to get away from work (OECD, 2020[13]).
The future could look different by developing expectations and ways for teachers’ collaboration with parents and other partners, starting in initial teacher education to support the development of new approaches (Epstein, 2018[16]; Perälä-Littunen and Böök, 2019[21]; Goodall et al., 2022[22]). An important starting point for partnerships in the school-community sector is articulating the intentions of all partners to do the best for children and young people (J. Epstein, personal communication, 2022). At school and at home, “supportive, responsive relationships with caring adults are foundational for healthy development and learning” (Darling-Hammond, 2000, p. 5[23]).
With the general increase in interactions, including through technology, policy support would strengthen sustainable ways for positive and meaningful relationships between families and schools to occur by co-creating norms that establish good habits in the contemporary/ future contexts (Belfi et al., 2015[24]; Scott, Limbert and Sykes, 2021[25]). This can include building on current successes with community focussed schools (Welsh Government, 2022[26]; Evans et al., 2024[9]).
Some barriers to be considered as part of looking forward include:
Preventing reform fatigue by consolidating cultural changes.
Connecting learning from transformation within a classroom or school.
Addressing equity challenges.
These are discussed further in this section.
Preventing reform fatigue by consolidating cultural changes
While there is an appetite for co-creation, a potential barrier to address is the need to reduce any sense of change fatigue (Evans, 2022[27]; Grigg, 2016[28]; Hutt and Lewis, 2021[29]). Ideally, the reforms themselves will achieve a goal of enhancing teacher professional voice (Kimilaro, 2018[30]; Conn and Davis, 2024[31]; Hutt and Lewis, 2021[29]) and acceptance of trust across the profession to make informed choices and decisions related to their work. The reform agenda can become a long-term “shared endeavour” (Evans, 2022, p. 391[27]). Envisaging what this might look like, where steps have already been achieved and what else is needed will consolidate the cultural shift.
An area for transformation would be to undertake evaluations that identify successes achieved from reforms already undertaken. As well as celebrating successes, this can be used to consider ways to spread the success both horizontally and more deeply. Possible evaluative questions include:
What transformations have been achieved? What micro-innovations have occurred across schools and how have they been shared?
What are the pedagogical principles that have evolved over the period of reform that now frame the education system in Wales and that should underpin any further action?
How can we spread successful change already made to deepen the impacts of the reforms already undertaken?
What are the potential barriers/obstacles for transformation?
Consolidating this can move from reform to deepening the changes and sharing broad ownership for transformation.
Connecting learning from transformation within a classroom or school
Enhancing autonomy for teachers provides positive recognition for the profession (Mezza, 2022[32]; OECD, 2020[13]). However, given the implementation of a new curriculum and other reforms, it is important that strong connections are made across schools to ensure learning is shared in ways that avoids duplication and preferences quality. Building the culture of experimentation and innovation within the system should be viewed as a deliberative process to be monitored and supported.
As part of scenario development, actions for transformation included:
Teachers are given the space to innovate and value this aspect of their work, as it is very much a part of their profession (Scenario A).
Add value to bottom-up initiatives, with teachers behind the wheel (Scenario A).
Create an education system that actively supports, rewards and acknowledges innovation (Scenario A).
As part of scenario development, first step actions included:
Teachers are encouraged to undertake initiatives to guide their students’ learning in ways that they think is best, acknowledging their expertise (Scenario A).
Strengthen and formalise peer-to-peer and school-to-school collaboration, including school-university partnerships and mentorship programs, to enhance professional growth, share expertise, and foster a reflective and supportive culture for early-career teachers (Scenario B).
The use of guiding principles focussed on pedagogy can support implementation (Reichert, Lange and Chow, 2021[33]; Fletcher and Ní Chróinín, 2022[34]) and assist with maintaining coherence across the system. A clear set of articulated guiding principles can encourage innovation while assuring that the ideas being developed contribute to the overall desired directions of the system. The connection between teachers’ beliefs and ideas for innovation can impact on “professional competence” (Reichert, Lange and Chow, 2021, p. 2[33]) involving motivation and self-efficacy (Reichert, Lange and Chow, 2021[33]). Ensuring innovation ideas and developed within a clear set of pedagogical guiding principles can support coherence and, build momentum for change that can ensure quality of implementation (Fletcher and Ní Chróinín, 2022[34]).
