Effective Teacher Development: Theory and Practice in Professional Learning 9781474231862, 9781474231855, 9781474231893, 9781474231879

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Positioning Teacher Development: Changing Needs within Variable Educational Contexts
2 Professional Learning Development from the Top-Down: Identifying the Need
3 Professional Learning Development from the Bottom-Up: The Value of the Home Grown
4 The Trouble with the Home Grown: Issues Surrounding Teacher Inquiry
5 Assessing Impact: But What Is It All For?
6 Developing Professional Learning Strategically: Taking Control of Intent and Design
7 Concluding Thoughts
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Effective Teacher Development

Also available from Bloomsbury Effective Teaching and Learning in Practice, Don Skinner Reflective Teaching in Schools, Andrew Pollard The Primary Curriculum Design Handbook, Brian Male The Secondary Curriculum Design Handbook, Brian Male and Mick Waters

Effective Teacher Development Theory and Practice in Professional Learning Bob Burstow

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2018 © Bob Burstow, 2018 Bob Burstow has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4742-3186-2     PB: 978-1-4742-3185-5   ePDF: 978-1-4742-3187-9 ePub: 978-1-4742-3188-6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Cover design: Terry Woodley Cover image © Vagengeim / Shutterstock Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd.

Contents

List of Figures

vi

List of Tables

vii

Prefaceviii Forewordx Acknowledgementsxiii Introduction1

1 Positioning Teacher Development: Changing Needs within Variable Educational Contexts

11

2 Professional Learning Development from the Top-Down: Identifying the Need

31

3 Professional Learning Development from the Bottom-Up: The Value of the Home Grown

47

4 The Trouble with the Home Grown: Issues Surrounding Teacher Inquiry 5 Assessing Impact: But What Is It All For?

65 83

6 Developing Professional Learning Strategically: Taking Control of Intent and Design 7 Concluding Thoughts

103 117

Bibliography 126 Index133

List of Figures

1.1 Research about teaching since the James Report

13

1.2 Cordingley’s 3D model

17 

1.3 Three continua of teacher education

22

1.4 Some support in the literature for varying positions on continuum 1

23

1.5 Some support in the literature for different positions on continuum 2

24

1.6 Some support in the literature for tension 3

25

1.7 The basic 2-D matrix

26

1.8 Types of teacher education from a ‘Craft/Technicist’ stance

26

1.9 Types of teacher education from a ‘Professional’ stance

27

1.10 The full possible range of teacher education programmes

29

3.1 The derivation of the three cross-key-stage research groups in the case study

61

4.1 Imaging a nesting of complex substructures

74

4.2 Ferns as a natural example of a fractal structure

76

5.1 A typical full design cycle

85

5.2 An impoverished cycle

86

5.3 A summary of Huberman’s findings

96

5.4 A summary of Day and Gu findings

99

6.1 The full possible range of teacher education programmes

113

7.1 The full possible range of teacher education programmes

119

List of Tables

1.1 Layers of learning and teaching in education

19

3.1 Discussion categories from Case Study poster session

56

6.1 Six key leadership styles

107

Preface F

or much of my career, whether as school teacher, head of department, deputy head or senior lecturer in education, my concerns have centred upon the ‘messiness’ of school teaching. I have been fortunate to have had a career over a time that spans some critical moments in the politics and practice of school teaching. As a student in 1971, I joined the march on the Department of Education to protest about the stopping of free milk to school pupils. My early years as a science teacher coincided with Prime Minister Callaghan’s Ruskin College speech – calling for a ‘Great Debate’ about the nature and purposes of education. In my thirty years, I taught in a variety of schools: comprehensive, grant-maintained, specialist and academy. My colleagues and I taught our subjects moderated by a succession of sources: Schools Council, Nuffield, National Curriculum and prepared our pupils for GCE, CSE, GCSE, SATs, A and AS levels. In that time, we were urged to develop ourselves by embracing a series of initiatives: Technical and Vocational Initiative (TVEI), Micro Electronics in Education Project (MEP), National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies. So I have, as an insider, witnessed the multiplying and increasing pressures on schools and their staff. For readers who were also teaching in England at this period, I recommend Derek Gillard’s (2011) excellent and constantly updated record for a nostalgic reminder. The risk, of course, is I am now labelled as a dinosaur, no longer able to respond or adapt to change. Or, perhaps, I shall just be placed as another marker on the line of dissatisfaction (which goes back – allegedly – to a quote from Socrates despairing of the quality of the youth of his day). However, my impulse to write this first book, at an arguably late stage in my career, is to attempt to bring together some of those strands and thoughts that have built up and meshed over some forty-two years since the completion of my own initial training. This is not intended to be a history, although I believe most strongly that the declining collective memory of civil servants and their political masters has led to the unnecessary reinvention of numerous wheels over the years, and how much they could have benefitted from the retention of senior figures to act as ‘policy oracles’, to be consulted prior to the publication of yet another politically ‘good idea’ in education. This point was strongly reinforced for me shortly after the election that saw the formation of the first Coalition government of the twenty-first century. I found myself invited to a meeting at the Department for Education, along with half-

Preface

a-dozen academic colleagues from leading schools of education, to consider what the then newly proposed University Teaching Schools might look like. What has stuck in my mind was the time we spent in the waiting room at the Department. One wall of this room was decorated with monochrome portrait photographs of every Secretary of State for Education since the end of the Second World War. Beneath each photo were their names and the dates when they started and finished their tour of duty in this post. Faced with a very limited number of other things to occupy ourselves, my colleagues and I spent some time looking at this historical data. After the usual trivia (how many women Education Secretaries can you name, apart from Margaret Thatcher, for example) we started to calculate the average time that they had spent in office. To our astonishment, it was about two years – and with remarkably few outliers. This mismatch between the length of time a child will be expected to spend in full time education in England and the effect that a determined Secretary of State might have on those children is one that produced a moment of silence among our group. It was an earlier version of this disconnect that sowed the seeds of this book. In the 1980s, Information Technology was a major development initiative, both in schools and in the country as a whole. Money was being thrown at schools to buy equipment – which provided a ready market for the many manufacturers of IT equipment that were springing up across the country. I was, at that time, in charge of IT in my school. We had equipped ourselves to a very high standard, thanks to various fund raising activities, but the issue, for me, was the development of teachers as willing users of this new technology. You will be able to imagine my rage when the school received yet another invitation to bid for government money to provide yet more hardware. I wrote my first successful bid, largely a rant (with projected costings) about how much better the money would be spent on finding a significant professional learning programme. To my (and my head’s) astonishment, it was successful, and I was obliged to put my effort where my mouth had led. The period of thinking and research that developed also contributed to the thesis that led to my doctorate. That, in its turn has fed into the early plans for this book. It has indeed been a long time in the gestation. So, what follows is not to be a purely historical examination. Rather, it is a recommendation for the future. I shall attempt to channel my inner Candide, retain my optimism about the wonderful profession which occupied me for the greater part of my life, and use such knowledge as I have to suggest how my younger professional compatriots, wherever they may be and whatever their context, might use it as a scaffold to move their schools into their own ‘zone of proximal development’. I hope too, that it may give these same colleagues the means to contribute to their schools’ success, not in government or inspectorial terms, but – to paraphrase Michael Fullan – to know when to safely ignore government edict and to move their schools forward on a foundation of a considered and lasting set of values for the education of the future generations of children.

ix

Foreword F

or the past thirty years, schools have experienced a massive set of changes in the curriculum, in assessment, in pedagogy and, perhaps most importantly, in raised expectations for all of our children. These changes have been driven by international pressures for greater attainment for everyone in our schools as well as by governments who recognize the need for every child to be educated to their full potential. ‘Education, education, education’ may well have been Tony Blair’s mantra in 1997, but it has continued to be a popular refrain for all subsequent administrations in the UK as elsewhere. In many ways, it could be said that education really has become a central plank in the policy portfolio of every government. In response, each successive government has endeavoured to leave their mark or plant their imprint on educational provision. While this has sometimes meant that policies have come and gone in a very short period of time, one aspect has remained in the centre of the stage – and that is the critical role of the teacher in our schools. One fact that is now internationally recognized is that schools are largely dependent on their teachers for how well they do. Regardless of how creative or imaginative a policy reform may be, irrespective of how engaging and challenging a piece of software may be, unless there is an effective teacher in the classroom, the outcomes will not be as good as they could be. Behind every successful learning outcome stands a great teacher. In July 2010 Michael Gove, then the Secretary of State for Education in the UK, told the Education Select Committee that ‘The single most important thing in education is improving the quality of the educational experience for each child by investing in higher-quality teaching … There is simply no way of generating educational improvement more effectively than by having the best qualified, most highly motivated and most talented teachers in the classroom. Everything should be driven by that.’ This is a view that is underpinned in Effective Teacher Development: Theory and Practice in Professional Learning. Much time, money and thought has gone into producing the good teacher. In the UK we have devised new entry routes, have inspected our pre-service training and have attempted reforms that privilege in-school experience. We have raised our entry requirements into the profession. We have applied rigour, enthusiasm and

Foreword

commitment to the recruitment of would be teachers. As we have reformed the entry routes to the profession, we have recognized that teachers need more than just an initial injection of preparation; becoming a good teacher is a lifelong process. Some time ago, Susan Rosenholtz, who was studying what made for effective schools, asked hundreds of teachers, ‘How long did it take you to learn to teach?’ She discovered that teachers in what she deemed to be ‘learning impoverished schools’ replied in literal ways as follows, ‘oh, two or three years’ while teachers in ‘enriched schools’ were more likely to reply, ‘Oh, I am still learning, you’ve never learned it all’ (Rosenholtz, 1989). Her point was that learning enriched schools shared a collaborative culture, a collective concern for continuous learning and support. She added that ‘high consensus schools and forward moving schools were marked by a spirit of continuous improvement in which no teacher ever stopped learning how to teach’ (Rosenholtz, 1989, xi). While her study was based on a set of primary schools in Tennessee, her findings resonate with the spirit and the ethos of this book that you are just about to read. In the UK, there has been a commitment to exploring what makes for an effective school and study after study emphasizes the need for teachers who constantly update themselves, who take a professional joy in their own development and who can share their expertise in working to extend their own learning as well as that of their students. In the UK, our schools have been making incremental and consistent improvements and this has been reflected in the attainments of their students. We are witnessing a narrowing in achievement gaps and greater numbers of our young people now expect to and do attend universities. All this has been brought about by the work of committed professional teachers, those professionals who have worked hard to extend and develop their own knowledge and skills set. And in this critical work, they have been helped by their senior colleagues in their schools, as well as from one another, in working together, sharing best practice, drawing on good ideas for refining their practices and in engaging in shared reflections on what worked well and what didn’t go so well. The learning school, the reflexive school is one that encourages and supports this stance. It is a school where the leadership team embody this approach and are capable of offering support, encouragement and the know-how to enhance the practice of their colleagues. Bob Burstow’s timely book takes a careful and reflective look at how it is that schools can manage change and support the professional developments of their teachers and create the sort of school that Rosenholtz described. The book contains an informed account of the professional needs of teachers, what is means to be a teacher and how to lead effectively to manage systematic continual professional development in our schools. This is a book by a teacher for teachers and it mines the daily experiences of teachers with a delightfully frank approach – albeit with a fundamental and serious message for us all. Teacher learning and teacher development are an important part of retaining and extending the professional and this task requires skilful leadership if it is to be effective and sustainable. In a complex world, teachers

xi

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Foreword

are going to need continual professional development if they are to keep hold of their enthusiasm, commitment and imagination in changing times and their leaders have a powerful role in supporting their professional growth. This book provides a challenge to all of us who are involved in making a difference in education. It offers an insight into how schools can support and extend the professional repertoire of their most important asset – the teacher. Meg Maguire, Professor of Sociology of Education, King’s College London, UK

Acknowledgements T

he author and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to reproduce the copyright material in this book

Springer Publishing, Springer Publishing Company, 11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10036 Centre for Leadership Studies, 280 Towerview Court, Cary, NC 27513 [email protected] Centre for the use of Research & Evidence in Education (CUREE), 8th Floor, Eaton House, Eaton Road, Coventry, CV1 2FJ [email protected] Teacher Education Advancement Network (TEAN), University of Cumbria, Bowerham Road, Lancaster, LA1 3JD [email protected] Dr Sue Brindley, University of Cambridge [email protected] Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

Introduction

Contexts

2

Contents

6

Considerations

7

2

Effective Teacher Development

H

ere you will find some discussion on:

– Contexts Purpose of the book. The context of teacher development issues at the time of writing and a justification for the need for this book at this time. – Contents Overview and layout of the book. The logical arc that will be followed over the whole. – Considerations Key contributory research. A consideration of some of the research and practice that has informed this writing. The continued professional learning of teachers has been a topic of academic discussion for over fifty years and of political intervention for rather less. The purpose of this book is to explore a different basis for the conversation. Firstly, however, here is some consideration of the various contexts that formed the background to the emergence of these ideas. I make no apology for beginning with a historical section; too often senior members of the teaching profession can be heard lamenting the shortness of the collective memory, especially among politicians and increasingly civil servants. What follows is a brief reminder of how the professional learning of teachers developed over the last half-century.

Contexts For lasting and effective change to take place within a school, consideration should be given to three key factors. The order in which these are presented, below, matches an order presented by Eraut (Dean, 1991) but which is discussed on several occasions in the book.

Pause for a moment You may care to consider the ‘ideal’ order here. If you were about to begin designing and planning a professional learning programme, would you wish to re-rank the three paragraphs immediately below?

The key factors are these: The methods by which the development intervention might be delivered. This might include some of the possible details in terms of: medium (for example:

Introduction

online, print, live interaction), site (such as in a host school, external hotel-based conference facilities, university department) and duration (which might range from single twilight session, whole day course or multiple part course on either of those models). The people involved: both those who will be ‘deliverers’ (a rather pejorative term) and recipients of the development processes. This may well lead to some consideration of the nature of the teacher as a professional, the issues associated with change in this particular field and the background to the present professional development environment. This latter, in its turn, may include a reflection on the tension between an increasingly skilled and self-aware profession and an increasingly dominant government department – who may be seeking to impose a model of teaching on a group of professionals who, as a result are in danger of being steadily de-professionalized by this action. The working conditions, both current and the desired conditions, are the intended result of the proposed development. This suggests a planning process that relates to a full systems analysis – considering both current state and desired outcome as a preliminary to deciding on the most effective method for bridging that gap. Professional learning may be associated with various populations, Glover and Law, for example, represent professional development as essentially a tension between: individual need – ‘developing the skills and knowledge to teach effectively and to grow as a professional’, departmental, year or group need – ‘developing approaches and sharing expertise within a team situation’ and whole institutional need – ‘establishing common values which determine policies for the school’ (Glover and Law, 1996, 32). However, as is clear from the quotations above, whatever the target for development, the ultimate recipient of all profession learning interventions will be the individual teacher and often other staff who work in supporting roles within the classrooms and the wider school community. Some historical consideration of the development of in-service training itself is of significance, as the reasons for development have changed over time. Recommendations as to method have changed according to limits imposed by ideology and finance – particularly in the last forty years. Glover and Law (1996) described a recent history of continuing professional development within the teaching profession. Hargreaves (2000) chose a somewhat different viewpoint, in his delineation of four stages of professionalism. These are compared below: In the regeneration following, the Second World War education was one of the public services which became a high priority of the government’s reconstruction agenda. The 1944 ‘Butler’ Education Act expressed a commitment to ‘education for all’, and so there was a need to rapidly provide a trained teaching force. As the school system expanded so there was a requirement on higher and further education to cater for the increasing student demand. At the same time, suggests Hargreaves, teaching was considered to be easy – classrooms, and the lessons in them, were teacher-led with a question-and-answer process reducing interaction to a series of paired artificial

3

4

Effective Teacher Development

conversations between the teacher and a succession of pupils. Significantly, the unit of teaching was seen as the whole class rather than the individual pupil. In this phase, initial teacher training was an apprenticeship, with a period of placement alongside practising teachers in specialized training schools, termed Normal Schools in many countries. Continuing professional learning was not a priority. Indeed, Hargreaves suggests that even as the universities and teacher training colleges began to research, theorize and raise the status of teaching as a career, the pressure from established teachers and the prevalent ethos in their first schools quickly imposed the existing transmission methodology on new recruits. Glover identifies the 1970s as the next watershed, when three organizations: the Department of Education and Science, the Local Education Authorities (LEAs) and the teaching unions, that had together jointly overseen policy developments, began to disagree. The James Report (1972) placed effective professional development of teachers at its heart and argued for an extensive reworking of teacher training, development and education which was wholeheartedly supported by the unions but ultimately ignored by government. The divisions were deepened following Prime Minister James Callaghan’s 1976 Ruskin College speech (which referred to the ‘Secret Garden’ of schools’ curricula); the series of Black Papers published in this decade; and the great education debate, which continued until the end of the Seventies. The aggressive and radical tone of the successive Thatcher governments, which followed, sought both to introduce market forces into schools and to undermine both the LEAs and the role of teachers in society. For Hargreaves, this period represented a time of unprecedented autonomy for teachers. As the complexity of the task became more apparent and the status of teachers was raised – with significant increases in pay in several countries – so teachers were given considerable freedom to develop their professional skills. They were often aided by recommendation from experts – the Nuffield Foundation and the Schools Council were active at this time as publishers of new curricula in several subject areas, as well as the start of the professional subject associations in England (the Association for Science Education for example). At this time too, the class ceased to be the only teaching unit. Teachers could now think in ideological terms, as discussions comparing child-based and subject-based teaching, open and closed classroom and traditional and progressive methods gathered pace. But this was still a time of individual autonomy; teachers in their classrooms still had the freedom to deliver the newly developed curricula in the way that suited their own beliefs or habits. It followed then, that the successes and failures of this period were also centred on the individual teacher. Whole school development was not so much an issue, nor as attainable, as that of the teachers in their own isolated workspaces (except in the rare team-teaching environments). During the 1980s, despite a wide variation in in-service education and training across the country, provision was frequently based on top-down needs identification (Glover and Law, 1996). There was a rapid move away from long courses and a wide and varied menu of training on offer to a much more prescriptive and limited selection increasingly in support of government funded and directed initiatives.

Introduction

After the publication of circular 6/86, a new funding scheme was introduced, which paved the way for radical changes to schoolteachers pay and conditions. Appraisal and specific whole school training days promoted a move to increase the amount of development that took place within a single school community. This move was accelerated by the introduction of the grant-maintained system for secondary schools, which, in the event, forced deep divisions between neighbouring secondary schools, creating professional competitors out of previously collaborative colleagues. Hargreaves identifies the emergence of a new phase during this period – that of the collegial professional – as teachers were forced to come together to meet the rapidly changing demands of a new political and social world. It must not be imagined, of course, that these changes occurred universally across the whole of the education system of a country. You will find later in this book, accounts of staffrooms that are still apparently comfortably snuggled down in the pre-professional or autonomous phases. However, for many schools and their teachers, the collegial response was the one that provided them with a survival strategy. This collegial movement was also a response to the growing doubts about the effectiveness of externally delivered courses – at local authority teachers centres for example – which were gradually bypassed in favour of more sharing of practice within a single institution – or between a few neighbouring schools. Continuing Conservative party rule under John Major in the 1990s continued with this centre-led approach, disempowering the old Her Majesty’s Inspectorate (HMI) and replacing it with a much tougher version the Office For Standards in Schools (OFSTED). The model for school inspection, once collegiate and supportive in nature under HMI (although focused largely on the individual classroom teachers), now became punitive and critical, based on a deficit model of schoolteachers and teaching – and focused on the performance of the whole school. At the same time, the formerly joint roles of inspection and support were uncoupled, leaving OFSTED as a solely judgemental body. In addition, the government sought to reform initial teacher training, motivated again by a deficit model of the pre-service training process, and seeking to move its prime focus from higher education into the schools. This continuing centralization of control and increasing imposition of a targetdriven working environment leads Hargreaves to predict the emergence of a postprofessional phase for teachers. Without active engagement by the profession, he argues, in an increasingly marketized and privatized educational environment, the return of teaching to a non-professional job, operating as under-skilled ‘delivery agents’ (Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012, xiii), moving towards a process-based education. This is, in part, what this book is offering – a different, distanced, view of the professional learning landscape, which then gives the chance for a new autonomy on the part of schools, and their leaders, to reclaim their professionalism, recognize afresh the rich theoretical background that is available to them and to work, within a conscious and informed framework, to improve the learning of their particular pupil population to the point where they are genuinely doing their best.

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Effective Teacher Development

Pause for instruction This book is intended as a discussion document rather than a series of lectures – and it is a factual text rather than a novel and therefore should not be read in a linear manner. In an effort to engage you in the task, you as reader will find several boxed paragraphs headed ‘Pause for thought’. As a firm believer in the value of ‘doing with’ rather than ‘doing to’ I hope you will indeed pause at those moments and consider what you have read – and more importantly what you are about to read. On the other hand, those of you who feel highly pressured and short of time – which probably means you are a school middle manager, or senior leader trying to grab a quality moment or an education student pushing an assignment deadline rather too closely – may prefer to take advantage of the extended abstracts that start each chapter. The intention is to let you easily gain an overview of the book. You can do this either by skimming the extended contents directly below the title, or the introductory overview that makes up the first page of each new chapter. Then, you can make a decision about where you want to drill down more deeply into the discussion.

