Opening up the narrow

It is vital to engage with professional learning and development (PLD) to be a teacher in Aotearoa New Zealand. In the way it has been enacted due to education policy, PLD has essentially become synonymous with teacher inquiry: to engage with PLD is to follow an inquiry cycle. Literature into what constitutes effective teacher PLD similarly endorses an inquiry approach. But teacher inquiry as interpreted by Ministry of Education neoliberal-influenced policy and procedures risks becoming a linear process abstracted away from the context and complexity of schools and teaching. Neoliberal influences on education policy have similarly supported input-output assumptions of PLD and have led to a narrowing effect. However, it is possible to open PLD up to be creative and subversive. If policy and procedure were to be decoupled, introducing greater flexibility, and refocused on the principles that underpin effective teacher PLD, then this creativity and transformation could be realised.