Building a culture of experimentation is an important element for achieving the reforms. Encouraging greater professional autonomy (Schleicher, 2020[35]; Mezza, 2022[32]) and teacher leadership (Harris, Jones and Crick, 2020[36]; Grice, 2019[37]; Beaufort Research and NFER, 2019[38]) needs to be supported in ways that builds collective professional identities (Suarez and McGrath, 2022[39]) and authority (Joinel Alvarez and Lussi Borer, 2023[40]). For these experimentations to be ‘effective’, they should be evidence-based, and for this, teachers (and school leaders) need time and space needed to engage with research. Teachers must see themselves as part of a profession leading teaching and learning in Wales, rather than individually toiling to implement reforms as others do the same thing. There is a risk of ineffective use of energy if innovation is not connected across various parts of the system and supported through collaborative structures.
As well as benefits, barriers and incentives to undertake these forms of experimentation and collaboration, system support is required (Armstrong, Brown and Chapman, 2020[41]). For example, prioritising higher level professional tasks requires building trust which may be reflected in reviewing the need for some tasks of lower value (Hughes and Lewis, 2020[42]). When all partners work together, there are benefits to be gained through scaling up bottom-up change. One approach to draw together top-down and bottom-up led change is to consider an ecological model (Hung, Lee and Wu, 2015[43]). System led involvement in bottom-up change can support this form of innovation while ensuring fidelity, based on a “sufficing standard for spreading of innovations” (Hung, Lee and Wu, 2015, p. 86[43]) that provides relevant guardrails without expecting innovations to demonstrate a “gold standard” (Hung, Lee and Wu, 2015, p. 86[43]) that might be expected from a top-down initiative. The SLO model can be harnessed to envision the development of a culture of empowered experimentation that informs collective progress for both schools and the system.
Equity
Equity remains a fundamental focus for Wales (Egan, 2024[7]; Egan, 2016[6]; Welsh Government, 2023[8]). The success of overall reform and transformation should be visible through lens of equity achievement.
A collective effort is required to achieve success. For educators, critical engagement with learning communities beyond the school is a powerful element of teacher professional learning (Jones, 2022[44]). It can also help to address poverty and equity issues by forming partnerships between schools and societal partners (Mertens et al., 2021[45]; ESTYN, 2024[46]), especially when the focus is on how approaches to mitigate poverty can impact on learning (ESTYN, 2024[46]).
Schools can be considered as an important “anchor institution” (Halsey, 2022[47]) within a community. A key feature of this description is recognition that schools are part of a community over a long period of time. When schools are considered in this way they can work in partnership with the students, families, and community to contribute to the shaping the future (McGrath, 2023[4]). At the same time, there is an expectation that schools do not work alone and, instead, are part of a wider set of relationships with other institutions and organisations that can also contribute to the work of schools (Halsey, 2022[47]; McGrath, 2023[4]).
Having a long-term agenda for reform with the right focuses (Egan, 2024[7]; Egan, 2016[6]) can form the basis for achieving social justice and equity outcomes. There is opportunity to use the set of Welsh teacher personas, in the earlier chapter, to unpack the successes and challenges for teachers and partners in addressing equity. This includes considering ways to support and value teacher career specialisation opportunities that shares and develops practice.
The OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) seeks to create a space for innovation. CERI has a strong focus on research and practice to create an evidence base for experimentation, innovation and transformation. This study in Wales has allowed participants to engage with the research base and ideas for next practice, to share current examples (local, national and international) and/or ideas for next practice (Lundy et al., 2021[48]; Zimmermann et al., 2021[49]) for other schools or parts of the system and to co-create ideas for transformation.
Some specific ideas to support transformation include:
Professional learning and schools as learning organisations.
Flexible pathways and diverse career opportunities.
Building the culture of experimentation in support of "pedagogical guiding principles".
Amplifying the many positive stories about the professional work of teachers to the public discourse.
These are discussed further in this section.