Contents This book offers a view of professional learning that examines the variety of possible intervention methodologies through a theoretical lens. It begins by establishing the stance, identifying the three axes for the final matrix and then populating the resulting cells. Having presented this key model in quite an abrupt manner, I will treat the bulk of the book as a somewhat one-sided seminar, unpacking and exploring the various aspects of each part of the dissected argument. This subdivision begins with the relative strengths and issues that surround the ownership of an identification of the need for profession learning, whether it is from someone or some group positioned above the teacher who is to be the participant in the intervention, or whether it originates from the teacher, or teachers themselves. During this central section of the book, the discussion also moves through the relative merits of traditional courses, collaborative work and various forms of inquiry. The discussion then moves on to an examination of the planning process itself. In presenting this distanced stance my intention is to offer senior leaders a persuasive argument for the use of a full planning cycle – that is, one that includes a serious consideration of the current position of their target group, the desired position of that group following the completion of the intervention, and the definition of this with a precision that allows for a meaningful and informative evaluation to take place. What is meant by ‘meaningful and informative’ in this context is also investigated. How far pupil attainment can, or should, continue to be the overarching criterion for effectiveness is questioned, and alternative contributing factors that might enrich the meaning and information content of the outcomes of the evaluation process are

Introduction

considered. The unpacking of this complex area reveals other layers – such as who constitutes a group, and whether it is ever sensible to force all the staff to take part in the same professional learning programme. Finally, to complete the discussion section, I consider another overview or distanced position, this time of leadership style. The significance of the role of the head teacher, in comparison to the body of teachers in a school, in terms of the effect on the learning of their pupils – is a matter of much discussion in the academic journals. I have been convinced, for much of my career in teaching, of the role of the classroom teacher as a leader and manager – and have introduced some leadership theory to young teachers, often to good effect. The leadership style of the head is similarly a key factor in the effective professional learning of the teachers in a school – and that this can be applied intelligently and with design, by a well-informed head. The thinking behind this is discussed in Chapter 6.

Considerations None of this book has happened in a vacuum, and very little arrived in a blinding flash of light. You will have read, in the Preface, some of my own context, which has had a bearing on creation of the path that led to this book. This section will offer you some of the writing that has also influenced my thinking. This is not done in any sense of a full literature review, rather to show you another facet of the lens which I bring to bear on this subject. The delivery of continuing professional development programmes too often depended on the traditional INSET courses, that were delivered at the (now defunct) teachers’ centres and now, increasingly hotel conference facilities (Craft, 2000, 11) The growing domination of non-government organizations, such as the Teacher Training Authority (latterly the Teacher Development Agency) and the demands of performance management, also affected professional development (Bolam, 2000) in the drive to reform teacher education in order to re-professionalize (or deprofessionalize) teachers for the twenty-first century (Whitty, 2000). The changing view of teachers’ and schools’ education described above is not confined to England. Increasingly, education is viewed as central to economic success and this produces a corresponding concern for the effective preparation, utilization and development of a country’s teaching force. There was some redefinition of the role of in-service training ‘bringing a stronger emphasis on lifelong learning and continuing development’, as well as a recognition that INSET ‘serves as a catalyst for the continuous adjustments which have to be made in dynamic systems’ (Glover and Law, 1996, 26). Additionally, moves by an increasingly centralist style of government over the last six years have further de-professionalized teaching. Specifically, an increasingly directed and specific style of training, focused on particular parts of the curriculum, such as literacy and numeracy, presents the

7

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Effective Teacher Development

‘trained’ teachers with a set of lesson plans and the expectation that this is what will be followed during the working day. This inferred lack of trust in the teacher to work with more general materials might be viewed as a factor in the down-grading of the status of the profession (Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012). Together with the increasing politicization of in-service courses for teachers, and as a positive outcome from the discouragement of LEA dominated training, has been an increasing consideration by schools, as independent organizations, of how they can best manage continuing professional development, from within. This is also a reaction to the change in model from an individualistic focus to professional learning based on the needs of the whole school (Craft, 2000, 12). Research in this area has also been a contributory factor. Dean (1991), among others, identifies the increased research into learning as a cause of dissatisfaction with existing models of development. Change according to Glover and Law has been imposed on teachers for four reasons: firstly, the need to achieve better value for money (setting aside any consideration of what ‘value for money’ might actually mean) and secondly, a pedagogic preference for action research. Thirdly, there has been a drive by government to relate teacher professional work to education market philosophies, and finally, the use of a variety of ‘change’ models to encourage an increasingly post-modern approach to teaching (Glover and Law, 1996, 33). Hargreaves gives an alternative view of the change process as it might apply to teachers (Hargreaves, 1994, 10). He suggests that change is a process, not an event. This point and many of those that follow echo the work of Fullan – who notes that the factors for teachers involved in change include: the importance of the time, how technical and psychological support is vital during the initial, anxiety laden initial phase, how vital is the space for learning, practice and feedback – and how difficult this will be without both cognitive understanding of the underlying concepts and a rationale for the new development. It is interesting to be reminded of how long ago it was that Fullan was raising the significance of the conditions for development – with a positive and involved senior team and the encouragement of participants through peer interaction and line management rather than external and punitive pressures (Fullan, 1982). Hargreaves (1994) makes a couple of interesting points. He suggests, for example, that practice changes before beliefs – Is this actually the case? Is it not possible to imagine a situation where a group of people believe absolutely in the need for change, but where circumstance, or lack of a suitable context, makes that impossible? Within my own research, there are specific examples of established members of departments who accept the need for specific change, but who have not yet managed to incorporate that change into their practice. Their self-analytical account, if taken at face value, implies belief, acceptance and understanding of the need for change that, up until the time of writing has not shown up in their day-to-day practice. He also suggests that evolutionary planning works better than linear planning – which may be understood (in the absence of definitions within the text) to bear on the dependence and interrelationship of planning within its context and environment, taking account of the

Introduction

changes taking place in those areas, perhaps as a result of the effects of already implemented earlier stages in the overall plan. Finally, he notes that conflict is a necessary part of change. As discussed elsewhere, the price to pay for a change in practice is the risk of a drop in the standard of that practice while the proposed change is being trialled, modified (possibly in an iterative manner) and then absorbed. There is a threat involved in change that must be met and dealt with. However, as will be seen in the chapters following this introduction, teachers are the key to educational change – and hence, the professional learning needs to be carefully targeted to scaffold them through each stage in their development. As Hargreaves notes, these homilies are by no means self-evident and uncontestable, indeed some are little more than sound bites – ‘policy cannot mandate what matters’ is little more than a warning to a proponent of ‘management by memo’ – but the pattern for professional development, outlined in the previous paragraphs, is a model that many trainers have adopted. The final statement is fundamentally sound. Without the understanding and co-operation of teachers, no change can possibly be successful. What is being identified is a growing and developing tension between the increasing desire of those concerned with national level planning and development to directly instruct and mould the teaching force into their current image of correctness and the increasing skills of individual professionals and a variety of groups – from department, to whole school – in internally diagnosing, managing and controlling their own developmental processes. So, there is a shift towards a more localized development in schools, conflating a view of professional development with the role of the teacher – accepting the inadequacies established views and moving towards a learning-centred view (Carnell, 2000). This move was to continue, in many aspects of professional learning, through much of the next decade. In several countries, however, the potential of such exciting ideas was undermined by attempts to compel all schools to follow these examples, with no attention to their (or their teachers) readiness for such a programme. Unsurprisingly, the subsequent outcomes were best described as ‘mixed’. In the discussion surrounding the development of teachers as professionals, there is a tension between two lines of thinking. On the one hand, the ideal of a flatter playing field and a more egalitarian and shared responsibility for teaching and learning, extending to the pupils involvement in their own progress (Hargreaves, 1994). On the other hand, the imposition of increasingly manipulative and controlling devices from outside the profession – leading to moves back to a much more linear and unidirectional system of controls. The tension in action may lead to an apparent freedom to act actually masking a much more rigid, target oriented control complex. This issue, and how it might be handled, is addressed later in this book, but should you want more, Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) are both positive and challenging. There is some consideration, in the literature, of the need to evaluate professional development (Guskey and Huberman, 1995), but it is mainly at the level of

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Effective Teacher Development

recommendation, rather than solution. Bolam refers to the continuing need for evaluation that is focused on outcomes and impact – and the problems associated with this (Bolam, 2000). Guskey notes the variety and nature of professional development for teachers (Guskey, 2000a). Baxter and Chambers consider a worked example examining the issues and problems surrounding ‘evaluating staff development for its impact’ (Baxter and Chambers, 1998) and the Chiltern Evaluation Project – aimed ‘to evaluate the in-service training the teacher received’ (Earley, 2001). In parallel, with this is consideration of the means by which professional development is actually absorbed and integrated into the working life of individual teachers. Later, in Chapter 5 of this book, there is also further consideration of how, and when, in the development process, the schemata of teachers get changed (Mevarech, 1995), and the relationship between teachers’ thinking and the contexts within which they work (Day et al., 1993). Little wonder then that Hargreaves describes policymakers as treating teachers like naughty children and the process of changing teachers and teaching as ‘systemically ironic’ (Hargreaves, 1994, 14). Given a limited timescale, the apparent complexity and impenetrability of the organization in question, and the power inherent in a government department, the brute force approach to professional development and change may seem to be the obvious (and indeed the only) choice – and this was developed by Hodkinson (1997). He suggests that as the world has developed from a model based on the management practices of the early Ford Motors production line (where the individual was responsible for a tiny and isolated part of the whole process), towards a Japanese model (which expects a much more responsible approach by small teams of workers), so there has been a move to subvert this – in education at least – by the imposition of external and nonnegotiable targets. It will be within the experience of many teachers that externally imposed training has indeed been self-defeating. Anecdotally, how many teachers have returned from nationally initiated training courses with comments such as ‘It was useless’, ‘I could have done much better’ and ‘They just don’t know what it is like in schools today’? Additionally, the long established derisive nature of reporting on schools and teachers may well have produced a negative and defeatist mindset in the potential course participants. At the time of writing, the development of schools in England has taken another turn, as have world-wide views about the continuing professional learning of teachers. What is offered on the following pages is a method of addressing the multiplicity of factors that affect professional learning in a way that bridges the theoretical and practical. This will afford leaders of professional learning in schools a means of preparing themselves for their task.

1 Positioning Teacher Development: Changing Needs within Variable Educational Contexts

How attitudes to professional learning developed

12

The importance of evaluation

17

The importance of a regular programme of Mentoring/Coaching

18

The significance of location

19

Collaboration

20

Impact

21

Working towards a model of professional learning

22

Needs/Benefits

22

Source/Origin

23

Aspect/Status

24

Concluding thoughts

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Effective Teacher Development

I

n this chapter, we discuss: – How attitudes to professional learning developed – The importance of evaluation Development of the reference model – The importance of a regular programme of mentoring/coaching – The significance of location – The significance of collaboration – The significance of impact – Working towards a model of professional learning Detailing and exploring the model including: ○ Unpacking Needs/Benefits Changing needs of and demands on teachers; teachers – craftsmen or technicians; the distinguishing features of teaching as profession ○ Unpacking source/origin Who are the ‘top’ in ‘top-down’ categories ○ Unpacking aspect/status The variety and range of organizations that affect teachers and their development

‘To begin at the beginning’ (Thomas, 1954) sounds obvious and inevitable, but is actually extremely difficult. It is very hard to see where a genuine origin or starting point is positioned in a series of real-life events that inter-link and wrap around each other. Instead, I intend to start at the heart of things and to introduce you to one idea of how we might unpick one part of the messiness and complexity I am doing this, to provide you as a reader with a hook on which to hang the detail, expansion and exploration that will take up the middle section of the book. I am doing this so that, when we return to the idea in the final chapter you will receive it again as a friend and not as a stranger. I am doing this as a model for the planning process which is at the core of the book – to develop the ideas in a cyclical manner, which demonstrates development and will open the way for your own work. So … ‘to begin in the middle’ …

How attitudes to professional learning developed In working towards a fully informed strategic approach to teacher professional learning, it is important to develop and agree a picture of the landscape or context in which the processes of learning take place. The importance of post-qualification professional development of teachers has long been acknowledged – the James Report (1972) dealt with nothing else – and has been subjected to successive waves of government initiatives. This section does

Positioning Teacher Development Figure 1.1  Research about teaching since the James Report 40

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20

10

0

1972−81

1982−91 school-based inset

1992−01 2002−11 coaching reflection action research

government funding

evaluation impact

teacher voice

accreditation

not pretend to be a full literature review, but is intended only to give a very small sample of relevant writing in the field. Nonetheless, it is interesting to consider some of the research over the period, since the James Report was published. (You should understand that this (Figure 1.1) represents my own record, started in 1996, at the commencement of my Masters studies and continuing into my doctoral research and a further period as lecturer and researcher at King’s College London. My interest has always been broadly in the field of in-service work and professional development, together with an interest in the development of the field – so I hope that this is not too skewed a sample.) One important caveat here is that in the early years (through the 1970s and 1980s), any search for writing on in-service work would have been almost entirely focused on the improvement of teaching in subject specific areas. Journals were devoted to Maths or Science teaching for example. A very few of the articles printed had any traction or interest beyond that area. The account that follows is for generic articles dealing with broader aspects of teaching and specific only in their focus on pedagogy – or in their focus on the meta-subject of effective in-service work. This was a world which was very much bottom-up and ‘tips for teachers’ in origin and content (see Figures 1.7, 1.8 and 1.9 later in this chapter for a fuller discussion). In the decade following the publication of the James Report, I found fourteen articles and books dealing specifically with the professional development of teachers. Notably, for those whose memory of teaching goes that far back, is a discussion about Teachers’ Centres (Adams, 1975), which have now disappeared from our town landscapes. There are, however, early discussions about school-based in-service education (Golby and Fish, 1980; Morant, 1981; Warwick, 1975) and consultancy (Eraut, 1977) which are still very much live subjects.

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Effective Teacher Development

The next decade – from 1982 – saw some twenty items published. Of these, eight concerned themselves with school-focused in-service work. Four bring up the subject of coaching, reflection and action research (Goodson, 1991; Gore and Zeichner, 1991; Hargreaves and Dawe, 1989; Kinchloe, 1991). There is also mention of the effects of the government funding stream – TRIST (TVEI Related in-Service Training) – and its consultant team (Williams and England, 1988). In the five years from 1992 to 1997, there were thirty-three articles of interest, a considerable increase in article production – although the reasons for this are not clear. It could be increasing engagement by universities, more interested publishers or a gradual gathering of involvement in and reaction to the changing professional development world – with the advent of the TTA (Teacher Training Agency) and the state funded GTP (Graduate Teacher Programme). There is a change in subject matter, however: concerns of professionality (Bridges and Kerry, 1993; Wright, 1993; Eraut, 1994), diminution of in-service provision (Gilroy and Day, 1993; Harland et al., 1993), policy interventions (Sidgwick et al., 1993; Bradley et al., 1994) and coaching (Showers and Joyce, 1996) From 1997 to 2002, I noted down sixty-four articles and books. The most popular topics covered were: nine papers concerned with the evaluation and impact of professional development, nine with the design of these programmes and seven with the relationship between state and development programmes (including a Department for Education guidance paper on effective professional development course design). Of lesser interest: four were, for the first time, looking at the issue of teacher voice and teacher needs in professional development. This gave me pause for thought when I recorded this. The first of these articles was published some twenty-six years after the James Report (Glover and Law, 1996). Does this mean that, until this point, (allegedly) wiser heads were deciding what professional development would be best for teachers? My memory of teaching at that time chimes with this, courses were offered and teachers could opt in. The  waves of action research and teacher inquiry had passed us by, or not yet arrived. Other topics covered, by more than one author, in this five-year period include: three articles on professionalism and two each on teacher resilience, in-school management of teacher development, coaching and mentoring and finally the relationship between universities and practising teachers. The final decade that I will mention showed a further increase in output, from the ninety-seven of the previous decade to 375. The subject that is most frequently represented is still ‘Impact and Evaluation’ with thirty-six articles. Design issues still ranked high, with twenty-three. Teacher voice and reflective practices both had twenty contributions. Issues surrounding the position of universities and accreditation of development had increased in coverage to twenty articles (a reflection of the combination of the decline of funding for the PPD programmes and the New Labour inspired Masters in Teaching and Learning perhaps). There was increased interest too in the picture beyond the English context (twenty-nine articles) and meta-articles in the field (eleven articles).

Positioning Teacher Development

At first sight, there is less concern with policy issues (only seven articles over the ten years) but against this there is the increasing trend for government departments and related non-government organizations (Ofsted and the Teacher Development Authority (TDA) for example) to publish their own findings – there were twentyseven reports during this period relating to professional development issues. As is so often the case, the writing in the field reflects the fashion and preoccupations of the time. Yet concerns about professionalism run through the whole period, as does an extended and very loose debate about the relative positioning or site for the teacher education programme, and where the responsibility for its delivery – and by implication the content of the programme itself – should lie. Let us turn then to a more detailed look at a couple of accounts. I am concerned here to see if there is some justification for working towards a general picture of professional development, which may assist theorists and those involved in the practicalities of design. Kennedy (2005) working within a dataset from Scotland identified nine types of teacher learning: Training, Award bearing, Deficit, Cascade, Standards based, Coaching/mentoring, Community of practice, Action research and Transformative. This list is, at first sight, solely a list, bearing little in the way of internal relationships or ranking. In addition, the different labels deal with different aspects of a programme: – The function – the practicalities of a limited training programme with the (implied) theoretical and more generalized content of the award bearing, perhaps) – The reason for a programme – to fill an identified gap (the deficit) or to ensure compliance (the standards based) – The method of delivery – coaching and mentoring or action research – The outcome – transformative Beyond this, it might be possible to discern an increasing ambition or vision as you read down the list – ‘community’ and ‘transformative’ are more elevated and ambitious than ‘training’ and ‘deficit’ surely? Dymoke and Harrison (2006) reported on a small sample investigation into performance review as a means of realizing professional learning. The key factors for success included:

– – – – – –

Preparation before the interview Opportunities for observation and critical feedback The place of writing and written evidence Collaborative working Teacher autonomy and choice of professional-learning activities Relative influence of collaboration and teacher autonomy

While being content to limit ‘success’ measures to the progress of the review process itself, there were implications in the findings for the whole of the operation of the

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teacher education programmes in the participating schools. It is noteworthy that the research here gives high value to the autonomy of the teacher in the process – a ‘doing it with’ as opposed to ‘doing it to’ approach is (unsurprisingly) what pays off. Preparation too is important, and this is also readily extrapolated into the whole of the teacher education design process. Preparation or thinking ahead – especially in terms of success criteria and sensible and valid evaluation measures being decided at the start of the process, rather than as an afterthought or as an expedient aspect – was also noted here. A wider and larger analysis has been attempted since, notably as part of the BERA/RSA 2013 research into teacher learning (Furlong et al., 2013). In one of the support papers commissioned for this report, Cordingley (2013) produced a diagram to express teacher engagement, suggesting two axes – is the research teacher-led or researcher-led and is the teacher engaged-in or engaged-with the research. It is possible then to populate the resulting matrix with a variety of known examples, providing a visual overview. This opens up a number of areas for consideration and teasing out, of differences in practice, between engaging with and engaging in research. Are they mutually exclusive? Will they necessarily lead to different outcomes? Is one inherently easier? Is one more assured of success? The answer to all these is probably ‘Maybe’ or ‘It depends’. What is most likely to be concluded is that teaching in any form (including teacher education) is a messy process. The weakness of a diagram like this (to set against its usefulness as a way of expressing ideas) is that suggests a two-state system rather than a sliding scale between two extremes – and even if the possibility of inter-extreme states is suggested, as it is in the figure, it then precludes the consideration of any further overlaps or positions that are outside the matrix. So, we might now seek to add an entry to the original diagram – the so-called ‘Singapore model’ (in England), where groups of teachers gather on a regular basis to consider the relevance of specific research publications to their own teaching – almost looking for solutions to apply to as-yet unidentified problems. The use of the terms ‘teacher-led’ and ‘researcher-led’ is also of interest. Is this to be considered as the same as ‘teacher-originated’ or ‘teacher-inspired’? I can easily imagine a researcher coming up with a research idea that is then led by teachers, or vice versa. In addition, if this is to be equated with ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ in terms of design influence, how far are researchers to be considered as being ‘top’? We talk of Higher Education and there is an implication that the thinking that takes place in such institutions is of a higher order than that which takes place in schools – and for a variety of good reasons. But how far is the research itself, its findings and its outcomes, actually a significant influence on schools in the current (2015) educational climate in England? Then, later Cordingley extended this idea into a three-dimensional matrix to express the relationships of engagement (Figure 1.2):

Positioning Teacher Development Figure 1.2  Cordingley’s 3D model (Cordingley, 2014) Embedded within school system

Detached from school system

Collaborative cpd reflecting inquiryoriented culture

Co-produced study used to inform school improvement In

sig

de

Co

d ne

Research Engagement With

Teacher-initiated small-scale

Research-led larger-scale

Here, the third axis – the ‘embeddedness’ of the research – does position it more in an influential hierarchy. Highly embedded research is, arguably, more within the field of interest of the senior team and governing body of a school, and hence to be more likely to influence future policy and practice. A more detached piece of research, on the other hand, which might be a small piece of research undertaken for a masters’ dissertation or doctoral thesis, or by a teacher after negotiation with a university research team, would not be undertaken in the expectation of radically influencing future planning in that school. (For an extended introduction to these ideas, you should consult the chapter I wrote with Meg Maguire (McNamara et al., 2014, 103 et seq).) So where does all this leave us? Here are the main outcomes arising from this background. Much of this material formed part of a Masters module in teacher development. What follows is based largely on discussion notes from a series of seminars both face to face and online with Education Masters students at Kings College, London between 2012 and 2015. The significant headings, below, were arrived at during discussion following their reading of background material.

