The economic crises of recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic and growing dissatisfaction with the quality of education have proved that national education systems throughout the world require large-scale transformations. Effective implementation of these large-scale reforms also requires highly qualified professionals. Latvia has introduced reforms targeting issues in educational philosophy, teaching content, pedagogical approach and school management. The School as a Learning Organisation (SLO) model, which envisages continuous individual and collective learning of all stakeholders involved in the education process, has currently come into the spotlight of policy makers. The SLO consists of seven dimensions: (1) developing and sharing a vision centred on the learning of all students; (2) creating and supporting continuous learning opportunities for all staff; (3) promoting team learning and collaboration among all staff; (4) establishing a culture of inquiry, innovation and exploration; (5) embedding systems for collecting and exchanging knowledge and learning; (6) learning with and from the external environment and larger learning system; and (7) modelling and growing learning leadership. It is characterised by a broad set of performance indicators, the deeper understanding of which requires academic and practical knowledge. The purpose of the current study is to examine the perceptions of representatives of education policy institutions to predict the efficacy of the SLO implementation in Latvia. Three semi-structured focus group discussions were conducted with the participants and deductive and inductive content analyses were carried out. The findings showed that policy makers highlighted “promoting team learning and collaboration among all staff” and “modelling and growing learning leadership” dimensions as the most important and best understood dimensions of the SLO. On the contrary, “embedding systems for collecting and exchanging knowledge and learning” was the least understood dimension by education policy makers. The results of the study indicate that a comprehensive understanding of the SLO model is necessary in order to implement it effectively and for its implementation to promote the transformation of education in Latvia.

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between the school as a learning organisation (SLO) and teacher job satisfaction in general education in Latvia. This study also examined teacher job satisfaction depending on the school type (primary, elementary and secondary school), school size, the geographical location of the school, the teacher’s work experience, the teacher’s workload and whether the teacher’s has one or more jobs. A structured questionnaire on the eight dimensions of the Latvian SLO model was used, which was developed within the project, “A model and tool to support the implementation of the approach school as a learning organisation in educational institutions”. The study sample included 478 teachers from 62 general educational institutions in Latvia. A significant relationship was found between all SLO dimensions and teacher job satisfaction in general education in Latvia. A significant relationship was not found between teacher job satisfaction and the school type, the school size, the geographical location of the school and the teacher’s work experience and workload; however, the data reveal that teachers who have almost full-time or full-time employment at school and those who work in only one school are more satisfied with their work.

The aim of this study is to analyze the current practice of implementing an approach to the school as a learning organzsation (SLO) in general and vocational education in Latvia. The OECD integrated SLO model was used to find out whether there were differences between the opinions of school staff, students, and parents on the current practice of implementing the SLO approach in schools. A concurrent triangulation design was implemented, in which qualitative (school staff, n = 38) and quantitative (students, n = 990; parents, n = 620) data were collected concurrently, followed by a separate data analysis, after which the results of the studies were merged and triangulated. One of the key prerequisites for a school to become a learning organization is leadership, which is implemented on a daily basis by the school principal or an extended school management team. The results of the study indicate that, based on the analysis of students’ and parents’ opinions, learning leadership is one of the weakest dimensions of the SLO. The study also concludes that students’ and parents’ views on learning with and from the external environment and the wider system in their educational institution are not so positive, and that there is a need to raise the awareness of the school staff of the importance of collaboration in the current implementation practice of the SLO approach. It is necessary to ensure that purposeful cooperation and joint action are implemented at the school level to achieve the common goals of the school.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the current practice of learning analytics in the implementation of the school as a learning organisation (henceforth SLO) in general and vocational education in Latvia. The study identifies what the most common purpose of data analysis in schools is, what data are most often used in schools to analyze students' learning performance and explores the relationship between the learning analytics and the SLO using the eight-dimensional SLO model developed within the framework of the research "A model and tool to support the implementation of the approach school as a learning organisation in educational institutions". The results of the study show that schools mainly analyze data to improve students' learning outcomes and less attention is paid to data analysis to adjust the curriculum to students' interests, and while students' summative assessments (e.g. grades) are regularly used to analyze students' learning performance, student focus group discussions on the learning process at school, the learning experience gained at school and improvements to be made are used less frequently. A positive and significant relationship was found between the learning analytics and the SLO, moreover, it was discovered that the closest relationship was observed particularly between the SLO and the more frequent use of student focus group discussions for the analysis of students' learning performance, and data analysis for adapting the learning content to students' interests as well as for improving students’ collaboration.