Professional learning and schools as learning organisations
Professional learning and the Schools as Learning Organisations (SLOs) framework provide an important infrastructure for supporting transformation and achievement of the reform agenda.
Schools as Learning Organisations (SLOs, described in Scenario B) (OECD, 2018[3]) provide a strong foundation for collective work to transform teaching and learning. There is value in mapping concepts related to SLOs against desired transformations to highlight current achievements/ strengths and to connect actions for the longer term within the same framework/ terminology. Aligning concepts can strengthen the narrative for action by demonstrating a coherence in thinking across different aspects of the system.
As part of scenario development, actions for transformation included:
Provide structured, hands-on learning opportunities for early-career teachers across diverse educational settings to foster adaptability, innovation, and leadership skills, while building a versatile teaching workforce through continuous learning and collaboration (Scenario B).
As part of scenario development, first step actions included:
Expand and embed the SLO model across schools, linking it with leadership development and professional revalidation, to create dynamic learning environments that support continuous professional development, innovation, and collaboration for both teachers and students (Scenario B).
Strengthen existing collaboration structures, such as cluster schools, by fostering regular cross-school partnerships and knowledge-sharing between primary and secondary schools to improve student transitions and professional support for educators (Scenario C).
Professional learning in Wales (OECD, 2021[50]) is already embedded within the Teacher Professional Standards to support “continuous engagement in career long development, collaboration and innovation” (Welsh Government, 2017[51]). To ensure that the requirements of the Teacher Professional Standards are met, there would be benefit in identifying how professional learning currently supports: (a) career long development, (b) collaboration and (c) innovation. In addition, there is value in collating and examining (i) current (micro-)innovations that are already occurring as well as (ii) barriers that can be reduced and (iii) long-term opportunities for enhancing their feature within the education system in Wales. This can be done on multiple levels, i.e. at the school level, local level or national level.
What do classrooms of high functioning teacher teams look like at the moment?
In response to the question from the OECD Top Class podcast host about what high performing teams look like now, Professor A. Lin Goodwin replied:
As part of a program in New York, two years of induction support is provided. Our retention rates are high in these challenging, large city settings.
After those two years, teachers came to us and said, ‘wait, I want more... I don’t need induction support anymore, I need professional development, I need to continue to learn’. So, we continue to work with graduates who are in their tenth or twelfth year of teaching: They become mentors for us, they engage in research, they are involved in national board certification, they develop curriculum, they want to be engaged. Teachers are given the right opportunities and the right supports because most teachers are invested in their professional learning.
Source: OECD Top Class Podcast (2023[52]), https://soundcloud.com/oecdtopclasspodcast/what-should-the-teaching-profession-look-like-in-the-future (accessed on 7 March 2025).
Already, SLOs demonstrate elements that are associated with deeper forms of collaboration, which are in turn linked to greater job satisfaction (OECD, 2020[13]). While Wales did not participate in OECD’s TALIS project in 2018, which asked teachers how often and in what ways they collaborated, it is interesting to highlight the similarity of results among the participating education systems (OECD, 2020[13]). For example, the finding that more complex forms of collaboration are often associated with higher levels of teacher satisfaction and teacher self-efficacy. Teachers who teach jointly as a team in the same classroom, participate in collaborative professional learning, engage in joint activities across different classes and age groups and observe other teachers’ classes and provide feedback to demonstrate this. These are activities that have been described in the school setting in Wales as well in practice (OECD, 2018[3]; James et al., 2007[53]; Kools et al., 2020[54]), but also as a necessity for achieving other goals (Harris and Jones, 2020[55]; OECD, 2020[5]).
Ideas for transformation include enhancing bespoke opportunities for individual teachers as well as extending opportunities to widen access to a network of peers and mentors to continue to develop organisational learning (Elliott, 2020[56]; Armstrong, Brown and Chapman, 2020[41]). This is particularly important way to share micro-innovations (EI, 2022[57]) that are developed in response to reforms.