The importance of evaluation I have often, in my masters teaching, referred to this as the ‘poor relation’ in the teacher education programme design process. How many readers will be able to recall – often far too easily – the school-based training sessions that seem, to the

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recipients, to have been inserted into the programme as a reaction to the latest developmental fashion or fad – or as a knee-jerk reflex to an external (inspectorial or managerial) demand. It is so often under-considered – or indeed ignored – that I have placed it first in this section. Killion (2005) was clear in placing the ‘evaluability’ question at the start of the design process. If the evaluation of a course or programme is problematic (in other words, if you don’t know where you are going), then how is it possible to design effectively? In that situation, there can be no way of ascertaining whether it was successful or achieved any of its aims. Guskey (2000b) in his searching and inspirational analysis of evaluation laid out the whole complexity of the evaluation field. The importance of this was in showing quite clearly how far beyond the simple mantra of ‘better exam results’ a good evaluation scheme needed to go. There is also a need to question the factors that make up an evaluation useful. Teachers undoubtedly have ‘the education of children’ as a prime directive – but does this necessarily mean that the success, or otherwise, of all their own development and learning should be exclusively measured solely in terms of the performance of their pupils in tests and examinations? Might there not be other outcomes following a professional-learning programme that are worth measuring and recording for the enrichment of the whole evaluation process? Chapter 5 is devoted to a more thorough unpacking of these issues, but in the meantime, you might hold not only evaluation itself in your mind, as a key to successful profession learning programme design, but also be considering what might additionally be considered a valid measure of success.

The importance of a regular programme of Mentoring/Coaching Today, it is a given that all teachers are mentored or coached – according to the stage the individual teacher’s development. If this is done properly – including feeding back and integration of the outcomes into the planning process, then their needs will become a focus when the planning is actually undertaken. Therefore, the overall teacher learning programme will include individuals’ needs as a part of the priorities for the whole school. It ought to be a given that any teacher education programme should offer transmission, transition or transformative opportunities for the staff involved. I am conscious, however, that, as it is written above, this still feels as if it were an exclusively top-down approach. To talk of ‘opportunities’ puts all the onus on the receiver of the programme. The opportunity has been presented, if is not taken up then it is the teacher’s fault for not seizing it with both hands. Is this how we talk of the role of the teacher, the planning of an excellent lesson? It raises memories of teachers demanding (as has happened many times in a variety of staff meetings) that

Positioning Teacher Development Table 1.1  Layers of learning and teaching in education (Philpott, 2014)

Learning

Teaching (Pedagogy)

Learners

Learning

Learning to learn (self-teaching)

Teachers

Learning about teaching and learning

Teaching learners (about learning)

Teacher educators

Learning about teaching and learning for teachers

Teaching teachers (about teaching and learning

Researchers

Learning about learners, teachers and teacher educators

Teaching about learners, teachers and teacher educators

they be presented with classes made up of children who want to learn about history (or science, or music). How much more successful would teaching be then! How much more skilful the teacher who can prepare lessons to persuade their classes of the value of the material to hand. How far removed is teacher education from the education of children? Arguably, it is a higher order activity. Philpott (2014) outlines this effectively above (Table 1.1). The subject matter and the pedagogy may be (slightly) different but the aims and outcomes will be broadly the same – to transmit not just by rote, but the acceptance and belief to as every member of the participant group, in terms of movement out of their own individual comfort zones, into a new area of development. So, rather than the somewhat abrupt and impositional phrasing used at the start of this subsection, perhaps an aim that teacher education should push towards the progression from a simple transmission of ideas (the most common) to transformation of practice (the least common)?

The significance of location The common, immediate, conclusion that is arrived at is the ‘in-school good, off-site bad’ generalization. Practising teachers – and part-time students on a Masters course – had a more nuanced set of opinions, based on their own experience. These were not exclusively teachers in England – in fact, local context teachers made up about half of the total. These comments represent world-wide, practically influenced, personal anecdote. So, it is true that on-site activities have an advantage in terms of efficient timing, encouragement of all staff collaboration, and sustainability over time. However, off-site, or traditional forms of activities are important for experience gaining and sharing in a wider context. This was a commonality across every cohort where notes

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were made – that exclusively in-house teacher learning programmes ran the risk of becoming parochial and too narrowly focused. Against this was set the idea that on-site training could still involve an outside ‘specialist’. This addresses in some part the isolation and parochialism – but, as more cynical members of the group suggested, may be a false impression, as the visiting speaker might well have been arranged because of their support for the status quo. There were contributors who felt strongly that off-site training could be replicated back in school – with suitable tailoring to their needs (typically, given the constituency of the sample, as heads of department). To be more specific, one of the most eloquent contributors said ‘Off-site can be very beneficial for departmental use … it has provided me with some of my most valuable experiences … which can of course be cascaded to members of the department and also to the students’ (Burstow, 2014). The discussion that then developed led back into memories of cascade as a teacher learning delivery model, as used in: National Curriculum Science in 1985 (and Science 2000), the literacy and numeracy strategies in 1997, the IT in schools programme under New Opportunities Funding in 2000, to give some examples, and their limited success. This was supported notably by another Masters student, a teacher from Singapore, who, interestingly, noted how their much-lauded research-engaged teacher learning programme depended on the interest of the individual teacher who went to the central meetings, where subject specific research papers were discussed and circulated. If the nominated lead teacher was not interested in the subject of the research, then the resulting inschool session was unlikely to be successful. The hardly surprising but nonetheless significant conclusion reached by the groups who discussed this was: ‘engagement is vital’ (Burstow, 2014).

Collaboration In some senses, this section is an extension of the anti-parochial desires expressed above. In another sense, however, it seeks to address the image of a solitary individual, isolated in their own classroom and potentially reinventing wheel after wheel as they actively inquire – and reflect on – their own unique context, in isolation from their colleagues. In this area of discussion, the teacher-students had clear opinions. In reality, said one participant, much ‘teacher-led research’ effectively reinforces the particular themes of the particular discourse of education which a particular teacher prefers (the self-fulfilling prophecy or the ‘enquiry leading to entrenchment’ route). However, research-led professional learning could help encourage improvements in teaching practice which would not have arisen merely through individual teacher’s experience and reasoning. So, this participant sits firmly at the ‘engaged-with’ end of Cordingley’s x-axis (Burstow and Maguire, 2013; Figure 1.3).

Positioning Teacher Development

A second contribution under this heading felt that: ‘much teaching expertise could be categorized as “tacit knowledge” i.e. we know more than we can say … [and] a professional learning programme which focused excessively on implementing specific measures might overshadow the importance of this’ (Burstow, 2014). This seems to be taking a stance on the apprentice/delivery agent/technicist spectrum of approaches to teaching, which is positioned towards the apprentice end. ‘Implementing specific measures’ could well lead to a technicist style ‘teaching by numbers’, whereas it is difficult to see how a teacher could transfer tacit knowledge without some form of apprentice-style learning from the examples they are given in the learning classroom. A third notable contribution considering the importance of collaboration suggested that: there is a missing step not only in professional learning, but also school improvement as a whole. This gap, it was suggested, could be filled with good quality, small-scale research pieces which would give the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) a relatively neutral insight into the potential impact of two alternative policy measures. This is quite a dense precis of a much more extensive presentation – there is obviously an assumption that the ‘small-scale research pieces’ have been initiated or designed or requested by SLT – so a top-down approach. There is, however, nothing to prevent a significant teacher involvement and at quite a deep level. A very successful example of this notion in practice may be found in Chapter  3 (Case Study 2).

Impact One of the pleasures of teaching is when one is brought up short by the thinking of a student. When a participant suggested that, ‘as an impact measure, the length of time for which the improvement lasts should be a consideration’, there was a contemplative silence. A number of thoughts arise from this. How rare it is to ever consider longevity of an idea, technique or process. How difficult it would be to actually carry this out (how do you measure absence, for example). How often does a successful idea depend upon the individual – memories of Watson’s ‘maverick’ innovators, who move school and leave no evidence of their work behind (Watson, 1993). Referring back to the cascade discussion, above, a second contribution felt that: ‘the trickle-down effect is the most lacking aspect of professional learning … the effect on the staff as well as the students should then become the measuring standard’ (Burstow, 2014). I have retained this because of the recognition that ‘the effect on the staff’ is an important factor. To say that, in effect, professional learning is successful if exam results improve (Ofsted, 2006) is to ignore many factors and do deny the possibility of other valuable positive outcomes.

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Working towards a model of professional learning The chapter so far has identified a number of areas that should be taken into account when considering teacher professional learning programmes. The six major themes from the last forty years of academic writing in the field were, you will remember: school-based programmes, government provision, teacher voice, methodologies (reflection, coaching and action research), evaluation and impact and the pros and cons of accreditation. So, from these, three spectra, or axes, can be isolated: Figure 1.3  Three continua of teacher education (author's original for this book) Individual

Bottom-up

Craft

Needs/Benefits

Source/Origin

Aspect/Status

Organization

Top-down

Profession

Where writing in the teacher voice, government provision and school-based areas inform the first of these; methodologies and impact writing mainly cover the second strand and accreditation, school-based issues and government provision also cover the third. The next section will consider these proposed continua in more detail.

Needs/Benefits Any thinking about professional learning should be led by an understanding of its purpose (Figure 1.4). This may be labelled in several ways: – It may be a consideration of expected or desired outcomes. What does the designer expect to happen as a result of the programme? This ties in directly with the work of Guskey (2000b) and Kennedy (2005) and, in these terms, should be placed at the forefront of any planning process. The evaluation measures decided upon will vary, naturally, according to the position of the proposed intervention on this continuum. If the evaluation is being carried out after the design process or even after the intervention itself has taken place, then understanding where on this scale the benefit was intended to lie would help identify likely relevant evaluation measures.

Positioning Teacher Development Figure 1.4  Some support in the literature for varying positions on continuum 1 (author’s original for this book) Individual ‘develop the skills and knowledge to teach effectively and to grow as a professional’ (Glover & Law, 1996)

Organization ‘Government...seeking to ensure compliance with its priorites’ (DfE, 2010) ‘establish common values which determine policies for the school’ (Glover & Law, 1996)

TDA...‘rasising the standards of teaching’ (DES, 1994)

– If the label is rather more precise, as in ‘who is the main beneficiary of the learning programme’, then the influence on the planning will be correspondingly specific. Emphasis will turn more towards the methodology and delivery of the programme under consideration. – Consideration should also be given to who or what the axis labels apply. Is, for example ‘the individual’ always the teacher? It is professional learning that is under discussion after all. However, the pupil, as final recipients of the outcomes of any programme, might also be considered in some variants and contexts when exploring this axis of discussion. ‘Organization’ though is a more open term and much more context dependant. It is easy to imagine attaching a variety of alternative meanings here: school, federation, chain, authority, region and country – all depending on where the needs derive and where the benefits are intended to be realized. Multiple extensions to the single terms used can also be readily imagined.

Source/Origin I have used the terms ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ as labels for this axis (Figure 1.5), but they are inevitably vague, unless some attention is paid to the context: – If the context is to be the country as a whole, then the ‘top’ will most likely be the government in the shape of its advisory team or consultants who will be putting the detail onto ministerial broad brushstrokes. Examples of this include the TDA and the working party comprising university academics who created the Master in Teaching and Learning for English and Welsh schools in 2010 (Daly and Burstow, 2009), the National Literacy Strategy in 1998 (DfE, 2011) and the while school IT initiative under the New Opportunities Fund in 2000 (Conlon, 1999).

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24

Effective Teacher Development Figure 1.5  Some support in the literature for different positions on continuum 2 (author’s original for this book) Bottom-up

Top-down

‘sustaining the creativity of the school...solving its own problems through appropriate professonal action’ (Kirk, 2000) ‘peers became the strongest source of innovation’ (McKinsey, 2010)

‘commercialisation of education’ (Ball, 2008)

‘teachers’ own perceptions of their development’ (Hustler, 2003)

‘centralisation of teacher education, aligning changes in professional practice to a set of new professional competencies’ (Bird et al., 2005)

TDA...‘raising the standards of teaching’ (DES, 1994)



– However, the ‘bottom’ in this version of the continuum could be either individual school, or a group of teachers. Examples of this include the development of Information Technology as a distinct curriculum subject. Fothergill (1988) suggests that the installation of an Elliott 920a computer into the Royal Liberty School in September 1965 was possibly the first computer to be installed in a British school (Burstow, 2006). From this action and similar installations by other enthusiasts, computer clubs began in schools, which prepared the ground for the advent of the Micro-electronics in Education Programme in 1979 (Department of Education and Science, 1979). – If the context is an individual school or federation of schools, then ‘top’ is more likely to refer to the SLT of the school or board of directors for the federation. Individual teachers (or possibly a small department) will be the source of any bottom-up interventions.

Aspect/Status Once again, the necessary brevity of the axis labels (Figure 1.6) needs a little unpacking. As you will see from Figure 1.6, there is a well-documented division of opinion about the status of school teaching, and of its practitioners. This is an extensively explored field, including Wiliam (2008), Philpott (2014) and Winch (Burstow and Winch, 2014). In all these cases the division of knowledge along Aristotelian lines, between episteme and phronesis. Episteme is ‘research-based “objective” knowledge that might be applicable to a wide range of situations and could also include procedural knowledge about how to teach’ (Philpott, 2014, 9). It is important knowledge, but not enough, of itself for the developing

Positioning Teacher Development Figure 1.6  Some support in the literature for tension 3 (author’s original for this book)

Craft

Profession ‘grounding theory in deep and extended partnerships with those in practice’ (Hargreaves, 2012)

‘teaching is a craft and it is best learnt as an apprentice’ (Gove 2010) ‘recognise the complexity, the situatedness and the role of theory’ (Heilbron, 2010)

teacher. Phronesis, on the other hand, is ‘practical wisdom, often unconscious and perceptual rather than conceptual, and is focused on the characteristics of different teaching situations and how to act and make decisions in these situations’ (Philpott, 2014, 10). Although practical in nature, the acquisition of this knowledge can occur through several different routes. Clearly, it is in a balance between these two aspects, between the theoretical and the practical, which will lead to the best teacher education. It is the positioning of this balance point that has varied over the last three-quarters of a century. To give two recent extreme examples, my own three-year basic training (starting in 1971) devoted one year to the sociology of education, one year to relevant psychology and the third year to philosophy – but there was only twelve weeks school placement time in these three years. At the other extreme is the one year post-graduate training provided on the GTP route in the 1990s, where all knowledge acquisition occurred in a school context, raising the question of how much episteme was involved – or the Teach First programme, where the intensive four-week summer school preceding the one year placement was the only theoretical input – and this for subject specific content as well as a sprinkling of key pedagogical issues. Gaining and retaining a good balance is still a work in progress, it seems. So, to label the phronetic extreme, ‘craft’ may be criticized, but it is intended not in any demeaning term, but rather to draw out the experiential and apprenticeship aspects of this end of the continuum. ‘Technicist’ has been offered as an alternative label, but this suggests more the empty-headed and mechanistic carrying out of a set of instructions – teaching by numbers, if you will. The ‘craft-y’ teacher, on the other hand, is using their own developing experience and building on the observed experience of others to create an intelligent and fully aware and emotionally responsive and flexible style.

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Effective Teacher Development

Pause for thought If we put the first two of these spectra together and create a two-dimensional diagram (Figure 1.7), then the resulting cells can be populated with a word or phrase suggesting what a professional learning intervention might be that fitted the axis labels.

Bottom-up

Top-down

Figure 1.7  The basic 2-D matrix (author’s original for this book)

Individual

Organization

You may care, at this point, to pause and take a moment to fill these gaps on for yourself, on the blank version (or better, a quick copy of it – having the pleasure of future readers of this volume in mind!). What, for example, might a professional learning opportunity or programme look like, that originates from the bottom and benefits the individual?

So, let us now consider two suggested, completed versions of this matrix. The first representing teacher learning programmes from the stance of teaching as a craft, and the second from the viewpoint of teachers as professionals (Figure 1.9):

Top-down

Figure 1.8 Types of teacher education from a ‘Craft/Technicist’ stance (Burstow and Maguire, 2014, 110)

Imposed course

Initiatives

Bottom-up

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Tips for teachers

Collegiality

Individual

Organization

Positioning Teacher Development

To answer the question posed in the time-out box above, one possible professional-learning programme that originates with the teacher and benefits the individual could be a tips-for-teachers’ magazine, magazine insert or website. These are very common – and have been for the whole of the post-James era (and indeed probably for much longer than that). Moving to the second (right-hand) bottom-up cell, the work on collegiality that has been a part of a teacher’s world at intervals over the last forty years would fill this gap. Departments working together to develop and trial ideas and new practices, groups of subject teachers gathering together to share and disseminate good practice – for example during the days of TVEI (Technical and Vocational Educational Initiative) in the 1980s and 1990s. The best fit for a top-down intervention that is intended to benefit the organization would be any one of the multiplicity of government initiatives that occupied so much of all teachers’ developmental capacity during the 1990s. The literacy and numeracy initiatives with their very precise lesson plans and detailed timings. I well remember the pained words of a Head of English at the time, ‘But Bob, how can anyone get through “Ballad” in four lessons?’, as an indication of the mind-set of the developers and the view that they took of teachers – almost automatons, carrying out specific instructions to produce a uniform output. The final box, a top-down development, aimed at the individual teacher, might be most suitably filled by what I have described as an ‘imposed course’. What is in mind here is the outcome of a performance review interview perhaps, especially where the teacher has been found to be wanting in some aspect of their work. It is in cases like this that teachers may find themselves advised to attend a specific course. It has also happened where teachers themselves have wanted to retrain for a new subject, or to refresh or update their own subject skills – also as a result of a rather more positive performance review. Suppose now, we undertake the same exercise from the position of teaching as a professional activity (Figure 1.9):

Top-down

Academic masters

Initiatives

Bottom-up

Figure 1.9  Types of teacher education from a ‘Professional’ stance (Burstow and Maguire, 2014, 111)

Reflective teacher

Researchengaged teacher inquiry

Individual

Organization

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Effective Teacher Development

You will see that one cell remains the same. It is ‘initiatives’ that still populate the top-down origin /organizational benefit cell. What would be different, in this part of the model, is the nature of the programme and the view that it takes of the teacher population. For example, in the early part of this century, the Malaysian Ministry of Education negotiated a three-year Bachelor of Education degree from an English university, to be taken by all practising primary school teachers in their country. Here was, apparently, a recognition that the previous training primary school teachers in Malaysia had been too craft orientated (one route allowed for this training to take place in the sixth form curriculum, so that young adults moved straight from their last days as a pupil directly into the staffroom of their new workplace.) In this national programme, rolled out over a number of years, the ministry sought to raise the standards of their existing primary teacher workforce. Here was a real effort to redress a perceived imbalance in the then current situation. The cell diagonally opposite to this, bottom-up origin, benefitting the individual, is populated by the coaching/reflective model of teacher development. It is possibly the smallest closed loop programme of all, as the reflective teacher may be providing their own origins and their own benefit. It can of course be widened, within a coaching programme or as part of one of the programmes or the other cells of this version of the matrix. It was the remaining two cells, top-left and bottom-right, that were of particular interest. Taken together, these raise questions about the merits of giving formal accreditation to professional-learning programmes and also the relative perceptions of two different approaches. Once again, some unpacking of terms will be helpful. The rather abbreviated ‘academic masters’ and ‘practice-focused masters’ may be misunderstood. Remember that this matrix is considering and comparing professional learning that comes from a top-down direction and which benefits the individual, on the one hand, and a bottom-up originating programme that benefits the organization. Consider the first of these, where the cell is labelled with ‘academic masters’. This is intended to encompass all the university originated masters degrees that might be offered to, and chosen by, teachers looking for their own personal advancement. They may have done this with the knowledge and blessing of their school and there may be, in a few cases, some financial support. There may also, in some cases, be an expectation of some spin-off benefit to the school as a result of this teacher attending this course. However, the prime beneficiary must be the individual teacher. The change in thinking, and hence the change in practice, that results has a greater chance of staying with them for a considerable time, arguably beyond their period of tenure in the school that supported them. Any benefit to the school will be a bonus. In contrast, in the second case, there is one masters course in particular that stands out as an example of how an accredited course can be, in a very real sense, developed and steered by the participants and at the same time benefit their organization. In the first decade of this century, the white paper ‘Being the Best for our Children’ (DCSF, 2008) proposed the creation of a national degree, the Masters in Teaching and Learning (MTL). This was to be made available, for free, to all newly qualified teachers in schools deemed to be facing challenging circumstances (and later for

Positioning Teacher Development

all staff moving into their first responsibility post in these schools). Later, this was adopted and modified, as the Masters in Education Practice (MEP), by the Welsh Assembly for use in their own schools. Although this was originated at government level, and developed by teams of university education academics, it placed much of the fine detail in the hands of the teachers, and their schools. The degree itself was designed to be inquiry-led and classroom-focused – and was to be delivered locally rather than on a remote university campus (DCSF, 2008). Thus, the intention was to allow staff/participants and their SLT, in negotiation, to research and develop practice within specific, school chosen situations. It was a noble ideal and in some instances, it produced a noticeable and measurable effect. As one head of a participating school (with seven participating teachers) noted: ‘every participating teachers’ level of teaching rose by at least half a level in observation’ (see Chapter 3 for further discussion). Since the ending of the MTL pilot, this cell has recently been offered a second – more widespread – candidate, that of the upswing in in-school teacher-led research activity. Although there is no accreditation, the teacher is certainly recognized (in the majority of cases, see Chapter 3 for further discussion) as a professional, capable of devising their own professional-learning programme – and one which is expected to have an effect that is broader than just their own improvement. If the two matrices are combined, some further observations can be made about the professional-learning landscape (Figure 1.10).

