Teacher network: Building professional communities to facilitate curriculum change

Continuous professional development has been recognised as the key to school improvement. It has even been suggested that the extent to which professional development activities succeeded was the extent to which change succeeded. However, traditional in-service training and staff development have been shown to provide limited learning opportunities and "...networks can provide fresh ways of thinking about teacher learning" (Lieberman A. & McLaughlin M.W., 1992, p.673). This paper will discuss the concept and development of an inter-school teacher network, which attempts to provide opportunities for practising teachers and school heads to share their concerns and their ways of dealing with imposed changes. It is an ongoing process involving decisions about details of implementation. The information of this teacher network strives to contribute towards building collaborative professional learning communities.