Flexible pathways and diverse career opportunities
An idea that has emerged from the workshops is interest in developing flexible teacher career pathways as a way of attracting and retaining professionals in teaching. Benefits include motivating talented educators and support for lifelong learning (European Commission, 2020[58]; Harris and Muijs, 2002[59]). There are also benefits for students by having the opportunity to connect with broader societal partners as part of their curriculum and from school-to-school and peer-to-peer connections (Bristow, 2021[60]).
As part of scenario development, actions for transformation included:
Strengthen teacher training by focusing on early-career needs, such as child development and collaboration skills, ensuring that foundational knowledge is consistently reinforced and applied throughout a teacher’s career in partnership with schools and Initial Teacher Education (ITE) institutions (Scenario B).
Regular professional revalidation and lifelong learning opportunities nurture continuous professional growth, allowing teachers to reflect on their practice, develop expertise, and diversify their skills while fostering a sense of pride and adaptability in the profession (Scenario C).
Flexible entry pathways attract professionals from other sectors, recognising their prior experience and enriching student learning through diverse expertise, while promoting innovation and adaptability within the teaching profession (Scenario C).
As part of scenario development, first step actions included:
Encourage flexible sabbaticals and secondments, offering mid- and late-career teachers opportunities to gain fresh perspectives and insights from diverse professional settings, enhancing motivation, growth, and teaching practices (Scenario C).
For this to be realised, lifelong learning would be embedded into teacher roles, with opportunities for horizontal and vertical career progression, ensuring that educators remain engaged and inspired throughout their careers. Ensuring opportunities for lifelong professional growth can nurture expertise and passions as well as development in new areas. Recognising individual strengths within the collective expertise of teachers offers greater flexibility in career development options (Elchardus et al., 2009[61]; De Witte, De Cort and Gambi, 2023[62]). The opportunity to continually reflect on and enhance their practice will allow teachers to diversify their skills, fostering a dynamic and adaptive teaching workforce.
Leadership approaches that support this diversity of teacher profiles are essential, as school leaders can play a key role in promoting professional development as an ongoing, forward-thinking endeavour (OECD, EI and Ministry of Education and Vocational Training of Spain, 2022[63]). The regular engagement with professional learning would also contribute to teachers’ sense of professional identity and pride, making the profession more attractive to both current educators and prospective entrants.
Higher education can play an important role (Kools et al., 2020[54]). Firstly, supporting student teachers to be able to reflect on their own professional identity (Suarez and McGrath, 2022[39]) and also working with schools to build on these individual identities as part of entry into the profession (Willegems et al., 2018[64]; Willegems, 2020[65]). Secondly, all partners can value and expand the contribution that teacher education plays in supporting teacher professional priorities across all career stages.
There are a number of ways the future could look different by developing these ideas:
Policies that foster a culture of meaningful collaboration and reflection will maximise benefits for teachers at all stages of their careers (Tonna, Bjerkholt and Holland, 2017[66]).
Mentorship as a core feature of every school and for every new teacher. Mentoring is also key to strengthening this collaborative culture. Support from experienced teachers encourages reflection, aids professional development (Shanks et al., 2022[67]), and enhances both new and experienced teachers' sense of professional identity (Tonna, Bjerkholt and Holland, 2017, p. 218[66]). Mentorship helps develop "professional agency" and offers practical and emotional support (Shanks et al., 2022[67]; Dreer-Goethe, 2023[68]; Goodwin, Lee and Pratt, 2023[69]), leading to increased job satisfaction, reduced attrition, and greater feelings of support (Shanks et al., 2022[67]; Kelchtermans, 2019[70]; Backers, Tuytens and Devos, 2020[71]; Beaufort Research and NFER, 2019[38]; Bristow, 2021[60]). There are benefits for all involved in the process.
Coaching (Preechawong et al., 2024[72]) and career coaching provide ways to extend mentoring to an ongoing process of support for professional growth and career planning across the whole of a teacher’s career. There are potential benefits for job satisfaction (Preechawong et al., 2024[72]), teacher leadership (Buchanan, Mills and Mooney, 2020[73]), teacher inquiry (Buchanan, Mills and Mooney, 2020[73]), and for learners (Preechawong et al., 2024[72]). The profession will be viewed in a more attractive way if career paths are visible to those considering becoming a teacher.