Reflective teacher

Practicefocused masters

ion ess f o Pr Individual

Organization

Top-down

Initiatives

Imposed course

Initiatives

Bottom-up

Top-down

Academic masters

Bottom-up

Figure 1.10  The full possible range of teacher education programmes (Burstow and Maguire, 2014, 113)

Tips for teachers

Collegiality

Cr

aft

Individual

Organization

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Effective Teacher Development

The first observation that becomes apparent, on looking at this combined picture, is how far this reveals the actual attitude to teachers of the political decision makers over the years. How many of the specific examples given in the previous sections, to illustrate the cell labels, demonstrate a view of teachers that actually is traditionally managerial; in that it takes an apprenticeship view towards teacher development. Teachers themselves, it must be said, have also taken this view in the past.

Pause for thought In fact, it would be interesting to add dates to the cells. How many of the cells in this combined matrix have a ‘peak era’ in terms of common practice over a particular span of years? Take a moment to consider this.

The second observation, and one which will be expanded through much of the remainder of this book, is how this structure might prove to be a useful tool in the design of new professional-learning opportunities and programmes. It is arguably the case that programme design occurs in a somewhat haphazard manner. My research with school leadership team members (see Chapter 2) reveals a very wide range of approaches and understanding with regards to the professional learning of their staff members. At the same time, there is increasingly limited capacity for any SLT to spend many hours devising effective programmes. It is proposed to offer this as a useful template to act as a focus for discussion and guide towards implementation in the planning of new professional learning programmes.

Concluding thoughts This initial chapter has looked at the development of ideas about continuing professional learning in schools. It has also suggested a different framework for organizing our view of the spread and possible functions of such learning opportunities. It has also introduced you to the main idea of the book – that this might be useful to anyone who is contemplating planning and implementing a programme – and who (as I was many times) stuck for a sensible starting point. Future chapters will take a closer look at specific areas, beginning with the ways and means of identifying the need for development.

2 Professional Learning Development from the Top-Down: Identifying the Need

Introduction

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When ‘top-down’ refers to the influence of world opinion

34

When ‘top-down’ refers to the desire of governments to influence schools

35

Under-communication between government initiators and the school-based implementers

35

An over-fast introduction of new initiatives

36

A possible inherent danger

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A sample of position of governments as a top-down influence on professional development

37

When ‘top-down’ means senior leadership in schools

40

When ‘top-down’ means higher education institutions

43

Concluding thoughts45

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Effective Teacher Development

I

n this chapter, we discuss:

– When ‘top-down’ refers to the influence of world opinion Outlining the examination of the provision of teacher development from a topdown perspective, from the point of view of both the school and the wider context of government – When ‘top-down’ refers to the desire of governments to influence schools ○ Under-communication between government initiators and the school-based implementers ○ An over-fast introduction of new initiatives ○ A possible inherent danger ○ A sample of position of governments as a top-down influence on professional development Drawing on evidence from an international programme research into topdown initiation of teacher development programmes in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and newly emerging areas of professional learning – When ‘top-down’ means senior leadership in schools Including contextual evidence provided by the heads and senior leaders interviewed for this book – When ‘top-down’ means higher education institutions

Introduction Having, in the previous chapter, presented a particular viewpoint and theorization of professional learning for teachers, this chapter will explore the issues surrounding a top-down identification of developmental needs – and a top-down imposition of the identified solutions. The model that I propose (see Figure 1.10) has three axes. This chapter and the ones following are concerned with issues surrounding the ‘origins’ axis – the y-axis one in the figure. In the sections that follow, there will be a consideration of the topdown end of this spectrum and its own range, from imposed courses to academic masters. There is an immediate prejudice to face here. So often, in discussion among teachers, there is a rather lazy equating of the term ‘professional learning’ with ‘going on a course’. This may be the case, of course, but it is far from the only possible method of professional learning; indeed, it has been argued that it is often the least successful form of professional learning, in terms of lasting impact. You will see how frequently this pairing is made, as the book progresses, and so I make no apology for making this point at this early stage – and for continuing to repeat it at regular intervals. One possible spectrum of professional learning was expressed by Fullan (1991) and paraphrased here. At one extreme, there is the idea of teachers as life-long-

Professional Learning Development from the Top-Down

learners – which equates to my bottom-up tips-for-teachers end. At the other, there is the workshop, distanced from the classroom, and developed for the teacher – equating to my top-down end of the axis. So, this chapter will be concerned with the imposition of professional learning from the ‘top’. It considers: who might constitute a ‘top-down’ group; the particular interest that these groups might have in playing a part in identifying ‘needs’ and some of the issues that will arise for the recipients of the derived solutions. Once again, although this book is concerned with the professional learning of teachers as a world-wide activity, you should remember that my experience is firmly set in an English context, at a time when English schooling has become increasingly overtaken by a variety of measures. These have included: a privatized school inspection system, frequently reworked standards in education, publication of league tables of performance. These moves have been accompanied by a new vocabulary that includes such terms as ‘naming and blaming’, ‘failing’ and ‘sink’ as descriptors of schools. We have also experienced, or at least witnessed, a return to versions of payment by results and a general preoccupation with test scores that encourage teaching to the test (Sugrue, 2004). As a teacher of over thirty years’ experience, I provide a contrast to the increasingly short memory of a succession of politicians and civil servants who carried a remit for this sector. So, what might ‘top-down’ actually mean? I am reminded of the way some children used to label their exercise books, writing out the maximum possible address (London, England, Europe, Earth, Solar System, etc.). Professional learning presents a similar layered set of possibilities (although we aren’t quite up to ‘Milky Way’ level yet). At the lowest level, ‘top-down’ might, for a junior teacher, be the head of a large department such as Maths. I would question whether a two-person department, like Music, would ever get to such a level of separation, where the junior teacher refers to the Head of Department as ‘them’ in conversation.

Pause for thought This might, however, prove to be a useful boundary identifier. Consider your own professional experience and the relationships you have within that world. How far away from your own level do you have to move in your imagination, before you feel that you might well refer to your colleagues as ‘them’, as in ‘being on the other side of the management divide’.

This chapter will work through the various layers or strata of influence on schools and teachers, starting from the most distant and then gradually approaching. At each level, we will consider the drivers and modifying influences that may have an effect on the actual professional learning of individual teachers. We shall begin at the most general, most over-arching, the ‘universe’ of the imaginary pupil’s address.

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When ‘top-down’ refers to the influence of world opinion For the field of education, ‘world opinion’ (as evidenced, in national media, by international test results) is the highest possible influence. It is, inevitably, also the most generalized or vague. Typically – as in the development of the Masters in Teaching and Learning degree in 2008 (DCSF, 2008) and the introduction of free schools (HMG, 2010) in England – the original inspiration for the development can be traced back to an idea or practice from another country – in these cases: Finnish teacher development practice and the charter schools movement in the United States, respectively – which was itself inspired in part by the English Grant-Maintained schools movement (Whitty, 2012). World opinion, in the form of policy tourism, can fire off development, but maybe only as a trigger to further detailed work. The risk, of course, is that uprooting a development from one (foreign) context and attempting to grow it on, in the home conditions – with no consideration for any other extraneous factors, such as the social, economic or political – may well lead to a very limited success rate. These effects can be quite subtle. I explored some of these following my work with groups of Malaysian head teachers – an interesting example of international professional learning by the Malaysian Ministry of Education (Burstow, 2009). Here, several barriers to learning were presented by the juxtaposition of an apparently shared language, set against a significantly differing understanding of the meaning of the words used in professional conversation. For example, at the time of the exchange programme, both countries had an inspection system that used a self-evaluation form (SEF) which the head of the school was required to complete, and which formed an evidence base for the next inspection team. It was only after considerable discussion that it became apparent that ‘inspection’ was a very different process in each country. In England, a team of inspectors arrived and, in effect, checked the heads standards by parallel and independent class observations. The results of the inspection were a matter of public record and were reported on in the local, and possibly national, press. The SEF itself was a complex document, which if filled in by a mindful head teacher would develop into a large document, mostly text-based, with figures and tables to support the statements made about the school. In Malaysia, in contrast, the SEF was a briefer document, mainly requiring a box-ticking exercise. The actual inspection, in Malaysia, was also much more formalized, and the outcomes were only made know to the head of the school and to the Ministry of Education. As a result, the inspection process was viewed in a very different way by head teachers in the two countries. It was possible, in Malaysia, for a head to be told that they had been accurate in judging their school to be excellent in every category and hence to have achieved a specific goal, for which they might expect to be rewarded. This, given the regular changing definition of the various inspection grades, is a most unlikely scenario for English school heads. Moving down one small layer, we can now consider a single government, rather than the previous, more diffuse, ‘world opinion’.

Professional Learning Development from the Top-Down

When ‘top-down’ refers to the desire of governments to influence schools It is national governments, across the world, who arguably represents the most influential top-down sector in terms of influencing professional learning programmes. Government’s recent interest in CPD … are driven by concern for and preoccupation with economic competitiveness in the global economy. (Sugrue, 2009, 86)

Looking at the academic and media accounts of this form of top-down influence around the world does not present a coherent picture. Fullan’s (1987) comment concerning the under-reporting – only four studies – of the effectiveness of imposed professional learning programmes (which comprised 60 per cent of the World Bank’s education projects at that time) still rings true today. Considerable amounts of time and money may be used for comparatively little documented impact. There are, however, some threads that reappear in several different country’s programmes – of which three will be discussed here:

Under-communication between government initiators and the school-based implementers There has been a perceptible change of emphasis away from a total focus on preservice teacher education towards a tension between decentralized responsibilities trying to function within a centralized policy model (Sugrue, 2004). This is reflected in reports from Greece, where a top-down emphasis on teachers engaging with research was met with the teachers reporting difficulty in applying what they read to their practice (Papasotiriou and Hannan, 2006). I would echo this with an anecdote from an international Masters seminar group in 2013 at King’s College London, where a Geography teacher from Singapore was quizzed by colleagues from around the world on the, then, much publicized professional learning practice in Singapore’s schools. His account revealed a cascade system, which (as is so often the case) depended upon the interest and involvement of the person tasked with delivering the seminar to his local group. To paraphrase his words: ‘It depends so much on the enthusiasm and interest of the Head of Geography who is receiving the paper from the District Office. If he is not interested in the subject, then our own session may be a waste of time.’ Further lack of communication comes from Cyprus where, according to Angelides and Gibbs (2007), little attention is paid to how teachers will be supported during professional learning programmes; from Australia, where according to Hardy (2008) there is an over-emphasis on promoting the areas of knowledge that

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support commercial advance; and from the Caribbean where, in contrast, there is a need for greater collaboration between policymakers and schools about the choice of policies to be implemented (James, 2010). From these, and other sources, it seems that there is often a disjunction between the ‘good ideas’ being generated at the top and the actual delivery and implementation.

An over-fast introduction of new initiatives This applies, as we shall see, to some school SLT as well as governments. From around the world, Malaysia – who has a long track record of top-down innovation in schools – one drive follows hard on the heels of the other. So, when the Ministry of Education is stating that by 2010 all school will be Smart Schools (Malaysian Ministry of Education, 1997), the Quality Circles movement lost impetus under new waves of legislation (Macbeath and Cheng, 2008), and at this time, the Cluster Schools initiative was starting its four-year run (Ismail, 2011). The sense of innovation overload implied here is supported by one comment that Ministry expectations run ahead of most schools are capable of delivering (Nunan, 2003). This is far from the only example of an over-enthusiastic government. England, reported around the world as having an almost experimental approach to education, has introduced very detailed professional learning programmes (Menter, 2002), often at a micro-management level. So, since the great education debate of 1988 – and irrespective of which party is in power – English schools have had to change their governance several times (for example: grant-maintained schools, specialist schools and academization); they have had closely prescribed lesson content (numeracy and literacy hours, teaching reading by phonics); in addition to an extraordinary number of other minor interventions (over 300 directives and circulars in 1998 alone) all of which, took time and effort on the part of each school to address.

A possible inherent danger In a correspondence, some years ago, I wrote: Centralization of cpd carries with it a number of risks. Once any government becomes the sole source of information dissemination, there is the danger that the content of all training programmes will become skewed to suit the policy of the day. This coupled with the increasing micro-management of the education sector raises a real risk of a creeping form of ‘Lysenkoism’, where only research that supports the philosophy and desires of the current government will be disseminated. (Burstow and Warren, 2008)

Professional Learning Development from the Top-Down

As a former deputy-head, who began studies for the National Professional Qualification for Headship (after I had gained my doctorate in education), I have experienced this at first hand. I found myself in a narrowly constrained course, where any questions designed to broaden the conversation were met with ‘We don’t have time for that’ from the tutors. Although this feels petty-minded to me as I write it, it does illustrate a real issue that should be faced by any implementer of top-down developments: how one might best approach the education of an already educated student population. The entry level to the course will vary for each participant. For the tutors to assume a single level is to risk losing any participants whose level of knowledge and experience falls outside that range. To the more highly developed participant, the tuition will be viewed as simplistic, possibly patronizing, limited and even false. The outcome of this, as it was in my own case, may well be disengagement, dissatisfaction and withdrawal from something that is apparently irrelevant and ill-informed. If the participant is less well prepared, then the single level teaching approach may lead to misunderstanding, loss of connection and engagement with the subject and possibly a similar outcome. This is nothing new, in terms of a teacher in a school classroom, but it is too often ignored in higher level education, and too often in the context of continuing professional learning. In the example that prefaced this subsection, I was referring to aspiring head teachers as the ‘already educated’ group. It is possible to argue that the likely spread of knowledge and experience is comparatively small, although still worthy of being accounted for in the planning. But, where ‘government’ is the source of the imposed direction, then head teachers and the whole of schools’ staff may well constitute the target group. In this case, the range of experience and knowledge will be much greater, with a correspondingly increased risk of failure in terms of the delivery. This was clearly shown in the country-wide initiative to develop IT skills across the whole of a school staff, of every school in England. This New Opportunities Fund course failed in many instances and caused major resentment in the many school staffrooms for reasons that often related to the level and approach of the tuition (Conlon, 1999).

A sample of position of governments as a topdown influence on professional development So, those are three of the threads that are identifiable, from the literature and personal experience. These and other factors, arguably all stem from a single source – the ideals and policies of the political party currently in power in a country. These needs have sometimes been expressed as a desire to produce an educated and properly prepared workforce – a generation fit to continue the development of the country into the future. In England, this may be seen as being at the root of the National Curriculum, the literacy and numeracy projects and the revisions to the public exam system. At other times, however, in England at least, this has seemed to have been lost in a shorter-

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term stance. How far was the micro-electronics in education project (Fothergill and Anderson, 1983) about our future well-being and how much about providing a source of customers for the producers of computers, software and consultancy? How much was the English Baccalaureat (White, 2013) a means of imposing an (rather old-fashioned) ideology onto a school system that had no real desire to freely adopt it? For school leaders do need persuading at times. It is often forgotten, that, in the case of initial teacher education, the original school-based training programme – the Graduate Teacher Programme (GTP) – was failing, until funding was provided to schools to support the programme, and the trainees themselves were identified as supernumerary to the staffing needs of the school (DfEE, 1996, 5). Only at this point did this initiative become popular with schools, possibly because, at that point, heads saw a chance to gain more teaching staff at no cost to their existing budget. So, idealism and looking to the future has become muddied, in England, by other, generally short-term factors. A mixed story (inevitably) applies across the world. Looking at just two international examples gives a sense of the range of issues and thinking. It is interesting to record, for example, that Finland – for so many years the topranking country in the international testing programme (PISA), has recently taken a closer look at the effectiveness of schools in their own (rather than international) terms. A recent BBC documentary on Radio 4 (Montague, 2015) shows that Finland has taken the step of moving away from the international measures – as they were not meeting the identified needs of the country. At the another extreme, Nigeria – oil-rich and therefore with the option of making lasting choices – is supporting the faith of the nation, spending money on sending parties of pilgrims to Jerusalem, while average class size in the country has increased from around 60 to between 150 and 200 over the last five years (Clarke and Ausukuya, 2013). This, to the concern of educators there, is inevitably having an extremely negative effect on the education of the current generation of school pupils.

Pause for thought At this point, pause for a moment and consider your own country and its context. What is your own situation, in these three areas: –  Is your government interesting itself with the professional learning of school teachers? – What do you feel is the reason behind this interest? – Do you have any evidence to support your answer to the previous question?

The improvements in world-wide communication and travel have led to policy tourism (Whitty, 2012) and shaped government policies for education, including professional learning (Day and Sachs, 2010, 4). Subsequently, continuing

Professional Learning Development from the Top-Down

professional learning has increasingly become a compulsory part of a teacher’s professional life. What the specific demands are will depend upon the country. Examples can be drawn from all the major educational ecologies. There is, of course, a range of apparent interest across the various examples, and there are some where it is difficult to see any specific desire to become involved in this area (Austria, for example, where, anecdotally, professional learning may cease after the – albeit lengthy – initial training phase.) Governments who are concerned to have an influence in this area seem to do so because of recognition that the teacher workforce provides a key link to the next generation of citizens (both employees and consumers) for that country, and that here is an opportunity to work to direct the development of that potential. The problems that may be encountered often stem from a disjunction between the desires and ideas of the ministers (and their civil servants) and the recipients of the resulting professional learning programme. As mentioned earlier, in 2000, the New Labour government in England set up a country-wide programme of information technology training for every teacher in the country. In the event, the programme took little account of the range of previous experience of the teacher population and was often greeted by resentment and impatience (Conlon, 1999). On a more positive note, the same government initiated a large collection of online resources, on a variety of websites (Teacher TV and TeacherNet for example) which offered some excellent quality resources for schools to use. This less directed approach was often welcomed by schools (and individual teachers), who were able to select from a wide range of material to fit more precisely to their own specific needs and stage(s) of development, understanding and expertise. Sadly, a change in government revealed the danger of politicizing such material. In an act of near vandalism, all these websites, and years of carefully collated and indexed materials, were shut. The online pages were transferred to the National Archive website but with none of the accompanying search engine or page linking – similar to shovelling libraries of books into a pile in a cellar. Only a small amount of this material was preserved, largely thanks to the actions of interested newspapers – notably the Guardian and the Times Educational Supplement – who acquired some of this archive to make available to the schools again. Whether the privatization of this material will affect its worth in the eyes of the teachers – and whether it will make it more long lasting – remains to be seen. Across Europe, despite the differences in political leadership and the structures of the education systems (Sugrue, 2004, 78) there was, for some time a similarity in the relationship between central government prescription and some local freedom of interpretation and implementation. In England, this relationship developed with increasing centralization and specificity of the delivery methods of the professional learning programmes that resulted from so many new initiatives. In Africa, many countries find that they have to deal with two distinct traditions and populations: the modern citizens and traditional subjects, which often is revealed as a variety of urban/rural tensions (Christie et al., 2010, 168). In other countries, the

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government’s perception of teacher development needs may vary, depending on their understanding of the future needs of the country. For example, as part of its ‘Vision 2020’ programme, the Malaysian government (in the early years of this century) saw a need for all their pupils to be speakers of English, as the de facto international language. As a result, teachers of Maths and Science were required to develop their own spoken and written English skills to be able to continue to teach their subject. One effect of this was to reveal a similar split in the population, this time between affluent internationally aware and poorer locally focused populations. This latter group was to be found both urban and rural settings. It also included both pupils and teachers in the non-academic schools. Now, in all the layers of ‘top-down’ sources, we move one step closer to the individual teacher.

