Professional Competences Overview
Three headings of professional competence
| Heading | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Professional values and practice | Personal code of values; relationships with students, colleagues, parents |
| Professional knowledge and understanding | Subject knowledge; social and policy contexts; behaviour management |
| Professional skills and application | Communication; technology; understanding student contexts |
Core teacher values
Trust, respect, integrity, honesty, fairness, tolerance, commitment, equality, service.
A commitment to serve sits at the heart of professional behaviour.
The word “competence” can sound bureaucratic. For a reflective teacher, competence is something more textured. It is the cluster of values, knowledge, and skills that show up in practice, day after day. Without competence in all three, teaching becomes one-sided: a kind teacher with no subject knowledge, a knowledgeable teacher with no skill, or a skilled teacher with no values.
Professional competence in teaching can be grouped under three broad headings.
- Professional values and practice
- Professional knowledge and understanding
- Professional skills and application
These three are not separate boxes. They overlap. But each one names something different that a competent teacher has to work on.
Heading 1: professional values and practice
The first heading is about the teacher’s values, and how those values show up in daily practice. A reflective practitioner is expected to demonstrate a commitment to a personal code of values.
The question of which values is worth pausing on. A short list of core values for the teaching professional includes:
- Trust. Students and parents can rely on the teacher’s word.
- Respect. Every student is treated as a full person, regardless of ability or background.
- Integrity. Actions match stated values; the teacher does what they said they would.
- Honesty. Assessments, feedback, and reports are accurate, even when uncomfortable.
- Fairness. Rules apply equally; favouritism does not.
- Tolerance. Different views, backgrounds, and learning styles are welcomed.
- Commitment. Sustained effort over time, not only when noticed.
- Equality. Students are not ranked as people, even when their work is graded.
- Service. The teacher’s role is in service of students’ growth, not personal status.
A commitment to serve lies at the heart of professional behaviour. This is not a sentimental claim. It is a working orientation that shapes hundreds of small decisions a day.
Values in three relationships
Values come alive in relationships. The reflective teacher must exemplify these values in three relationships.
- With students. Motivate and inspire students with a view to helping each one realise his or her potential. The relationship is not about being liked; it is about creating conditions for the student to grow.
- With colleagues. Work with colleagues to create a professional community. A teacher who teaches well in the classroom but tears at the staffroom culture is only partly competent.
- With parents. Ensure that relationships with parents are characterised by trust and respect. In many contexts, parents are partners in the educational process. The relationship needs care.
A teacher whose values stay private, never visible in any of these three relationships, has not yet completed the first heading.
Heading 2: professional knowledge and understanding
The second heading is what the teacher knows. Subject knowledge is the most obvious part, but it is not the whole of it.
A reflective practitioner must work on three kinds of knowledge.
Knowledge of the subjects taught
A teacher cannot teach what they do not understand. Subject knowledge is the foundation. A reflective practitioner ensures their knowledge of the subject is current, accurate, and deep enough to handle student questions that go beyond the textbook.
Subject knowledge is not a one-off achievement. Curriculum changes, research moves on, and new resources appear. The reflective practitioner keeps reading.
Knowledge of the social and policy contexts for education
Education does not happen in a vacuum. There are policy frameworks, social expectations, parental concerns, and broader debates about what education is for. A teacher with no awareness of these contexts can do good work in the classroom and still be blindsided by issues outside it.
This kind of knowledge includes things like local curriculum policy, the social conditions of the school’s community, and the broader debates in education.
Knowledge of strategies for positive behaviour
Behaviour management is a knowledge area, not only a skill. There is a body of work on how positive behaviour is built and maintained, and a teacher who knows this body of work has more options when difficulties arise.
The reflective practitioner does not rely only on their own intuition for behaviour management. They study what is known.
Heading 3: professional skills and application
The third heading is what the teacher can do. Knowledge and values matter, but they have to translate into action. Three skill areas are central.
Communication with students and colleagues
A teacher who knows their subject and holds good values but cannot communicate is limited. Communication includes giving clear instructions, listening to student concerns, writing useful reports, and speaking with colleagues without unnecessary friction.
The reflective practitioner enhances skills for communicating effectively with students and colleagues. This is a skill that develops over a career.
Use of technology to support student learning
Technology in education is a moving target. The skill is not in mastering any specific tool but in being able to integrate appropriate technology with the learning goal at hand.
A teacher with no technology skill is increasingly limited. A teacher who uses technology poorly may distract students from learning. The middle ground, where technology serves the learning goal, takes practice and reflection.
Understanding of students’ social and community contexts
Skills are not abstract. They have to be applied to the actual students in front of the teacher. This means knowing where students come from, what their families face, what languages are spoken at home, and what the wider community values.
The reflective practitioner develops knowledge and understanding of students’ social and community contexts and addresses the implications for learning that arise from these. A lesson that ignores context lands less well than one that takes context seriously.
Professional values and practice; professional knowledge and understanding; professional skills and application.
The first covers the teacher’s personal code and how it shows up in relationships with students, colleagues, and parents. The second covers subject knowledge, social and policy contexts, and behaviour management. The third covers communication, technology, and understanding of student contexts. All three are needed; one alone is not competence.
How the three headings interact
The three headings are not independent. They feed each other.
A teacher with strong values but weak knowledge does harm with good intentions. A teacher with strong knowledge but weak values uses their knowledge for narrow ends. A teacher with strong values and knowledge but weak skills cannot put either into the lesson.
The reflective practitioner works on all three at once. Reflection is the activity that moves between them. A reflection on a difficult class can surface a knowledge gap (about the topic), a value question (about how a student was treated), and a skill issue (about how the explanation was given) in the same conversation.
A teacher who reflects on only one heading and ignores the others tends to grow lopsidedly. A teacher who treats reflection as a way to keep the three in balance tends to grow more evenly.