Introducing short-term, flexible sabbaticals or secondments for educators would allow them to gain valuable insights from different professional settings, both within and outside the education sector. Wales already has a great example of secondees who are brought into the government from schools to directly inform policy development. There is potential for this concept to be expanded to a broader range of partnerships, topics and timescales.
Examples from other systems include, time for a school leader/ teacher to work in a different industry, community organisation (MEGA Bildungsstiftung, 2024[74]), or even another educational institution. These experiences broaden their perspective and bring fresh ideas back to their own classrooms and allow them to reflect on their teaching practices in a new context (De Bruyckere, 2017[75]). Facilitating such opportunities, even on a small scale, could enhance teacher motivation and contribute to professional growth by enabling educators to explore new teaching strategies and approaches.
In what way will a job advertisement for a teacher be different in ten years’ time, compared to today?
In response to the question from the host (OECD Top Class Podcast, 2023[52]) about how teacher jobs might be viewed differently, Professor Marco Snoek replied:
It is different in understanding that teachers are part of a team, so you are joining a team. A teacher advertisement is not about the number of hours you are teaching. What unique contribution is needed as part of our team which is currently not there and we want you to provide them to the team?
If teachers want to be part of the leadership culture within a school they need to develop leadership qualities. Development of teacher leadership qualities is important to try to support your colleagues in improving education.
Source: OECD Top Class Podcast (2023[52]) , https://soundcloud.com/oecdtopclasspodcast/what-should-the-teaching-profession-look-like-in-the-future (accessed on 7 March 2025).
Bolder ambitions for transformation include providing opportunities for all educators to have personalised coaching around their professional growth (De Witte, De Cort and Gambi, 2023[62]) and career development. As interdisciplinary approaches become more valued it is also necessary to focus on fostering learned collaboration skills across all professions (Lawson and Veen, 2016[76]). This role modelling can also be beneficial for students to part of, as part of developing their lifelong learning skills.
Building the culture of experimentation in support of "pedagogical guiding principles"
The use of guiding principles focussed on pedagogy can support implementation (Reichert, Lange and Chow, 2021[33]; Fletcher and Ní Chróinín, 2022[34]) and assist with maintaining coherence. A clear set of articulated guiding principles can encourage innovation while assuring that the ideas being developed contribute to the overall desired directions of the system. The connection between teachers’ beliefs and ideas for innovation can impact on “professional competence” (Reichert, Lange and Chow, 2021, p. 2[33]) involving motivation and self-efficacy (Reichert, Lange and Chow, 2021[33]). Ensuring innovation ideas and developed within a clear set of pedagogical guiding principles can support coherence and, build momentum for change that can ensure quality of implementation (Fletcher and Ní Chróinín, 2022[34]).
As part of scenario development, actions for transformation included:
Teachers are given the space to innovate and value this aspect of their work, as it is very much a part of their profession (Scenario A).
Add value to bottom-up initiatives, with teachers behind the wheel (Scenario A).
Create an education system that actively supports, rewards and acknowledges innovation (Scenario A).
As part of scenario development, first step actions included:
Teachers are encouraged to undertake initiatives to guide their students’ learning in ways that they think is best, acknowledging their expertise (Scenario A).
Strengthen and formalise peer-to-peer and school-to-school collaboration, including school-university partnerships and mentorship programs, to enhance professional growth, share expertise, and foster a reflective and supportive culture for early-career teachers (Scenario B).
Building the culture of experimentation is an important element for achieving the reforms. Encouraging greater professional autonomy (Schleicher, 2020[35]; Mezza, 2022[32]) and teacher leadership (Harris, Jones and Crick, 2020[36]; Grice, 2019[37]; Beaufort Research and NFER, 2019[38]) needs to be supported in ways that builds collective professional identities (Suarez and McGrath, 2022[39]) and authority (Joinel Alvarez and Lussi Borer, 2023[40]). For these experimentations to be ‘effective’, they should be evidence-based, and for this, teachers (and school leaders) need time and space to engage with research. Teachers must see themselves as part of a profession leading teaching and learning in Wales, rather than someone individually toiling to implement reforms as others do the same thing. This is important with reforms such as curriculum. There is a risk of ineffective use of energy if innovation is not connected across various parts of the system and supported through collaborative structures.