When ‘top-down’ means senior leadership in schools For many teachers in schools, the control of interventions, professional development or learning lies with the senior team. This is often means a much closer relationship between the initiator and the recipient, and may therefore offer more opportunity for mediation or fine tuning. In mid-2015, I had the opportunity to interview a small sample of senior leaders in schools, to explore this question, as part of an extended conversation, examining some of the issues surrounding teachers being involved with, or conducting research. Although the sample was small in number (24 interviews), the findings were of interest and reveal a possible range of attitude and approach (Bryan and Burstow, 2015). In very many instances, the way in which the decisions are made has the feel of commonality. Susan, one of the participating heads, is typical when she said: ‘We would identify needs based on previous years’ work – the school development plan’ and this seems to be a very natural thing for an SLT to do. Once these decisions have been made, however, the variety of actions multiplies. Three of the most common developments: over-arching control, negotiated autonomy and a near total noninvolvement are unpacked below. For some, the element of control is absolute: Everything is dictated … they don’t believe that we are professionals, they don’t treat us like it. I think we need to be more open … they need to be more approachable. (Pauline) or Prior to a training day SLT meet to decide what the content is going to be … and the session is planned and delivered by either members of SLT or members of staff with expertise in the area. (Simon)

Professional Learning Development from the Top-Down

Both of which seem quite determined and inflexible. Even if staffs are consulted about their perceived aims, the SLT can provide influence: We cross moderate the targets that we have set … to make sure that we are being consistent in the rigour and challenge of the targets. These are then altered and given out to the teachers. (Priscilla)

A slightly more relaxed approach is apparent in these next examples: I gave them a list of projects and they then said which they would be interested in working on. (Sally)

Here then, individual staff members – or staff teams – are invited to make some decisions within an over-arching framework. Another level is recounted by Prudence. Although she starts in an apparently highly controlling way – ‘We picked it because we have to decide which ones we want to lead on’ – she then quickly hands the detailing over to teams of staff, headed up by one SLT member. This has the effect of quickly distributing the decision making and also the responsibility for the resulting professional learning. There was one further step in this spectrum of practice, almost a denial of responsibility, when Steve said, ‘Our approach – has not put in place rigid structures to the way people engage with certain elements of CPD – it is more a stipulation of the principles behind it and with it you have a range of choices.’ This may have been giving an account of a mature and fully distributed leadership style – but in the context of the whole interview, it was rather a laissez faire approach from an SLT that was realizing the potential weaknesses behind this seemingly liberal attitude. There was also an outlier at the other extreme. Pauline gave an account of an SLT that not only retained all control, but then seemingly refused to use it constructively. ‘An external adviser said many things are not good enough – but how much better if the SLT said “I want you to pick on one of them and get that right” – rather than pick on all five and driving us into the ground.’

Pause for thought We shall return to this data set later, when considering the SLT approaches to a bottom-up approach from their staff. For the moment, the data has revealed a range of approaches within the ‘top-down’ view of professional learning.

– How does your experience match with these accounts? – Do you agree with the stances or philosophical positions that these SLT are taking? – Do you have evidence for further extremes – or a detail to add within this revealed range?

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The quality of leadership is one of the main keys to a school being viewed as successful at inspection. The style of leadership will depend upon a number of changing factors, which a skilled leader will take into account in deciding on the style best suited to promoting continuing development. Hersey and Blanchard (Hersey et al., 2012) argue that key among these changing criteria is the effectiveness of the team being led. Put simply, inexperienced and ineffective teams will need an autocratic emphasis, while an established and effective team will flourish if given much more control and responsibility for their own development. This is dealt with in more detail in Chapter 6. Within the context of this chapter, there are two significant effects to consider: First, an autocratic approach is simple – and comforting for the leader – because they are doing the job themselves. However, it implies a lack of trust and ultimately an apparently demeaning view of the team (look back to Pauline’s comments). If pursued with an experienced and enthusiastic team, the outcome is likely to be a loss of morale, drive and enthusiasm for the task in hand. Second, schools (in the main) are made up of several teams, which may be overlapping in quite a complex manner. It would be most unexpected to find that every team in the schools was working to the same level of maturity and expertise – so it would be unreasonable, in Hersey’s terms, for a school-leader to use an identical leadership style for every team. Yet this is what some of the more autocratic, topdown enthusiasts, recorded above, seem to be doing. To summarize, for a school senior leadership team, while top-down may represent a comfort zone, and may occasionally be necessary in some subsets of the whole, it is rarely likely to be the ideal solution for everybody in all the subteams in the school. This thinking is to take a very much Anglo-centric view, of course. Simkins et al. (2003) note the difficulties likely to be experienced by heads themselves brought up in a highly bureaucratic hierarchical system. Ali et al. (2007) too note how head teachers, in Malaysia, found the implementation of autonomy to be a difficult concept, after an extensive period of central government control. To a lesser extent, the relaxation of centralized testing in England (when KS3 tests for 14-year-old pupils were stopped) was a freedom that few schools embraced – except to change their testing preparation timings by adding the ‘free’ year to the lead in to the KS4 tests at 16. Increasing autonomy, at any level, is a difficult and (to the leader at any rate) potentially challenging and unusual activity, especially after an extended period of autocratic leadership from the higher leadership layers. So, as with the government as the top-down source, we will summarize the reasons why senior leaders might want to become involved with the professional learning of their staff. For this was not always the case. Hargreaves, in his elegantly argued paper (Hargreaves, 2000), suggests an evolution of professional learning. He identifies (for the Anglo-Western context) an extended period of ‘pre-professional’ teaching, which dates from 1904 in England and arguably existed until around the 1970s. This period was a time when a brief pre-service training period was all that was necessary for a solitary career with

Professional Learning Development from the Top-Down

limited resources and support. Since that time, as a result of increasing research and political interest into school teaching, further professional learning has become an increasingly significant part of every teacher’s career content. How far this is seen as a matter for the individual teacher, and how far as an imposed expectation by the school varies from school to school – but increasingly the focus for such learning has moved away from the Local Authority Teachers Centre or the privatized consultancy offices or hotel conference centre and into the school (in parallel with Hargreaves transition from autonomy, through collegiality and into post-professional learning). For the recognition (thanks in large part to the work of Joyce and Showers (1980)) of the over-riding importance of context and duration in making professional learning effective seems to have been accompanied by an increase in top-down drivers, which have influenced the part played by the head and senior team in the process. So, where Hargreaves writes of professional learning taking place in school with head’s approval, the effect of the increased amount of directives has been to move the heads’ position from that of passive approval to one of active control – as it is they who will be called to account if their school is found to be wanting in terms of national expectations. Indeed, it would be interesting to see if there was a relationship between the degree of control exerted by the head and senior team, and their perception of the amount of risk the school runs of being found wanting – Fullan, it was, who notably defined a successful school as one that could choose which government requirements to ignore (Hargreaves, 2000). There is a tension here resulting from the position of the head as an interface between the demands of the district, school board or government from above, the perceived developmental needs of the teachers in the school and then the, possibly, opposing views of those teachers. Simkins et al. (2003) echo these thoughts in their account of three head teachers in Pakistan. You will find further detail in my case studies of London head teachers and senior leaders, which is to be found on the website that accompanies this book. There is a sideways step to take in this series of subsections, which has been gradually dropping down through the various players who constitute the ‘top’ layers. Off to one side lies the subtle and varying influence of the universities, who provide a particular, view of professional learning.

When ‘top-down’ means higher education institutions You will remember, from the original model in Chapter 1, that (in addition to the national government and the school senior team) there is another possibility for a ‘top-down’ source – the initiators of formal, accredited professional learning – the universities.

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The position of English universities to teacher education has varied over the last seventy-five years. At different periods, and under different government ideologies, the universities have successively: – played little or no part in teacher education (when teacher training took place in separate colleges, and much in-service work occurred in Local Authority teachers’ centres) – been given over-riding influence in the initial training programmes (the Post-Graduate Certificate of Education and Bachelor of Education)) and an increasing role in long term in-service programmes (the DES 21-day courses, for example, were often run by a university School of Education) – been cut back with the advent of an increasing proportion of school-based initial induction routes (starting with the GTP and then the School Direct programme development). As some schools have developed expertise and confidence in both initial and continuing professional learning, so their dependence on the university has diminished, often turning the university into a supplicant rather than a partner in a learning relationship. There is still a place for universities in the professional learning of school teachers. What the university offers is a long view in an increasingly short-term world, a distanced and considered stance as opposed to a pressured and emotional view and, most importantly, an opportunity for the teacher to be treated as an intelligent professional – capable of drawing on several differing sources and philosophies to contribute to the forming of any final opinion. How this last sits with the current view of teachers (in England at least) as a sort of glorified courier, uncritical conduits for a particular set of national learning requirements, is not clear. What is apparent is that the method of control by a mixture of inspection and externally imposed standards which has been a factor of school life in England since the introduction of Ofsted in 1992 (http://www.politics. co.uk/reference/ofsted) is increasingly being seen in university life (Burns, 2012; Goodfellow, 2015). How far is it possible for schools’ policymakers to strike an acceptable balance between political ideology and evidence-based decisions (Hunt in Burns, 2012)?

Pause for thought At this point, pause to consider your own position (and that of your school, perhaps) to universities and what they offer to teachers:

– Do universities play a role in initial and continuing learning of teachers in your context? – Should the role they play be changed in any way?

Professional Learning Development from the Top-Down

An interesting ‘blip’ in the sequence outlined above was the introduction of a new master’s degree for teachers, introduced by the New Labour government in England (DCSF, 2008). Here, it is possible to see the coming together of a variety of influences: the ‘policy tourism’ that identified the pursuit of a higher degree by Finnish teachers as a key constituent of their international success, the micro-management tendencies of the New Labour administration (who had in 1998 alone introduced over 300 separate items of ‘guidance’ for schools) and a desire, through the Teacher Development Agency, to gain some measure of control over what universities were to be allowed to teach. There has been some writing about this period (Burton and Goodman, 2011; Castle et al., 2013; Burstow and Winch, 2014) but little has been recorded (or documented beyond the official minutes) about the lengthy series of meetings between university representatives, from every government region in England, and representatives from the TDA. It was around this table that academics were made to face another change and new ambition from above. The New Labour micro-management was now seen to be extended into the teaching at post-graduate level. Was the degree to be marked as Pass/Fail, as Distinction/Pass/Fail or on a percentage scale with cut off points, for example? Final decisions were made by the TDA and were then left for the university representatives to persuade their own academic boards to implement. In one or two cases, universities withdrew from participation, as the controlling demands (on admission criteria, for example) became too much. It was interesting to note – anecdotally – that those who withdrew seemed to be those who were most confident of the strength of their position (much like Fullan’s comment about schools). Other universities, in practice, would ‘game’ the system – again like the state schools – to adjust the speedily produced guidelines to suit their own existing practice. This single example clearly signalled a change in attitude towards universities and teacher education. However, the Education schools and departments showed themselves less than adept at reacting to these signs. Eight years later, and with further diminution of their role in schools, there is still no coherent alternative being proposed. Perhaps this is not surprising, the much more numerous – and potentially better organized – state school system was unable to resist the steady encroachment of ‘rule by result’. The withering of an independent voice in teacher education will be something that future generations may mourn – if there is any memory left of the period that now seems to be coming to a close.

Concluding thoughts This chapter has unpacked the variety of players who might adopt the role of ‘topdown’ influence on professional learning. None of them act in isolation. They are all, in their turn, influenced by a variety of other factors and strata in the education hierarchy. Take some time to consider your own context and experience to see how well this chapter maps onto your own experience.

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Pause for thought So, what should be done?

– How can those who have the influence now work to maintain this balance? – Is this a cause that social networking might address – or is this too transient a medium?

Given the very reasonable view, that any nations children are the seed corn for a country’s future growth and development, it is only to be expected that there should be an expectation, on the part of government, that its teaching workforce should be as well qualified as possible and that they should be maintaining the relevance of their work methods and content. One tension arises in the relative life-span of politics and of education. In a democracy, with a system of regular elections, the attention span of a politician is most often limited to a relatively brief period of around five years. For a teacher, or a school, this would represent the working minimum period over which clear change might be measured. More often, it takes a considerably longer period, and using different measures than the currently popular (and also rapidly changing) measure of exam results. For example, you get a very different view of the impact of education if you use membership of libraries as a measure of literacy (very rapid and highly significant increases through much of the twentieth century). What does this mean for the high-up initiators of a profession learning programme? A recognition and understanding of how different schools are from national government, perhaps. A willingness to negotiate with the practising professionals below, whatever the layer of top-downness that is initiating the learning intervention, ideally. An acceptance of the messiness of the whole of the schools’ system, and hence the impossibility of imposing one successful programme directed equally at every participant, just maybe. The next chapter examines this same axis from the opposite direction professional learning from the bottom-up.

3 Professional Learning Development from the Bottom-Up: The Value of the Home Grown

Introduction

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Bottom-up movement across the country

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Case Study 1: Whole school professional learning – allowing the staff to take responsibility

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Development of the programme 

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Outcomes and short-term evaluation

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Evaluation over longer term

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Analysis and observation

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Case Study 2: Staff responsibility within an SLT structure – Bottom-up meets top-down

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Concluding thoughts

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H

ere, you will find an argument for a re-emphasis on teacher-initiated development:

– Bottom-up movement across the country Starting with the recent return to the idea of a teacher-as-researcher, we examine the more rigorous approach that is possible through both accredited and nonaccredited routes when they are facilitated by university tutors or other expert sources. – Case Study 1: Whole school professional learning – allowing the staff to take responsibility ○ Development of the Programme ○ Outcomes and short-term evaluation ○ Evaluation over longer term ○ Analysis and observation – Case Study 2 – Staff responsibility within an SLT structure: Bottom-up meets Top-down With additional documentary evidence from a school-focused practice-based post-graduate study. – Concluding thoughts The English schools-based supporting evidence engages with other international contexts.

Introduction The last chapter was devoted to a consideration of the various sources of influence that might be considered as top-down in terms of professional learning programmes for school teachers. It deliberately presented a one-sided view, in an effort to establish an envelope or boundary before plunging – as we will in later chapters – into the confusion that lies within. In the sections that follow we will consider drives from the opposite direction, the development of professional learning programmes that rise from lower levels. Just as in Chapter 2, there is a range of possible identities here – depending on who is taking the view of the initiators. So, in a large department, an individual teacher may be the source (either of demand or of delivery of the programme – I am thinking here particularly of the start of computing in schools, which was often started by a single enthusiast in the Maths or Science department). To a politician, the development of a new bottom-up development in subject teaching or examination might be a school – famously Thomas Telford school for its groundbreaking online examination course in IT – which it sold around the country (Mansell, 2003).

Professional Learning Development from the Bottom-Up

Bottom-up movement across the country Let us start, then, with some consideration of a relatively new bottom-up initiative, one aspect of the 2014 revival of schools’ (and teachers’) interest and involvement in educational research. This can be traced back to two separate drives. Of lesser interest in this chapter (although it will play an important part in later discussion) was the introduction of Teaching Schools as a particular specialism and level of expertise. Qualifying schools were obliged, among other things, to demonstrate to the inspectorate that they were a research active school at several levels including allowing teachers the time and support needed to take part in research and development activities (DfE, 2010; National College, 2014). At about the same time, a self-expressed grass-roots movement was starting. ResearchEd was an initiative curated by Tom Bennett (teacher and journalist) and nurtured on social media. Its aim was to bring together teachers and those working in education research, in a discussion about ‘what works’ in education (Bennett, 2013, 2016). The first of what became a series of one-day conferences attracted over 600 London-based young teachers, who spent a very full Saturday listening to a wide variety of research and education experts. It was the youth and enthusiasm of the delegates that impressed. Although the initiative may have been perhaps not quite at beginner teacher level (Bennett was at the time a published author and columnist) the drive and enthusiasm certainly was. The movement is not limited to England, at the time of writing their website was promoting conferences in Amsterdam and Scandinavia as well as continuing, expanding work (and increasingly focused in terms both of subject and phase) across England. The enthusiasm is very obvious. What is less easy to tease out is the effect that it is having and the view of this initiative (and teacher research engagement in general) from school leaders. The remainder of this section uses a data set, collected by Hazel Bryan and myself, from head teachers and other SLT members from a sample of twenty-four schools in and around London (Bryan and Burstow, 2015). In all cases, quoted participants have pseudonyms. Gender identity has been preserved and the school phase in which they work (primary or secondary) is indicated by the initial letter of their name. As you would expect the response to our first research question: ‘When does teacher enquiry cross over to become research?’ produced a range of answers – from the don’t know/confused end, through the heavily qualified mid-range, to the definite denial of any possibility. More confused responses included Priscilla not being too sure of what the question meant: ‘Would that be anyone doing a Masters? As far as I’m aware no one is. They wouldn’t share it with me even if they were’ – which suggests that the question had not yet arisen within her school’s learning programme. Confessions of ignorance similarly suggest unfamiliarity with the concept. Patsy offers: ‘giving people time to go off and visit other places, read and do that in a more formal way’

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while Patricia felt that ‘research that occurs with staff happens on a private basis’ – and is, in other words, nothing to do with the school. Those who accepted that there was a boundary put it in different places. For Simon, it is dissemination – ‘you wouldn’t call it research. It won’t be published’. For Susan, it was the accreditation: ‘if they move on to a masters then they become researchers’ – to which she added the absolute importance of the university, in that, if it’s ‘teacher-led development, they are teachers’ – which was echoed by Sean: ‘the model for delivery that emerged over the course of the programmes – because when these things were being set up it was to be Masters accreditable and so forth – then it became Masters level thinking’. This last point denies the possibility of any other teacher being able to exhibit thinking at this level, despite teaching now being an exclusively graduate profession and hence there being many more teachers capable of working at this level than those who actually commence on a Masters course. The Finnish take – that it is the journey (towards an M-level qualification) that matters rather than the arrival – accepts the possibility that all teachers have the capability; a much more positive position. The university was also seen as having a key role in answering this question. Shelley ‘asked an academic colleague to help teachers to conduct the action research’, as they had recognized the different demands being made on their staff. Less positively, and in a school with many more years’ experience in this form of teacher inquiry, Susan reported that ‘[The University] are certainly very twitchy about the Masters that has been running for all of these years because they’re saying “Well it doesn’t really fit our recognised [practice]” – So none of it is research’. Here, the answer to the question has been left to University colleagues, who decided that this particular research should be classed as ‘teacher inquiry’ or ‘systems audit’. However, while this removes the need for any formal clearance by an ethics committee, it does not mean that there should be no discussion about the ethical issues that might still arise in this situation. There were heads in the sample who had a clear view of the importance of – and the need for – professional learning of this kind. Pam was clear that her staff ‘don’t want it done to them, they want to be involved in the doing of it. When they are involved in it – the results will be better’. She also saw a great benefit in terms of retention – and this in an inner-city authority, with a typical rapid turnover of young teachers. She, in contrast said: ‘We are very, very stable – no one is looking to leave because they find that their have more responsibility here than [in their new post]. So, because we have given those opportunities, they feel that if they move to another school, they have no sense of what they will be doing’. In other words, responsibility and involvement often beat promotion in attractiveness.

Padraig felt similarly that: ‘It changes the mindset of everyone, everyone has a story to tell … I’ve got practitioners who are pushing in every corner of the school to drive practice forward. Because its led by them, research based practice has moved us on apace’.

Professional Learning Development from the Bottom-Up

This has brought us to a point where we need to muddy the waters a little. It is too much to hope that the origin and initiation of professional learning programmes will always be exclusively top-down or bottom-up. Inevitably, there will sometimes be a blurring – perhaps most frequently starting with a ‘steer’ from the top – followed by some freedom of action for the teachers. Two accounts follow, both of schools who pursued a similar path, but with slightly different blends in the mix. The first is a quite detailed case study of a one-yearlong professional learning programme in one primary school, the second is a rather shorter account (based on only one interview) of a similar programme that has been running for a rather longer period.

Case Study 1: Whole school professional learning – allowing the staff to take responsibility This account records the events and outcomes over a year in an English Church of England Primary school (teaching pupils from reception (4 to 5 year olds) to year 6 (10 and 11)). The school has two teaching groups in each year, of around thirty boys and girls in each group. In most classes, at this time, there was a full-time support assistant (adults, not qualified as teachers, who provided extra help for pupils in their classroom – often, but not exclusively, for children with an identified special educational need). The senior leadership team in this school was made up of a nonteaching head and deputy, with three key stage leaders, who each had a full timetable and class to educate. The school was broadly successful over several inspections, but had just missed the highest level (outstanding) because the teaching staff, as a body, was not identified as being at this level, while every other aspect of the school that fell under the inspectors’ remit met the top standard. The head identified a staff dependency culture, of leaning on the senior team for micro-management and of being too unsure or lacking in confidence to take responsibility for independent work in their own classroom. He approached me, as a former teaching colleague, to see what might be done.

