European Education Policy Network on Teachers and School Leaders Update!
The European Education Policy Network on Teachers and School Leaders is in its second working year, aiming to promote co-operation, policy development and implementation at different governance levels, and to support the European Commission’s policy work on teachers and school leaders. The network of representatives of various education stakeholders currently includes 30 partners from 19 countries. This year we are looking into a number of topics related to new roles and competences of teachers and school leaders in the digital age for inclusive quality education in all European Union Member States bringing together recent education research with inspiring practice policy, bringing in the views of various education stakeholders, a theme that has been made more relevant than ever by the school closures all over Europe and beyond. Using the same working cycle as last year, the network is currently working on desk research based on input by its members in five thematic areas shared in this newsletter.

- What is the extent of digital technology use in primary and secondary schools in Europe?
- What, in general, are the benefits of digital technology use for supporting teaching and learning in schools and what are the drawbacks?
- What examples are there of where digital technologies are used well to enhance student learning in schools? How do these examples link to what we know about effective use of digital technologies to support teaching and learning?
- What are the main barriers to supporting teaching and learning using digital technologies in schools?
- What examples are there of schools developing their use of digital technologies to enhance student learning? How do these examples link to what we know about the features of schools that are most effective in using of digital technologies to support teaching and learning?

- What is collaborative learning (CL)?
- What are the benefits of CL?
- What is collaborative school leadership (CSLS)?
- What are the benefits of SCLS?
- What examples of policies and practices are there about CL and CSLS?

We are focusing on the following areas within this broad concept:
- School leaders’ and teachers’ competences, with the EntreComp at its core and specified for school leaders and teacher roles.
- Potential impact of teacher and school leader entrepreneurship on the wider sense of entrepreneurial education: personal development, creativity, self-efficacy, resilience, taking initiative, action orientation, i.e. becoming entrepreneurial.

- School leaders’ and teachers’ competences, with the Key Competences for Lifelong Learning Framework and LifeComp at its core and specified for school leaders and teacher roles.
- Teaching and learning for developing communication and critical thinking skills and competences, multiple literacies and utilising multilingualism in the context of the digital age.

Having a clear framework, institutional support and appropriate pedagogy is essential for the development of citizenship education initiatives. In this report we will start by drawing a conceptual map for active digital citizenship in order to have a comprehensive view of the range of practices and challenges active digital citizenship education brings. Secondly, based on the database collected different practices were analysed according to the Council of Europe Model for Digital Competence Development (Council of Europe, 2019). Thirdly, challenges and recommendations for teachers and school leaders, in the implementation of active digital citizenship initiatives, were explored.
In the coming months, we will share the final research papers and co-create related policy recommendations for European, national, regional and local education decision makers.
Visit the EEPN website to find out more