As well as benefits, barriers and incentives to undertake these forms of experimentation and collaboration, system support is required (Armstrong, Brown and Chapman, 2020[41]). For example, prioritising higher level professional tasks requires building trust which may be reflected in reviewing the need for some tasks of lower value (Hughes and Lewis, 2020[42]). When all partners work together, there are benefits to be gained through scaling up bottom-up change. One approach to draw together top-down and bottom-up led change is to consider an ecological model (Hung, Lee and Wu, 2015[43]). System led involvement in bottom-up change can support this form of innovation while ensuring fidelity, based on a “sufficing standard for spreading of innovations” (Hung, Lee and Wu, 2015, p. 86[43]) that provides relevant guardrails without expecting innovations to demonstrate a “gold standard” (Hung, Lee and Wu, 2015, p. 86[43]) that might be expected from a top-down initiative. The SLO model can be harnessed to envision the development of a culture of empowered experimentation that informs collective progress for both schools and the system.
Amplifying the many positive stories about the professional work of teachers in the public domain
One idea that was shared during the workshops was the importance of amplifying the positive stories about the profession. This should be done by all partners. This does not mean dismissing the challenges faced or just focusing on a few teachers who are placed on a pedestal (Mockler, 2022[77]). Rather it recognises the importance of evaluating for and reflecting on success. This can occur within a team and across the profession. Mockler (2022[77]) also makes a connection between how teachers develop their own professional identities (Mockler, 2020[78]) with how the profession is discussed within the media and public discourse. She extends this to link with young people choosing possible professions they would like to experience. Conversations about teacher professional identity at all levels needs to be explicit (Ruohotie-Lyhty and Pitkänen-Huhta, 2022[79]) to create benefits for current teachers, enhance public recognition for the work of teachers, and as a way of describing attractive career paths for those considering teaching (Han, Borgonovi and Guerriero, 2017[80]).
TALIS 2018 (OECD, 2020[13]) considers the importance of “occupational esteem” (Hoyle, 2001[81]) for attraction, retention and empowerment of the teaching profession. The large variability in results over time and by various sub-groups shows that this is a factor that is open to change between how they perceive society views them compared to other reports which show they are generally valued higher than most public institutions.
Futures approaches do not try to predict the future (OECD, 2021[82]; Holfelder, 2019[83]) but are able to shape the future by influencing decision making and offering strategic foresight (Holfelder, 2019[83]; Fuller, 2017[84]). As the Uruguayan writer/poet/historian Eduardo Galeano writes, “Utopia is on the horizon. I walk two steps, it moves two steps away and the horizon moves ten steps further. So what is utopia for? That's what it's for, it's for walking.”
This study on the future of teaching in Wales does not aim to be representative or comprehensive. Invitations were issued to key representative stakeholder groups for wider distribution. Participants in each of the study activities are, therefore, not a representative sample but rather a group of willing professionals with a stake in the education in Wales who offered to share their expertise.
Participants in this study have highlighted ideas and possible actions that they felt would make teaching more resilient, more attractive, more professional, and more sustainable in the future. The elements relating to the teaching profession and education as a whole that have been identified and were the object of focus and study in this publication are in no way absolute. Rather, they are conceptual, intertwined and can be interpreted differently by different stakeholders. Education is rarely a concept that is shaped by ‘hard’ truths or clear contradictions.
The outcomes of the study in Wales discussed in this report illustrates that this is also very much the case for teachers. This does not mean they do not hold truth; the value in identifying common directions can provide a starting point for more elaborate discussion on the ‘how’. In getting to this next level of planning, this report can assist Wales in following directions in which different stakeholders in the education system have identified a common ground.
Using foresight approaches provides us with a form of strategic intelligence (Robinson et al., 2021[85]) which can be drawn on now and into the future. The study provides guidance for policy making using this strategic intelligence, including providing longer and shorter-term actions to consider and develop. The participatory and evidenced informed processes themselves serve as a guide to realise the benefits from anticipating the future for policy making and for practice.
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