Development of the programme The programme we developed was to call a halt to single-session, short-term, topdown training and to devote an entire academic year to teacher inquiry into their own practice. At the time, this school still had several of its formal training days in place at the start and ends of terms, as was common practice in English schools. I was booked into these, for shorter or longer sessions, to act as a marker for key points in

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the programme and to provide outside input. In addition, I was able to set up a series of sessions with the senior team to introduce them to coaching techniques, to allow them to step back from the autocratic (‘do what I say’) culture that the head and I identified as the corollary to the dependency of the rest of the staff. The programme itself was an extension of one that is familiar in teacher inquiry, and in some masters’ courses such as MTeach, run by the Institute of Education at UCL and the Masters in Teaching and Learning (MTL): – In July (at the end of their academic year and during their end of term training day), the staff was briefed about the coming year’s programme. They were told that the year would be devoted to their investigating learning in their classroom. To that end, they were told, at the first training day (towards the end of October, after six weeks with their new class), they should come prepared to share a ‘learning story’ about one, two (or possibly three) children whose learning was of interest or concern to them. This applied to all the staff involved in any classroom. So, teaching assistants as well as teachers would be expected to have a story to relate. The SLT were expected to share learning issues from their classroom and even (especially perhaps) the head, who taught RE (Religious Education) to several classes was told (in the introductory session) that he would be expected to contribute. The only exception to this overarching rule was the deputy, who would have left for a maternity leave by that stage. – In October, the learning stories were shared and discussed. Then, the remainder of the day was devoted to discussion and practice to allow the staff to address some of the skills and techniques needed for observing for learning (as opposed to observing a teacher – how for example can we tell whether a child is learning or not? If you are sure they are learning, how do you know what it is they have learned?) The head announced that he was employing an extra half of a teacher, to substitute in every class in turn, so as to allow staff the freedom to sit back quietly and watch the children. The outcome of this observation and (possible) interview period was to arrive at two or three closely focused questions or issues. – (During this session, the staff was also told of the remaining key points in the programme, which are detailed below in this timeline.) – The next meeting, in January, was a briefer session, replacing a staff meeting. Each teacher wrote out their three issues on a large sheet of paper (together with a very brief indicator of the age and gender of the child) leaving a large amount of space between each issue. These were then laid on desks or pinned to walls and then every staff member walked around the two rooms (there were a lot of A0 posters) writing suggestions as a response to the issues they were reading. As the session developed, staff was settling into discussions around particular posters and writing amendments to each other’s comments. At the end of the session, each teacher collected their own sheet and took them away. The next task for them was to devise an intervention, based on

Professional Learning Development from the Bottom-Up

the comments – or on further research both with colleagues and sources beyond the school if that was what was needed. This was then to be tested and evaluated in time for presentation and discussion at the final meeting. (It is worth mentioning, at this point, that the head’s memory of that session was that all the staff, SLT, teachers and assistants were all agreed that it was ‘a lively educational debate with everyone feeling involved, that they all had contributions to make, that they all felt valued and all gained something from it with high levels of collegiate support across classes, year groups and key stages. Put simply it was one of the best – if not the best – staff meetings I have witnessed and been part of’. This was due, in large part, to the preparation that had preceded this session. Every participant was clear about the subject of the meeting and the part they were to play in it.) – The final session was in July – a year after the initial meeting. Every teacher had the chance to present their findings and comments about their intervention. By this time, many of the teachers were working in close collaboration with their classroom assistants. As mentioned earlier, in parallel with the early part of this programme, I was engaging the senior team (including the head) in a series of sessions to introduce and encourage a coaching approach to their interaction with their key stage groups. These sessions in themselves became coaching sessions in their own right, as the senior team talked through their own issues and difficulties in putting these techniques into practice.

Outcomes and short-term evaluation Outcomes from the whole years’ work come from four sources. I was able to borrow and copy, with the permission of the staff, about 30 per cent of the poster exercises. This gave me a real insight into the process of group discussion that took place in the staff meeting. Second, my own record of the final meeting of the year produced some immediate insights – together with ‘immediate impression’ evaluation sheets completed by staff at the end of that final session. Third – and most significantly, I was able to return to the school four terms later (that is one year and one term after the end of the intervention) to record two focus group discussions – one made up of teachers and classroom assistants and the second comprising the senior leadership team. The record from the staff meeting session (about half way through the intervention – marking the watershed between the observation and analysis stage and the start of the trial and evaluation stage) gives a feel for what was of concern to those staff members and also some insight into the quality of thinking on the part of the group as a whole – for each sheet contained commentary from many different staff members, and further second level and third level comments. These extended conversations gave some insight into where the teachers were in their thinking.

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First, the issues identified, as a result of the observation period, fell into quite a small number of categories. The majority (12 out of 15) commented on lack of concentration on the art of their identified pupils. Most often this was described as being ‘easily distracted’, but in two cases, the child was more proactive: ‘distracting others’ and ‘try[ing] to initiate conversations … and moving round the classroom’. This related to another seven comments about ‘focus’, which often revealed itself in conversation: ‘she looks engaged during lessons, however if asked questions on the spot she struggles to answer’ and ‘appearing to be listening but when asked questions her replies and responses clearly indicate that she is not focused on task’. Comments on behaviour (11 cases) had an unsurprising high frequency. These were both low level (‘fiddling’ and ‘humming’) and higher level – ‘part of a group who distracts’ and ‘running around the class’. This also related to comments on ‘interpersonal’ behaviours observed. Issues such as ‘progress’ (6 cases) were present, but rather lower than might have been expected in this supposedly ambitious and broadly middle-class primary school. Observations in this area showed a clear division into the typical worried teacher comment: ‘seems to be making little progress’ and into the much more precise: ‘copying other children’s answers and responses, looking around her for reassurance that she is doing/saying the right thing’ and ‘although we are aware that he has a high level of ability and several curriculum areas and is very articulate, his play tends to be confined to specific areas of the environment’. Here is evidence of a (completely expected) spread of skills across the staff – in both observation and analysis. Other concerns, also to be expected, covered ‘writing’ (4), ‘understanding’ (2), ‘numeracy’ (1) and ‘language’ (1). The suggested solutions were too many to detail every case here. A couple of examples follow: One of the teachers, who had a concern about concentration and focus, received these responses: – ‘Crib sheet? With major points and ideas. Could she keep her learning diary?’ – ‘Focus on one task per session and reflecting upon her task – how she felt about it’. – ‘Focus on the instructions she doesn’t follow and phrase it differently? Rewards for understanding and following instructions’. –  ‘Try to engage her through her interests – also think about seating arrangements. Maybe displays are distracting her if she is looking around the room’. –  ‘Ask her to explain to you what she thinks she has to do this lesson before she begins her task’. – ‘Allocate work buddy. Set up speech and language interventions – to include expressive and receptive language targets. Set up interventions concerning auditory and memory strategies’.

Professional Learning Development from the Bottom-Up

– ‘Get her to re-read what was written and make sure it makes sense. Build up confidence. Ask the child what she has to do and if she can’t answer it ask why this happens – she may know why’. In her own evaluation, at the end of the whole intervention, this same teacher wrote: This was a helpful task as it has kept me on task with supporting individual children as well as the whole class. It allowed me the time to really focus on the ‘learning’ of children. It snowballed – i.e. not just focusing on one child but the whole class and thinking about what I can do. I moved the pupil to be on a table with positive role models which worked incredibly well. Her attitude to lessons and learning completely changed to became very positive. This had an immediate effect on most lessons. Her confidence also grew and because she was at the front of the class she could share her thoughts with me and then I could share them with the class. With Literacy, I ensured that I broke down instructions for her to understand. I also encouraged her to use different strategies to focus her. One strategy was using fortified mind maps to plan each paragraph. Each mind map we only have a couple of words. I also used finger sentences: the pupil created sentences on fingers before writing.

A second teacher, who had also expressed concerns about concentration and focus received these thoughts and suggestions: – ‘So, is this child more likely to distract others; themselves or be distracted by others? Because it seems to be a bit of all these things. Try to find out which you focus your remedial ideas on that’. – ‘Rigid seating plan may help’. – ‘Maybe use rewards for positive behaviour – work at one lesson at a time’. – ‘If possible get someone (TA?) To explain the task again after the carpet introduction will get him to explain the task in his own words to others before setting off on the task’. – ‘Short tasks with time limits’. – ‘Incentives in working in a group for example the sticker system’. The evaluative comments, added at the end of the whole year, said a lot about the overall effect of the intervention: It has been jolly good fun and very useful to do all of this stuff! It has shown not only ‘from’ observing children but from looking at and responding to the observations of others, that the responses and actions one may take themselves is possibly what could be adapted. Oh yeah!! The child has responded well to positive reinforcement through rewards such as house points, use of voice, relaxed but firm tone, sitting next to best friend.

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Making the praise obvious in class so that he is noticed and showing the child work to the class has also contributed. Giving the child targets and discussing them together – the child is aware of daydreaming as parents have told the child this! The child needs time to process instructions especially in maths. However, he concentrates fully when using practical equipment [but] forgets to record. It helped when I had time to sit with the child and listen to him talking about his study and activities during the play date with his best friend. Outcomes include better concentration, longer and better quality writing – literacy, enjoying DT/art more practical activities in the afternoon when concentration becomes an issue, loving RE, good general knowledge.

These are typical responses. What they show is that, although the comments are brief and often seem to be trite and obvious, they have had a cumulative positive effect on the teacher and the learning outcomes. What they cannot show, but was very apparent during the actual staff meeting/poster session, was the amount of oral discussion that was taking place around the posters. It would probably be inaccurate to ascribe such positive evaluations solely to the written notes. It is much more likely to be a more complex combination of factors – which became apparent during the later focus group sessions. Taken overall, the suggested solutions ranged over the following broad categories (Table 3.1):

Table 3.1  Discussion categories from Case Study poster session

Comments

Category

29

Praise & reward

26

Relating the task to the specific child

14

Talking to the individual child

11

Changing the learning environment

8

Further work outside the lesson

8

Working in a different learning mode

7

Involving the parents

7

Punishment

6

Displacement activities

(Note that all comments have been recorded, on Table 3.1, even though it was apparent that one comment ‘punishment’ was added to several posters, by one contributor, possibly as an attempt at humour – it was met by near universal disapproval from the rest of the staff, during the brief plenary at the end of the staff meeting.)

Professional Learning Development from the Bottom-Up

Evaluation over longer term The opportunity to revisit the school, some four terms after the end of the intervention, provided a long-term evaluation – very much in line with Guskey’s (2000b) recommendations for the assessment of both the learning of the participants and also for the support and change in the organization. Bearing in mind Olson’s (1992) comments about how adept teachers are at returning to their accustomed practices in the period following a professional learning programme, I was interested to learn how much, if any, trace had been left in the minds and practices of the staff and senior team. It is impossible, in a focus group discussion like this, to calculate just how much my own presence acted as a spur to memory – and how much their positive remarks arose from a desire to please me, rather than accurately reflect their actual state. [This part of the account, therefore, must be read with this thought in the back of your mind.] There were two main memories in the staff focus group. The first was the staff meeting, where everyone attending discussed the specific issues raised by each teacher and classroom assistant. These memories were almost all positive: The staff meeting we had when we looked at observations and gave each other advice that was really beneficial. It was nice how we all came together and were talking about each other’s children and our practice. People coming away from that – quite a few people – feeling very positive about that, that it has been a very refreshing way to think about children.

This was echoed by the SLT focus group: Having conversations not just about the children at the practising class and classroom assistants and things like that – just inspired this powerful conversation.

So too were the memories of the observations that preceded these conversations: We had someone else in the room, we had someone else teaching so we could do the observations which I found very empowering for the kids. The importance of taking what is so obvious, of watching how children are learning rather than necessarily always watching adults teaching.

The classroom assistants were especially clear about the effect of the observation sessions on their practice: Another TA came in and watched me do a guided reading session and just watched everything and then made notes and then she listened to the questions

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I was asking and then she was a little bit frightened about doing a guided reading but I think by the time she came in and saw some of the questions I was saying it just made her more confident and she was often okay doing her own after that. I went into year six to watch a maths lesson. Because my fear of [teaching] maths in juniors is terrible and I just got be quite nice [that is there was no pressure to teach]. And I learned a lot from that.

How much of this lasted beyond the period of the programme itself was less certain: ‘It wasn’t just the staff meeting. It inspired discussions that went on after that staff meeting for a good while.’ But, you will note, ‘a good while’ implies that it isn’t happening any more. However, some of the comments were more indicative of continuation: Even now sometimes, in my year group particularly, we’ll swap roles so the teacher will be the TA and I’ll be wandering round and they love it. I’ve got student coming in from January to March so it’s made me think that I can kind of do that again because I’ll be observing her and taking a backseat.

The SLT also echoed this: We’ll look at that child over a period of weeks and see what works best with them and then we evaluate that and discuss with other people who teach that pupil, with other teaching assistants, other teachers in the classroom. It helps. One of the TA’s teaches French which is incredibly talented – so we can have one-to-one feedback the pupils which is just incredible with this set of children – it has done a lot to improve their writing and useful in purposeful target setting.

However, there were signs of a return to the ‘doing it for/to the staff’ or learned helplessness attitude that the head originally wanted to reduce: I’m now going to go and do observations of a couple of children in each class – so it is still having an impact on our practice.

There were regretful comments too, about the cessation of some of the new practices – largely, it was implied, because of the constant drive for new developments: Every staff meeting is booked up well in advance with things that have to be done – some times of year and there’s never spare staff meeting time. Not being involved in those little chats when we haven’t got the children – they’ve gone down to assembly we’ll get together. We were really doing that but now it seems to have taken a sideways step. I’m still thinking I really ought to focus more on that particular child – but I don’t have the time to do as much as I ought to.

Professional Learning Development from the Bottom-Up

Perhaps, most telling was the comment made in the SLT group, which gives a possible reason for this turning away from the practices introduced in the programme: We wanted to continue with that kind of model into the next year and look to the possibility of doing that and thought we got that sussed and unfortunately the people we want to lead that for us for whatever reason said they weren’t doing it.

Analysis and observation Now, the overall leader of professional development in the school was the deputy head. She had been a major part of the planning for the programme, but then left for maternity leave and played no part in that years professional learning. She was a part of the SLT focus group and interrupted many times with requests for clarification ‘because I wasn’t there’. She also questioned (quite usefully at times) how much of an effect could actually be attributed to the programme itself. So, in reaction to another SLT members comment, she said: You’ve always been like that. You are very reflective when you went through GTP. You were very reflective in our weekly meetings. You knew what to do and what to put right. What I want to be really clear about is whether you feel what you gave – I wasn’t in school when this happened – but was it because of the project or because of who you are?

The deputy had also forgotten the desired outcomes that she asked for in the programme planning meetings, and had to be reminded that these had been met (teachers taking responsibility for the learning of their pupils and trying out solutions without coming to the SLT for help). It is interesting that, within this focus group, the head responded to another interruption by his deputy on the subject of coaching. She had not been part of the coaching development sessions that I had run over the year, and interjected with the comment: ‘I used to fall into the trap of telling people – not here but in other jobs. People used to come to me all the time because then you are given an answer’ – to which the head responded: ‘And also they knew you would give them what they should do’. This suggested that the head knew that part of this learned helplessness may have been down to the rather autocratic leadership style of the deputy. Taking into account his post-discussion comment, to the effect that she had returned from maternity leave, now completely focused on a new and very different initiative, it seems reasonable to infer that it was the deputy who had redirected staff development into this new direction, rather than providing space and support to continue to extend the developments started in the programme – which was the expressed wish of the rest of the SLT.

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Summarizing the evaluation conversations, this SLT member expressed a general feeling: What that staff meeting did – and the purpose behind what we’re trying to get from them over the year itself – was that idea that you legitimize that at some point, that you put that kind of value and say ‘This is a good thing to do’. If you’re not quite sure about a child, that’s okay. You can come out and say: ‘I tried this and I tried that and it is not working. Have you got any ideas? What would you do?’ and it’s that kind of thing which I think is useful and I’d like to feel that we can do a bit more of that. Some years later, the head made this comment: ‘The year gave the school the opportunity or permission if you like, to concentrate on the learning of specific children not only in their class but across the whole school. People were asking how it was going with pupils they had written suggestions for [in the January staff meeting/poster session]. This clearly gave a whole school focus on the improvement of learning. The focus on one or two children had spin offs for more than just the focus group. Teachers would try successful strategies with other pupils within the class and, on hearing of successful strategies from colleagues in other classes, try them in their own. It is no exaggeration for me to say it was the most successful year’s in-service training programme I have been involved in with high levels of staff involvement, collegiality, support, interest and focus on children’s learning’.

What this whole process demonstrated is the fragile nature of the power/desire relationship in schools. Here was a development, requested and implemented by the school leadership, to meet a recognized need and specifically to nurture the bottomup development of the staff. Although there was ample evidence for the success of the initiative, the pressures of other top-down need (whether local or national) overwhelmed the chances of continuing with these new practices.

Case Study 2: Staff responsibility within an SLT structure – Bottom-up meets top-down This second, and briefer example, came to light during a series of interviews that I was conducting as part of small-scale research into school-based research and particularly the head teachers’ and senior leaders’ views of these developments. The follow account is based entirely on an interview with Pam, the head of an inner-city, three-form-entry primary school, but that was under pressure to go to four-form entry to meet the need for places as child population increased. So, the school was taking in between 180 and 210 four-to five-year-olds every year.

Professional Learning Development from the Bottom-Up

What was remarkable about this school was its calm atmosphere, its stability in terms of staff turnover and the personality of the head. Pam comes across as a very determined person, one who knows exactly what she wants. Interestingly, the main thing she wants is for her staff to be willing and involved participants in, and contributors to, the development of the school. To this end, she has a model of professional learning that allows for (indeed demands) considerable freedom for the teachers, while working within areas of research that are delimited by the senior team. Pam described the process in this way: So this is what we’re doing this year – [the SLT] looks at our School Development Programme, our Ofsted areas for development. Some of the areas that have come up are: we need to look at quality marking feedback in maths, we need to look at behaviour – not just learning behaviour but all different types of behaviour and also there’s a new national curriculum and assessment of it. So, what we decided was that those again be three focus areas.

She had found that the staff had ‘very much enjoyed’ working across key stages during a previous whole school moderation exercise, so they set about creating working groups. ‘Within each group there are people from both key stages and we looked to the expertise of the people we had and plotted them into three different sections.’ Each group was led by an assistant head – see Figure 3.1 if pictures help your understanding. As you will understand from Pam’s words, the constituency of the groups was based, in part, on the research topics under consideration. Three projects are then started at the same time. Pam started the ball rolling. ‘We started with me leading the first session, discussing what it was, who wants to achieve … We sit down with this group to tell us what’s wrong – how do they want a behaviour policy to work. So, they came up with some solutions. So, we tell them to go out and try it. They all tried Figure 3.1  The derivation of the three cross-key-stage research groups in the case study Head + SLT Research Groups

Key Stage 2

Key Stage 1

R

2

1

3

4

5

6

A: Asst Head +

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

B: Asst Head +

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

C: Asst Head +

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

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it came back and it was: “The children really understand. It was clear”. – and so we said: “Okay – spread out a bit see how it works across others.”’ The timing for this work seems quite tight. The research groups were expected to meet once a fortnight, and to have produced an outcome from their project within two terms. Pam, however, is confident that her staff is not only able, but very willing to do this – mainly because of the authority she is vesting in them: Let’s give you an example of the assessment group – this group were working on writing – so they wanted to look at how we can assess writing – right across the year groups. So, they decided to focus on year five and year six to see if it works, but with all the different genres [of writing] and all the different strands. They came up with something like an app – they just changed it, they just moved into a different format – and then they tried to assess it against their children’s work. Then it became clear that that didn’t work, because some of it didn’t fit all the genres … Then they said: ‘We realise that with different genres, it didn’t fit properly’. So, that’s when they would say: ‘This isn’t a model that we need. We need to go back again and look and find another way’. So, we had quite a few people who went away and looked at something and then came back and said: ‘No it took too much time – it didn’t give the end results that you wanted’. … What it is doing for the staff, is that they feel so involved in what is happening in the school. You know, these things are part of our development plan and they feel – rather than saying ‘Here’s the development plan. Have a read’ – they’re saying ‘You know what, we have a part in this. We’ve actually done something’.

The picture is one of a hive of activity. Some measure of its success is in the stability of the staff. Pam is clear: No one is looking to leave because – for example the assistant heads are ultimately treated like a deputy – so they find that their roles – one of them went to go for another job, went for another job spec, and she went ‘I have more responsibility here than there’ – so because we have given those opportunities, they feel that if they move to another school, there is no sense of what they will be doing.

But she is not entirely happy. In conversation about evaluation, she regrets the inevitable messiness of her (any) school. When it came to the behaviour modification research group for example: I’ll tell you what happened. I’m in year five, say, and I’m doing it [trialling a new behaviour technique] and then someone says to me: ‘What are you doing? How is that happening? – Oh, can I try it?’ So I say: ‘I’ll go back to the group, to see if you can’. But they say: ‘No, but you’re really good. You’re doing it’. So, the next thing you know [all three classes in] year 5 are trying it. All of year 5 are trying it. Because they can see what the others are doing. They have seen the impact on

Professional Learning Development from the Bottom-Up

what is happening and they want to try it as well. So, they say ‘I’ll do this and I’ll do my one as well’.

All of which, in her eyes, cuts down Pam’s chances of really evaluating the outcomes of each individual intervention, free from possible confounding-influences. However, this is not of over-riding concern to her, she is much more focused on the outcomes for the pupils. ‘We want to do what fits our school – but we looked at what was out there, and from “out there” we’ve pulled things in but we have not just copied it per se – we’ve taken bits and made it something for us.’ Here is a head with a clear vision, coupled with a trust in and high expectations of her whole staff, which seems to be producing a very positive response.

Concluding thoughts This chapter set out to examine some ideas surrounding the idea of ‘bottom-up’ professional learning. What has been detailed here are two examples where the staff has been given permission to take charge of their own development, but within parameters set by the SLT. In the first case these were quite loose, in the second they were more constrained. Both had very positive outcomes, but the major difference was in the style and approach of particular senior leaders. In the second example, there was a strong-willed head, who had a clear idea of developing a staff-led development programme, albeit highly intensive. She had a clear rationale for doing this and enormous enthusiasm and positivity in her outlook. In the first example, the deputy head who carried responsibility for staff development was a self-confessed ‘instructorhelper’, who demanded compliance from staff rather than allowing independent action. She had been a part of the setting-up of the programme, but was on leave for the whole of the actual intervention and so did not witness (or take part in) the impact. What we carry away from these two examples is first (and most encouragingly) that the capacity and enthusiasm of staff to develop themselves, their classes and hence their school, is there for the taking. Second, this is a fragile thing and is dependent upon the personality and leadership style of the senior leader(s) responsible for staff professional learning. This may show itself in many ways. There are schools where the SLT are shut away in ‘high-level’ meetings, who tend not to attend staff professional learning sessions – and who thus give out the message that such things are not really important. Schools where this is common practice will, anecdotally, not have an obvious bottom-up culture – although they may have driven it underground, to become a personal, secret route to escape-route for staff who are minded to improve their CV’s in this way. Both studies demonstrate the power of valuing the teaching staff in a school, recognizing them as active and involved professionals rather than robotic technicians. With this fragile and complex relationship in mind, the next chapter will consider further issues of teacher inquiry.

