Forty-five primary school teachers from St Margaret College took part in a Pestalozzi programme summer school at Żabbar Primary B.

The three-day training event, themed ‘Pedagogy makes the difference’, looked at the core of what being a teacher means: the pedagogy, what teachers feel and think about the relationship they have with education, knowledge, school and above all with learners.

Using co-operative learning techniques, the training modelled best practices and invited participants to reflect on their responsibility to develop competences in the learners, and the challenges facing educators in the 21st century. The training highlighted pertinent issues that were grounded in the Maltese and actual classroom contexts.

Organised as part of the in-service professional development programme for teachers in Malta, it was delivered by Pestalozzi trainers Guðrún Ragnarsdóttir from Iceland and Charlot Cassar, assisted by other Maltese professionals.

The programme is the Council of Europe’s training and capacity building programme for education, at the core of which is the person, through its focus on democracy, respect for human rights, dignity and the rule of law. It aims to put these values into the practice of education and to support member states in the move from education policy to education practice in line with these values.

It targets education practitioners because they are the ones who make a difference in day-to-day practice in all spaces of learning, as they support the development of attitudes, skills and knowledge for sustainable democratic societies.