Competence Dossier
Professional Competence
TQA 2024–25 Competence Definition
The teacher engages in continuous professional development, collaborates with colleagues, and grounds practice in research and evidence. They contribute to the school community and reflect systematically on their own professional growth. (TQA 2024–25)
Competence Claim
Professional competence extends beyond classroom teaching. It involves functioning responsibly within the wider education community, engaging in continuous professional development, collaborating with colleagues, contributing to institutional improvement, and reflecting critically on one's own practice. It also includes the ability to participate in practice-based inquiry and to use reflection systematically to improve educational practice (Wilson, 2017). My professional development has focused on becoming an active, responsible, and collaborative member of the educational community within ROC Midden Nederland. Throughout my internships, I actively participated in staff meetings, study days and professional development workshops, intervision sessions within the Leernetwerk, school-wide events such as Bruist and open days, cross-school observation visits, team building activities, curriculum and pedagogical discussions, and took temporary responsibility for additional classes during staff shortages. These experiences strengthened my understanding of collective responsibility within the educational community and deepened my awareness that teaching is not an isolated activity but a collaborative profession embedded within an organisational and research-informed environment. My development as a professional was not linear — some experiences strengthened my confidence immediately, while others challenged my understanding of myself as a future teacher. These moments ultimately contributed to a more reflective, self-aware, and resilient professional identity.
Professional Practice Loop
Practice
Evidence
Theory
Feedback
Adjustment
Development
Development Narrative
These answers follow the TQA prompt: what knowledge and skills I gained, how I applied them, and what this added to my professional repertoire.
Question 1
What professional knowledge — about collaboration, research-informed practice, and development — have you gained?
I developed professional knowledge about collaboration, school policy, inclusive education, research-informed practice, and my role within the wider educational community. Through ROC meetings, Leernetwerk, intervision, study days, cross-institutional observation visits, and professional development workshops, I learned that teaching is shared work and that professional development must be deliberate and evidence-informed. A particularly significant development was completing Research 3 — my practice-based inquiry into gamification and vocational vocabulary acquisition — which taught me to use research not just to report on practice, but to actively improve it.
Question 2
How have you applied it in your professional practice with colleagues and within the school?
I applied this knowledge through three key examples: active participation in Passend Onderwijs intervision within the Leernetwerk (using De Bono's Six Thinking Hats and a structured self-evaluation rubric to connect inclusive education policy to my own classroom practice); conducting Research 3 and developing the Teacher Success Kit and 30-second vocabulary game as practical, reusable products for other teachers; and participating in a cross-institutional observation visit to improve meeting efficiency within our department, alongside sustained engagement in staff meetings, school-wide events, and team activities throughout both internship years.
Question 3
What has this added to your professional repertoire as a developing professional?
This has added a stronger sense of professional responsibility and direction. I now see myself not only as a teacher of English but as a colleague who contributes to students, teams, school development, and ongoing improvement. The research process in particular helped me understand how to communicate pedagogical intentions clearly, justify professional choices, and work collaboratively across disciplinary boundaries. My next step is to document meeting contributions, professional learning actions, and research-to-practice decisions more systematically so that the evidence of my professional impact is visible beyond individual lesson documentation.
STARR Cases (3)
Each case follows the full STARR structure: Situation → Task → Action → Result → Reflection → Theory → Impact → What I Would Do Differently → Feedback.