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4 The Trouble with the Home Grown: Issues S ­ urrounding Teacher Inquiry Introduction

66

Teacher research: Some background

67

Example 1

67

Example 2

69

Example 3

70

Drawing together

71

Complexity or messiness?

72

Resistors

72

Enthusiasts

73

Converts

73

Exploring the options

77

Concluding thoughts

79

Contextual issues

79

Devolution

80

Balance

80

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H

ere, we shall consider some of the known and probable issues surrounding the teacher–researcher

– Teacher research: some background A consideration of recent facilitative work by Mel Ainscow and others in successful examples of in-school research with researching professionals ○ Example 1 ○ Example 2 ○ Example 3 – Drawing together – Complexity or messiness? The impact of Complexity Theory on this movement and the teacher/researcher model under development in Scotland ○ Resistors ○ Enthusiasts – Exploring the options  A focus on the relationship between teacher research and professional development, in terms of benefit to both the individuals and to their school – Concluding thoughts ○ Contextual issues ○ Devolution ○ Balance

Introduction In Chapter 3, we considered, through two case studies, some of the issues surrounding professional learning programmes that are, to a lesser or greater extent, under the control of the individual teacher. The key point was made there, that in neither of the cited cases was the initiative entirely that of the staff. In one instance, the head provided the initial impetus and framework. In the second, the head controlled the programme, down to quite a specific level of investigation, and also retained control through a regular system of reporting back to the SLT by each of the research groups. We will now drill deeper into a consideration of the issues surrounding the teacher researcher.

The Trouble with the Home Grown

Pause for thought Be warned. This is the most closely argued section of the book, but is also the heart. I would suggest that, if you are looking for a quick fix, you should skip this chapter for now and leave it until the summer holiday – or any other time when you are feeling virtuous or inquisitive. Having said that, the conclusion is important for heads, academics and politicians – so you might consider jumping ahead to the conclusion now.

Teacher research: Some background The idea of teachers researching their own context is not new. A quick glance along the shelves of any university library with an interest in teacher education will reveal phases or fashions in this area. Stenhouse was writing about this over forty years ago (Stenhouse, 1975). (If you want a very clear reminder of the circularity of educational thought, as well as another reminder of the very short lived memory of the policymaking sector, then dip into this book.) This blossomed into a phase of action research, espoused and evangelized by Somekh (1995) and Kinchloe (1991) among others. Then, following David Hargreaves lecture to the Teacher Training Agency (1996), the lengthy period of funded individualized research in schools began. The General Teaching Council collected and archived much of this research, but that was almost as far as it went. The extensive literature that looks back at this period points to a lack of: rigour, reference to, and engagement with the existing research in the field and any attempt to coordinate similar research across different schools. As a result, it is claimed, this period was of very limited value to the profession and did much to undermine the idea of teachers as researchers carrying any validity. This attitude was still prevalent during discussions at the Teacher Development Agency (TDA) preceding the implementation of the Masters in Teaching and Learning degree (Daly and Burstow, 2009). Means of addressing this lack of rigour have already been addressed by a variety of groups; here, we shall consider a few examples from the English context.

Example 1 David Frost (2014) began the HertsCam collaboration in 1999, between Cambridge University and schools in one local authority (http://www.hertscam.org.uk/). This aims to ‘advance education … through the provision of programmes for teachers’ and a part of this is acting as a facilitator for both the rigour of inquiry and also for the inter-school communication. The thinking behind this intervention, according to Frost, was that “teachers” research often failed to produce significant change in

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practice beyond the individual’s professional development’ (Frost, 2013, 1). He identified barriers both within the school (a perceived lack of will to engage with the existing body of research) and in the current practices of university initiated research (typically in the distancing language and unspoken assumptions). Frost’s expressed aim was to facilitate successful teacher-led research that would have immediate impact at both individual and organizational levels. The evolving HertsCam model was founded on a recognized need to record impact. Preliminary research (Frost, 2013, 6) identified – with echoes of Guskey  – the pupils, teachers, school and wider influence as the four main headings where measures might be taken. So, very sensibly, all programme development became predicated on the need to understand what outcomes were expected. (See Chapter 6 for further exploration of this area.) So, Frost, with a team of facilitators, developed an extensive series of schoolbased research projects within the schools of one county. In each case, the model was based on an outcome-aware preparation, which then followed a familiar design loop, beginning with a reflective stage to identify professional concerns, followed by a facilitated discussion phase which clarified the focus for the actual design and implementation phases that would follow. Meta-evaluations of the impact of HertsCam itself have been carried out, but not widely published, and largely by authors positioned as observer/participants. I can, however, present one triangulation as an outsider. In a recent pilot conducted into school-based research (Bryan and Burstow, 2015), I discovered that I was interviewing senior team members of a school that had contributed to one of these internal evaluations. As part of her evaluation article, Mylles (2006) quotes her head teacher as describing the intervention as ‘the key contributory factor to school improvement at [our] School at the moment’. Mylles herself notes that ‘the impact of the group members’ work grows exponentially because of the emphasis on teacher leadership’ – and that ‘this network constitutes a rich community of practice in which teacher leadership is flourishing’. This is very positive, but not markedly rigorous in terms of repeatable measures. Some eight years later, I interviewed the same head, who described the intervention as making ‘a really big difference to the experience of our students and our staff. I don’t care what you call it, I think it’s really good and we should carry on doing it’ (interview transcript 6 November 2014). That extremely positive statement needs to be set beside the developments that have extended this work within the school: recognition of the difficulty of running such a demanding intervention for all staff and the resulting creation of teacher learning groups, which seem to be a local variant of the HertsCam model, but without university facilitation. (This is a school which now has its own subscription to a publisher of academic journals, especially since access to the university library ceased.) The project was still viewed as being of value and being relevant, although the school had learned from the experience and moved into other areas in its development of relevant professional learning.

The Trouble with the Home Grown

Example 2 Mel Ainscow and a team of colleagues at Manchester University have also been active in this field. In a series of accounts detailing a history of projects, devoted to the promotion of inclusion in schools, Ainscow et al. (2003) consider the creation of an inter-school research group in one English Local Education Authority (LEA). In a similar approach to Frost, this set up two interlinked cycles of action research in a teacher/researcher partnership. Here, preliminary meetings emphasized the lead role of schools in controlling the focus of the projects – while the researchers’ role was designed to facilitate the process and to address some of the criticisms levelled at action research in the past, such as lack of rigour and adequately generalizing research findings. Ainscow, too, comments on the gap between research and practice, although he argues that research will tend to be ignored (Ainscow et al., 2003, 230) given the historical lack of connection between the two groups and the time constraints placed upon practising teachers. The aim for this particular work was to provide time and capacity for teachers to step back from their largely tacit experiences and to reflect, jointly on their experience. An extension of this programme was detailed in the following year (Ainscow et al., 2004), although the subject project itself had taken place rather earlier, given the often lengthy gap between article acceptance and its publication. This new network brought together three university teams (Manchester, Newcastle and Christchurch Canterbury) – focusing this time on the specific needs of particular groups of pupils (bilingual learners, boys – especially for ethnic minorities – and the integration of children with educational and behavioural difficulties). The role of the university teams was again one of facilitation – providing an educational and coaching aspect to the school-based projects. A key comment in the discussion around the difficulty of conducting an inquiry of this sort, within a twenty-first century context in English schools, was a growing awareness among the team of just how complex the task was (Ainscow et al., 2004, 135). We shall explore this in some detail later in this chapter, but here is a statement which begins to lift the lid on the multi-layered aspect of the organization that professional learning projects of this kind seek to change. Issues of inevitable parochialism, fragility of legacy and delays in transmission of policy through in-school hierarchies (Olson, 1992, 9) are implied in this section and provide a good introduction to the heart of this chapter. It is most interesting to read what strikes as a very honest meta-reflection on the whole project (Ainscow and West, 2006, 44) where the difficulty of the role of the university researcher is considered. Ainscow writes of sometimes becoming overinvolved in a particular school’s work. Anyone with close experience in school will recognize those moments where one feels obliged to taking something on because it seems to need doing. There is often a sense of urgency in quickly developing situations in school life, where stepping in seems to be the only option – for teachers, senior leaders and, it seems, researchers. There are issues here that will demand

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further consideration as we address the complexity of professional learning in schools. This previous experience allowed Ainscow to quickly recognize, and react to, the radical change in the governance of education in England following the general election in 2010. In his foreword to Ainscow’s book (2015), Hargreaves describes the somewhat radical reform strategies adopted by many countries, including England, which – while seeking to diminish the role of local communities in favour of greater central control – has actually led to a threat to the continuing success of education systems. Hargreaves notes, with approval, the emergence of a new tier of support systems, and notes the lead that Ainscow and his team were able to give. Ainscow has now developed his philosophy through to a fourth way of thinking about educational change (2015, 4) which comes about through democracy and professionalism rather than top-down edict, thus seeking to return trust and confidence to the profession. The body of the book details his time as chief adviser for the Greater Manchester Challenge (Hutchings et al., 2012) and his work leading the Welsh Challenge (Government, 2015) and his efforts to put these ideals into practice. His own evaluation of this work, including the establishment of hub schools for peer-to-peer development work, returns to an affirmation of his earlier comments about the various complexities that exist when groups of schools self-improvement (Ainscow, 2015, 168). He is of the opinion that micro-management of change in schools cannot easily be done from the political centre – not even, I would suggest, by inspection. This key issue – the disjunction between top-down and bottom-up, at all levels – will be addressed in the next section.

Example 3 Sue Brindley (also of Cambridge University) is the third example in this section. Although the website, dedicated to the organization she curates, (http://www.camstar. org.uk/) has some introductory material, it is mainly intended for the support of the signed-up members. The information that follows was gathered in an interview in March 2016 specifically for this chapter (Brindley, 2016a). Brindley sets up the CamStar group in 2001, as a result of her work coordinating a cohort of English PGCE students, specifically as research around the teaching of poetry. This is not related to an accredited course, but is premised on the idea of effective professional learning located within the tension between policy and practice. Brindley uses the (deliberately) emotive term, coined by Durkheim: ‘profane discourse’ to describe the externally imposed policy mandate and the contrasting ‘sacred discourse’ to describe the more autonomous ‘informed and questioning’ professional voice. This provides a necessary reminder for any professionals who are in danger of becoming acclimatized to a constant diet of forced change from policy creators. It also acts as a reinforcement of the valuable contribution that can be made by the university sector.

The Trouble with the Home Grown

In practice, the group operates using a distributed leadership model, shared among trained coordinators, who are all practising teachers. They now work across most subject areas in the design, implementation and dissemination of in-school research projects. The whole network stays in contact through the website and two conferences – one for experienced teachers and the other for newly qualified teachers (NQT). Dissemination is also carried out through an online journal. There is a distinct emphasis on the key position of the school coordinator in this process, and the university role is very much of a background facilitating presence – providing access to existing research, both written and via conversations with ‘key figures’ in the field. But this is as far as it goes; the emphasis is on the practitioners ‘taking forward a sense of empowerment’. The network now comprises some 500–600 individuals, including an international branch. Brindley estimates two to three serious inquiries a week from new members, and her coordinator team is typically now in positions of middle and senior management in their schools, and therefore positioned to further promote the philosophy and operation of CamStar. In terms of impact, Brindley is about to publish her own research into the development of a re-articulation of teacher knowledge, based on interview data from forty of the inschool coordinators (Brindley, 2016b). She is aware of a role that CamStar is playing in the empowerment of middle leaders; the effects on individuals – for example, a teacher, seeking to leave teaching, who engaged with research through CamStar, was reinvigorated and is now a head teacher. She has also other anecdotal accounts, from CamStar members, of the development of pupils through this teacher re-energizing process. Not least, the intercommunication across schools and the affirmation of high moral values in the running of the project are two factors that Brindley identified as key success factors. She is the first to say, however, that all this evaluation is far from rigorous – and that after fifteen years some more formal study of the project might provide useful insights to the development of effective professional learning programmes.

Drawing together Pause for thought You may like to pause at this point – just to consider what we might extract from these three examples.

These three accounts give some threads which can prepare us for, and feed into, the discussion that follows. The key impressions that last from a reading of the preceding three subsections are:

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– The inherent fragility of the projects. Just how dependant they all were on the particular, specific and fortunate combination of individual academics and school-teachers. – The (often unstated) triangular relationship between the policymakers (at whatever level, as previously discussed) the university academics (and the subtle variation of their roles and philosophies across the three accounts) and the participating school staff. – The questions, for any designer of professional learning, that arise concerning the relative positioning of top-down and bottom-up as influencing factors. As an aid to the consideration of these questions, I will now take a step side-ways, into some elementary consideration of complexity theory and how it might aid our understanding of the processes we are beginning to address here.

Complexity or messiness? I am fond of describing the world of schools and education as ‘messy’. It is a confusing and unstable place, possessing an inertia and resistance to change while, at the same time, appearing ephemeral and lacking in legacy. The following examples will strike chords with anyone who has been involved at all with the inner working of schools (these are all taken from the research data gathered for my doctoral thesis at the turn of the century (Burstow, 2006) and all refer to one single school). There are three clearly distinguished types of departmental response.

Resistors Resistance to change was demonstrated by the History department members, who, when invited to take part in an initiative to explore the introduction of IT to augment their subject teaching, responded: ‘we are much more familiar with some of the usual – textbooks, worksheets, videos. We are far more familiar with those and realistically speaking, that’s what we do’. There was also a rejection of the popularization of the subject: ‘with people desperately trying to make subjects relevant and entertaining to the students’. In addition to this expression of inertia, there was a fear of the unknown and unfamiliar: ‘accessibility isn’t so much the issue as when you get there [to the IT room] are they all working, that’s the real thing?’ This department rejected all involvement with, or access to, an offer to provide a dedicated (and local to them) equipped and supported IT room. This was, coincidentally, one of the most stable departments in the school, but which was not yet ready for change.

The Trouble with the Home Grown

Enthusiasts On the other hand, Science was most enthusiastic and affirmative adopters. They all worked the possibilities offered by the technology into their curriculum and shared use of their new IT room across the department. However, it only took three out of the eight department members to leave for the whole structure to collapse into disuse. The effects of this high rate of ‘churn’ in a department that was keen on professional development contributed to its own fragility.

Converts Third, the Modern Foreign Languages department, although they started as reluctant adopters, grew into the most enthusiastic and effective department. IT revolutionized their practice, provided very clear evidence of positive impact (both in terms of engagement and exam success) on the pupils and also had the effect of re-engaging all four department members with their teaching – to the point where, by the end of that academic year, they had all left the school for promoted posts. Not unexpectedly, despite assurances that they would ‘hand over’ their new techniques and practices to the newcomers, the use of IT came to a rapid halt. The experience for the individual members of this intervention echoes Frost’s comments on the effects of professional development (Frost, 2013). So, within one school, there is evidence of a resistance to change an embracing of the same – but for a specific grouping of teachers – and also a hesitant start that revolutionized four professional lives – but negatively affected the pupils in the school at the time. These three clear types were representative points on a more detailed range. In addition, as outliers, there were examples in individuals – in Music, for example – whose professional learning was isolated, that is, although their pupils benefitted, other staff in the department played no part and gained nothing from their increased expertise and skill. Watson (1993) described these as mavericks who, when they left the school, did so with little lasting evidence remaining of their work. Schools are indeed messy places, staffed, as they are, by individual professionals, who – certainly at that time (the late 1990s) had a large degree of autonomy. (Olson’s (1992) loose-coupling concept neatly illustrates the issue. It proposes that, in an organization where the management structure allows for some degree of freedom in terms of interpretation of policy, it may take some time for the change process to permeate fully throughout every branch of the structure, and there will be no guarantee that the actual outcome will be a match to the original vision.) Complexity theory – defined by Johnson (2007) as the study of phenomena which emerge from a collection of interacting objects (where people are viewed as an example of ‘objects’ for this definition) and extended by Nicolis (1995) as simple systems giving rise to complex behaviours – emerged around the start of the twenty-

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first century. This last phrase strikes as being a close match to our thinking about the actuality of school life – a seemingly simple organization which is often varied in the detail of the observed outcomes and practices. It is this area that we shall now begin to unpack. Where does this ‘messiness’ lie? What is its cause? One source of this is the traditional school structure that West (1978) has referred to, in a lecture, as the last true bureaucracy. Goldstein, too, acknowledged this in his development of multilevel variation during his work on school performance comparison (Goldstein, 2003). Part of the foundation for this lies in a typical school structure which might be viewed as a multi-factor system (Figure 4.1) In this figure, you will see the major influences on an individual teacher. The three boxes differentiate between in-school and two out-of-school areas. The distance of each item offers a suggestion as to the immediacy and strength of each, but these are, of course, constantly changing in their influence. This arrangement will work for every member of staff – and also for non-teachers. In a large Science department for example, the Biologists and the Physicists might well hold different values and practices, a large English department might house an ‘old guard’ and a younger more radical group, within the same apparent structure. Similarly, governors and parents would offer multiple opportunities for further subdivision. Communication and streams of influence also take place between each labelled box, which will also affect their influence on the individual at the centre of the diagram. There are also – surrounded by dotted lines – a selection of the non-living influences on a teacher. You may also see a suggestion of layering – in terms of the proximity of each factor to the teacher at the centre. Consider too, how the pattern would change – and also how parts of it would be unaltered – were the head to be placed at the centre point

Figure 4.1:  Imaging a nesting of complex substructures

In school School governors Head of school Parents

Initiatives Department colleagues Head of department Other staff

Funding

Changing legislation

Outside school (work related) Media reporting Local government Inspectors Federation Exam boards head offices

Data collection

Every Teacher Family

Outside school (non-work)

Friends Personal budgetting

Hobbies

The Trouble with the Home Grown

of the figure. Each department head and senior team member would now be a close, separate and different factor, and the positions of governors and parents might also be crowding into the inner circle. Of necessity, this is simplistic, as it does not allow for any communication between or across these spheres of influence – and, as we shall see later, there is considerable evidence that there is great benefit to the whole body in allowing and encouraging such events. What it does demonstrate though, is the multiple layering of structures like schools – a factor of the workplace staffed by human beings who are of their nature (exacerbated by their education and training) questioning individuals, who are not necessarily predisposed to unthinking obedience.

Pause for thought How far does your own experience match with this? Consider a school you know well – how ‘loosely coupled’ are the different departments? What variation is there between them? More significantly, consider the cross-structure communication, both official and unofficial. Can you identify (even anecdotally) any effects of this on the school?

There is another aspect to this consideration of complexity as it applies to a school. In Chapter 2, you will have read some discussion of the various meanings that might be meant by the term ‘top-down’ – ranging from national government to head of department. Similarly, in Chapter 3, the terms ‘bottom-up’ were show as potentially applying to individual teachers, departments, schools or even school clusters – in terms of influence on, and development of, professional learning. Complexity begins to play a part if one begins to consider an influential, policy-making layer seeking to directly influence the more deeply nested layers in Figure 4.1. In my thesis (Burstow, 2006), I borrowed the term ‘fractal’ from Mandelbrot to describe the nature of school structures in addressing this issue. The term was first coined by Mandelbrot in the 1960s (Mandelbrot, 2012) and may be defined as a repeating pattern that is displayed at every scale. This branch of mathematics describes the nature of some structures to repeat themselves at different layers of magnification – also known as expanding symmetry or evolving symmetry (see http://fractalfoundation.org/resources/what-are-fractals/ for some excellent examples). If you look at Figure 4.2, for example, you will see three photographs of the same fern, at three different magnifications. The first photo shows a whole frond and then in turn the circled area is shown at higher magnification. In each case, you can see quite clearly that the form of each unit is a copy, in terms of shape, of the larger version.

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Other examples occur in nature. Snowflakes are well known, apart from each being allegedly unique in broad shape, to have each delineating line of the broad structure composed of smaller copies of that line, and so on. The coastline of Great Britain too, is fractal in nature. As you zoom in on the coast so the familiar outline is lost, only to reveal further complexity. This continues as the mind’s eye zooms in closer to the shore so that the water/land boundary now begins to be further distorted as it finds its way around individual pebbles – or grains of sand. This, I proposed, is evident within many schools. In my thesis, I wrote: However, it quickly became apparent that what might at first be viewed as a homogenous culture is, in fact, a collection of micro-cultures overlapping like a complex Venn diagram. Consider a member of a large Science department of eight teaching staff and three laboratory technicians. At times, it seemed possible to view them as a discrete micro-culture – separate in many ways from the rest of the school, with a distinct view of whole school policies and ethos, and a social life that often operated in isolation from the rest of the school. Separate members of this micro-culture were also members of other groupings – a strong team of year tutors, for example or one of a more disparate group of newly qualified teachers, or non-teaching staff – the technicians – with an agenda that is not a precise match with the teaching members of the department. Even if these micro-cultures are not real, there is certainly a difference in perception and interpretation of the same events from different members of the same microcultural group.

Faced with this progressively finer-grained refinement and with the potential for a very wide range of differential interactions, it is little wonder that much traditional Figure 4.2  Ferns as a natural example of a fractal structure

The Trouble with the Home Grown

or imposed professional development has such a poor record for establishing change. In addition, with the constant turnover of staff, as has already been noted, any serious expectation of a lasting effect must be viewed as over-optimistic.

Exploring the options Senior leaders – at school, group and national level – may seek to diminish individuality and autonomy within the staff. Demanding and enforcing compliance is one way of being more assured of the penetration of universal techniques. So, an insistence on drill, teaching to externally prepared material, accompanied by a sense of constant observation, may be a favoured solution, especially for an ideologically motivated leadership who wishes to contain and control any move towards independent action of thought in the workforce. This ignores any sense of uniqueness about the context within which every school operates and the intelligence of that workforce – who, at the time of writing are still mainly the product of a university influenced initial teacher education programme. If a leadership style like this is rigidly followed, then it becomes a recipe for guerrilla activity among the staff and, even more perhaps, a recipe for dissatisfaction with a resulting increase in turnover – which in itself is a potential destabilizer for departments, schools and systems. Additionally, this autocratic leadership style is not one which is recognized, in any business, as one which produces continued positive results. Many writers in this field (Hersey et al., 2012, for example) argue for this style as being suitable for new and inexperienced individuals and teams but one which quickly becomes stifling and actually prejudicial to continued growth and success. It should therefore be of greater concern to all those involved in the education of children, to see this apparently increasing in countries where education has become increasingly privatized and open to more entrepreneurial ownership and management. Ball details some of this in a recent blog, warning that ‘competition and entrepreneurialism often come as a package and can change the framework of priorities within which educational and budgetary decisions are made’ (2015). He applies this particularly to pupils (and their having a variable ‘value’ to such schools), but this can equally well apply to teaching staff, who stand to become increasingly viewed as a necessarily obedient workforce, tools to provide the necessary crowd pleasing favourable statistics in terms of exam results. However, given the real complexity of schools, to hand professional learning over entirely to the bottom-up approach, at the opposite extreme, is also unlikely to succeed. In this scenario, we can readily picture isolated pockets of excellence which last only as long as a particular team of people is working in the same school. This looks to lead to a genuinely tacit culture, where everything is enshrined in the practical and the shared knowledge and little if anything is retained beyond

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the existence of that successful grouping of teachers. There have been successful examples of bottom-up developments outside schools – notably Sturt’s (1963) account of the workings of a wheelwrights shop in a small country town. There has already been mention of IT and the rise of school/college partnerships in Design and Technology apprenticeships during David Blunkett’s term of office as Secretary of State for Education in England – but they have needed to attract the attention of a senior figure – be it a Head or a Secretary of State – who will see the potential and provide the external drive and will to move the embryo development to a second developmental level. If there were no middle-ground, schools would be condemned to a world of rigid hierarchies or of benevolent anarchies (or traditional bureaucracies perhaps – where small groups hoard their expertise in the face of external challenge – even from neighbouring departments in the same school). As you were warned in the Introduction, this is not a book designed to give easy answers – rather it aims to provide some insights, overviews and suggestions. All too often, this means stepping back from the rigid evangelical stance of the (over)confident ideologue. A negotiated middle-ground seems so much less exciting, even dull (and certainly more difficult) – but it is there that successful and lasting solutions may be found. My suggestion in this case is that the middle-ground is a place where top-down and bottom-up can meet and work to each other’s benefit. Let us consider again the two small case studies detailed in the last chapter. (You may like to pause here and just remind yourself of them.) There are a number of similarities in these two scenarios: a. Both were initiated by the head. Notably, both heads have retained the control and drive and have also been directly involved in the process. b. The heads and their senior teams have identified the broad headings, or needs, which should delineate the work undertaken during the professional learning initiative. They then handed much of the decision-making and control over to the teachers. This recognition of the staff as a professional, responsible and educated workforce was recognized by both the heads as a key factor in the success of their projects. In both cases, the heads demonstrated not only this genuine recognition but also a humility and awareness of their own limitations (that is, not having super-powers, but while still holding a true vision of the school and its trajectory). c. They were focused primarily on the education of their pupils. This was clearly their whole reason for being in their post. The external forces and drives were seen as necessary evils – and, to some extent, any improvement on those fronts (exam results or inspection grades) were seen as a bonus. They were both in the position of working in schools that had been good or outstanding for some years – and so were, perhaps, more inclined to take this view. However, it was very impressive to see the positive correlation between their attitude to their staff and the standing of the school.

The Trouble with the Home Grown

So, here are two cases where a broad-brush-strokes top-down initiative hands over to finer-grained bottom-up enthusiasm, with the development of increased energy and capacity, as well as lasting outcomes. These were both schools working within a much weakened Local Authority structure and so, arguably, had a correspondingly improved autonomy. It is difficult to see this working within a very rigid managerial context – such as is found in some multi-academy trusts at this time.

Concluding thoughts Where does this leave the designer of professional learning programmes? There are three areas which should inform any discussion in this area: – An understanding of context – A devolution of decisions and – An over-riding need for balance between the various factors

Contextual issues There is a real effort of will, and a preparedness to devote time, needed to arrive at an understanding of the difficulties (the real complexity) of school-based development. Pressures of urgent demands from a number of sources (both outside and inside the school) make for an almost overpowering drive to simplify: by limiting the number of people being developed in the same way perhaps, to ignore the need to gain a good match between attitude and outcome or by limiting programmes to a single context. This inevitable simplification then runs the risk of attaining its own reality – if it works here, then why not there? – which reification leads inevitably to dissatisfaction and apathy among part of the participant population. We might consider the national IT drive in 2000 in England – a government funded intervention (Conlon, 2004) as an awful demonstration of the effects of oversimplification of context. A similar trend might be observed in England during the first two decades of this century (although it has roots that extend back to the early development of the National Curriculum and the National Strategies for Literacy and Numeracy). As the centralization of control over the school curriculum strengthened – along with the increasing power of the English inspectorial system to influence school planning – so there developed a simplification, a single model view of a successful school. This model requires compliance and obedience, not thought and inquiry. The trend has been further strengthened by the development of the academy structure in England. Successful sponsors, encouraged to expand their practice into increasing numbers of schools, have, in many cases, adopted a commercial practice – head teachers are limited in their autonomy as leadership and policy comes from the head office. This is a further simplification, treating schools as if they were retail outlets

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for the same organization – and therefore required to operate along company guidelines. In this world, professional learning becomes training and inquiry has no place. The next chapter will examine evidence from the commercial and retail world that should perhaps inform these new multi-academy trusts – as evidence of the failure of the model begins to appear (Gee et al., 2016). It needs to be clearly understood, of course, that this section is, of itself a simplification. There is variation in the performance of academy chains – and how the range of performance compares with earlier models is beyond the remit of this book – but it serves to further support the view that it is a human trait to simplify – and that it is one that should be fought.

Devolution Earlier examples showed how successful professional learning programmes worked by maintaining specificity of design at the top while providing sufficient freedom for individual decisions by participants. There has already been mention of several examples of this: the head-teacher overview in Chapter 3 and the university facilitative support structure earlier in this chapter. There have been national examples, in England, as well: for many years (from 2004 to 2010) a government funded post-graduate professional development programme allowed for much research to take place within schools, led by individual universities (TDA, 2007). In addition, the Masters in Teaching and Learning (Burton and Goodman, 2011) – a government funded masters course for newly qualified teachers – provided a similar overview in terms of aims, which then allowed for individual focus. There is some research evidence that demonstrates the wider benefits to the school of this approach. The head in Case Study 3.2 was clear that the added responsibility and recognition of professionalism made for improved staff retention (in an inner-city context where high staff mobility is the norm). One of the secondary heads of a group of my own Masters in Teaching and Learning students described to me how young teachers involved in this form of development all improved significantly in their inspectorial observation scores – thus improving his school’s overall standing. Similarly, the head of the school in Case Study 3.1 contracted me to raise the inspection level of teaching to outstanding – and this form of balanced intervention raised the involvement, confidence and competence of nearly all the staff. We shall see, in the next chapter, how refusing to take this risk has held some organizations back. For a head – or a government – to have the humility to put trust and responsibility in the hands of their teaching staff can clearly provide a pay-off beyond the mere improvement of the individual.

Balance A recognition of the skills and intelligence of the staff – and how this has the potential to develop capacity. It is a truism that teachers’ first demand is for ‘more

The Trouble with the Home Grown

time’ to carry out any extra work – and it is undoubtedly true that teachers (in England at any rate) are among the most time challenged in international measures. However, it is also evident that teachers who are motivated and enthused – by excellent ideas, leadership and the sense of having some control over their own destinies, among other things – will create the time and capacity by adjusting their own expectations. For it is also the case that teaching is one job (of several) that will never be completed. Even before the consequences of the years of gradual increases in direction became apparent, teachers were always aware that there were always tasks that needed doing. The skill lay in a smart readjustment of priorities, to allow for the completion of urgent, and allowing for the postponement of the longer deadline. And what is the downside? Probably the most obvious – as in the case of the modern foreign languages department in my own research – is for professional learning to improve the employment and promotion chances of individual teachers (although as we have seen, this need not necessarily be the case). In a previous era, heads might comfort themselves with the sense of having provided for the greater good of education in the country – at the cost of a loss of a competent teacher form their own staff. This would seem to be less likely today, as schools become more inward looking. Although the strategy – in some English schools – which seems to be to ‘use up’ young teachers in a very short time, in the expectation that there will always be a new body to fill the gap (and newly qualified – or unqualified – replacements will always be cheaper, and hence more attractive, in a cost-conscious environment) – does not seem to be any sort of improvement. This chapter has considered arguments in favour of bringing together the topdown strategic direction of professional learning and the detail and enthusiasm provided by a bottom-up approach – to the mutual benefit of both. In Chapter 6, we will move on to consider how a school leader might create the conditions that would facilitate such a strategy. For now, we shall take a closer look at the ‘poor relation’ of professional learning programmes – evaluation.

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5 Assessing Impact: But What Is It All For?

Introduction

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Working towards a theory

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The ‘what’

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The ‘how’

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The ‘who’

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Two examples to aid reflection

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An early example of ‘complex’ evaluation

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A ‘logical chain’

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Level models

90

Considering the individual

95

Concluding thoughts

101

Note

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T

his chapter questions the increasingly widespread idea of pupil attainment as the sole success criterion, the effectiveness of imposed performance-related measures and the positioning of professional development programmes in relation to these two.

– Working towards a theory Taking into account the research background ○ The ‘what’ ○ The ‘how’ ○ The ‘who’ – Two examples to aid reflection ○ An early example of ‘complex’ evaluation ○ A ‘logical chain’ – Level Models A layered and more subtle approach to evaluation – Considering the Individual Impact related to teacher maturity and experience – Concluding Thoughts Towards a ‘values-based’ form of professional development

Introduction The subtitle of this chapter could well have been the second part of a paraphrase of a sentence coined by Wilian: ‘what is important is not to make what is measurable important, rather what is important measurable’.1 Although this has been used most frequently with reference to pupil learning, it should, arguably, be applied equally to the evaluation of professional learning. It will be a shared experience for many teachers, on completion of a course or in-service session, to be presented with a single-sided ‘evaluation’ sheet, in something of a last-minute rush. This may well be the only apparent evaluative measure taken concerning the effectiveness of that particular intervention. There is clearly a need for much more than that.

Pause for thought Stop for a moment and think about your own experience of professional learning. How were those experiences evaluated? Were (in your view) they evaluated at all?

Assessing Impact

There is a further, important, aspect to consider here. Just as pupil learning is often (too often) measured only in terms of examination results, so the effectiveness of professional learning programmes for teachers is often measured only in terms of improvements in pupil learning (Ofsted, 2006). This chapter will offer other possible measures for consideration that may well enrich and improve the usefulness of the evaluation process.

Figure 5.1  A typical full design cycle 1. (8) Review and analyse

7. Evaluate

2. Identify areas for work

3. Select and prioritize

6. Implement

5. Evaluation criteria

4. Develop strategy

It is a diagram that will be familiar to many, but I will repeat it here, for convenience. A ‘full’ seven-stage or eight-stage development cycle (Figure 5.1) may be laid out with planning, execution and evaluation stages. However, in a setting – typically a school in the current fast-changing and demanding climate – the evaluation stage may well become a victim. The next wave of development demands presenting themselves before the effects of previous ones has been considered. In these circumstances, it is quite possible for the development cycle to look more like this (Figure 5.2). Without any evaluation, the school will be going through the motions of professional learning – pouring a stream of good ideas into the staff without any idea of the actual influence on practice nor any possible conflicting effects as a consequence of the packed development programme. In this chapter, we will consider some of the ideas and theories that feed into thinking in this aspect of professional learning.

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2. Identify areas for work

7.

3. Select and prioritize

6. Implement

5.

4. Develop strategy

Working towards a theory Coldwell and Simkins provide a thoughtful starting point for this section. They suggest that, of the many theorizations of CPD, few have actually influenced those looking to evaluate the intervention. On the other hand, attempts to theorize the evaluation of CPD have often been ill specified or too reductive. As a way in, they identify three inter-related dimensions of the evaluation problem: the ‘what’, the ‘how’ and the ‘who’ of evaluation processes (Coldwell and Simkins, 2010). So, let us consider these in turn.

The ‘what’ This, in its most immediately obvious form, requires a clear specification accompanied by some measurement of outputs (Tyler, 1942). Others suggest a broadening of this. Cronbach (1982) suggested a units-of-focus-treatments-observations/outcomessettings sequence, while Stufflebeam (1983) proposes a similar sounding: contextinput-process-product route. These all feel like a ‘systems analysis’ exercise. In this process, the primary task is to accurately establish the starting conditions, then to precisely define the desired output, before considering the processes required to bridge the gap that has now been identified. Might this latter ordering (of: established baseline->desired output>necessary intervention) be a stronger model than the hurried: desired outcome>available intervention route?

Assessing Impact

The ‘how’ Here is an offering of three suggestions as to means of acquiring a measure: – –

–

There are quantitative approaches, particularly experimental and quasiexperimental designs (Campbell, 1976; Cook et al., 2010). Then, there are approaches that seek to explore the subject of the evaluation using more qualitative methods such as thick description and case study (Parlett and Hamilton, 1976;Stake, 1986). Third, there are approaches that draw on the traditions of connoisseurship and criticism (Eisner, 1985).

Pause for thought Consider these three possible methods – reflecting on them using Wilian’s phrase, used at the start of the chapter. Are there obvious strengths and weaknesses inherent in these proposals? Are the needs of government and school best served by different methods?

For those who seek easy comparisons – whether sequentially within the same institution or synchronized across several different places – the choice of a quantitative measure provides an instant attraction. However, any such measure is necessarily selective, losing detail, which may be what is required for an overview (and such cinematic ‘long shots’ can provide a very necessary part in the establishment of a feel or sense of place). There is also a value in the detail that can be made available through interview or other qualitative method. There are issues of extending any findings beyond the immediate context, but the value of a much more detailed examination can be enormous. Extending the cinematic metaphor here, this ‘close-up’ will tell much more about the details of a story. It has the benefit of reminding those who are measuring and analysing that they are dealing with people, complex and unique individuals, rather than cyphers. Beginning to address ‘making the important measurable’ perhaps strengthens the case for a mixed-method measurement system. The third suggestion, that of evaluating as a connoisseur, when I first came across it, fired off a series of conflicting thoughts. At first, it seemed to be a method that was lacking in both rigour and validity. Any system that depends upon a personal context must surely be open to the possibility of bias and prejudice. And yet… I value the theatre critics who write in the daily paper I read – they have established their right to write in this way over years of work. Their readers know their foibles and accept them. They feel able to disagree and can measure themselves against the written word should they choose to go and see the production themselves.

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There was, arguably, some element of this in the style of the pre-Ofsted HMI (Her Majesty’s Inspectors) in England, who were known to talk in comparative terms about your own school Science department (say) in comparison with others – not specifically but as a connoisseur of science teaching. If we accept the provenance of the critic or connoisseur, then will we not accept that their comments have value? It is, perhaps, when everyone becomes an expert – TripAdvisor style – that the validity and reliability of comments need to be more closely questioned. And yet … are we not all critics and connoisseurs? Could we not devise a ‘stable’ method of collecting such data?

The ‘who’ Finally, in this introductory overview, we are invited to consider who will be responsible for the measuring. This, too, may well affect the outcome, partly because of the ‘lens’ through which the measurer views the world they are about to assess and partly because of their own context with respect to the measurement site, and the measurement tool itself. Reading a variety of authors on the subject produces this (incomplete and non-exclusive) set of options. We might consider: – giving the key role to the evaluators themselves (Scriven, 1973), – focusing on the importance of commissioners and managers (Stufflebeam, 1983), – seeking to engage a wider range of stakeholders (Guba and Lincoln, 1989; Patton, 1997), – placing a particular emphasis on participative processes (Cousins and Earl, 1995; Torres and Preskill, 2001), – focusing on the engagement of the disempowered (Fetterman, 1996; House, 2004). Selecting any one of these will clearly place a skew on the results. However, such a skew may be acceptable (and is probably unavoidable in absolute terms). It may well be the better option to be quite clear and reasoned about what decisions have been taken, and incorporating this information into the final report. Readers may then make suitable allowances for the ‘known measurer’ involved.

Two examples to aid reflection Having skimmed through a theoretical overview, I will now consider two sources that comment on actual contexts and to set them against the developing theoretical argument.

Assessing Impact

An early example of ‘complex’ evaluation Philip Adey was, for much of his life, a researcher and writer in the field of professional learning. He also fed much of his theoretical thinking with the practical experiences he gained as a teacher educator around the world. He writes (Adey and Hewitt, 2004, 9 et seq) engagingly about the evaluation of one particular professional learning programme which I summarize here. The evaluation of the professional learning programme took two forms. The first was a three-year informal evaluation comprising schools and local workshops. From this, he was able to demonstrate something of the teacher–participants overall ability and their willingness to engage with students and promote the learning methods that they had met on the intervention. The second was a more formal evaluation of the same project which was based on classroom observations and assessments of student group work – some in course-influenced and some in noncourse-influenced classrooms, evaluating student performance as a measure of the impact of the intervention on the teachers. This latter method identified significant positive effects. So, the two measures that Adey employed would count as part quantitative (the second method) and part qualitative (the first). We can deduce nothing about his reasoning behind making this choice, in terms of the ‘what’ parameters above. The ‘who’ appears to be himself in part, with possibly some contribution from his team of trainers. What is interesting here is the discussion that Adey develops from this. In his opinion, ‘change in [teaching] practice is associated with a change in the inner mental working of teachers’ (Adey, 2004, 156). He then goes on to require the evaluation tool to be able to address the issues of: – How far are teachers challenged in their current practice? – How far are they involved in the needs analysis and programme design? – How far are the professional learning providers and the teacher participants sharing beliefs and value systems? – How far does the programme ‘shapes the teachers intuitive understanding such that they improve the quality of daily classroom interactions’? and – How far is the subject of the professional learning of proven worth? This list is most intimidating. They are interesting questions, mostly quite unanswerable if addressed for the first time ‘after the fact’ of the professional learning event. You will also note that he approaches a number of my earlier points from a different direction – ‘sharing beliefs and value systems’ implies a broad agreement on the course and its intended outcomes, but how do you measure the ‘quality of daily interactions’ and how could you ‘prove the worth’ of a programme (without extensive planning for this during the initial, pre-delivery, phase of the whole programme).

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A ‘logical chain’ The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) presents a regular series of reports that use its collated school observation data to make statements about various aspects of the school system. Earlier in this century, they published a report (Ofsted, 2006) which identified the most effective practice, in school improvement, as a logical chain of procedures which place continuous professional development at the heart of schools’ planning. This, they suggested, meant going through all the stages of a full development cycle (Ofsted, 2006, 2). On the basis of many inspections (presumably by a widely varying range of inspection teams), they were able to conclude that it was the schools which had designed their professional learning effectively and integrated it with their improvement plans who found that teaching and learning improved and standards rose. The report criticized the quality of evaluation processes ‘largely because they failed to identify, at the planning stage, its intended outcomes and suitable evaluation methods’. However, the report is clear that exam results are the only form of evaluation that would (in Ofsted’s terms) represent a valid measure of impact. While it is useful to have a place marker like this to get a broad impression of professional learning in schools, at a specific time, it is lacking in detailed information. There is no detail of the location of the schools, by what means the data were extracted from the collated school observation or what measures were taken to address the issue of inter-rater reliability – that is, how can one be sure that one inspectors ranking of a school will be the same as another. There is also a tendency to change an observed correlation between professional learning and exam results into a causal relationship, which, although it seems reasonable, is not necessarily demonstrated by the data as presented.

Level models How then might we achieve a valid evaluation? Let us consider a few ideas. Killion (2005) suggested an eight step route: 1. Assess evaluability 2. Formulate evaluation questions 3. Construct the framework 4. Collect data 5. Organize and analyse data 6. Interpret data 7. Report findings 8. Evaluate the evaluation

Assessing Impact

This evolved from research into professional learning in 1999 in the USA – which found that the, then, favoured short-course programme was rarely successful. Killion proposed this staged approach, which raises some interesting questions. The first is implied in the first stage of the eight. The suggestion here seems to be, quite reasonably, that in order to evaluate any professional learning programme, you must first consider how feasible this will be. Is the programme, as it stands, susceptible to evaluation?

Pause for thought Can you imagine a professional learning programme that is not easy (or possible) to evaluate? You may know an actual example or you may need to imagine one. What is it about the proposed programme that makes evaluation so difficult?

The second question, arising from this, is the acceptability of a professional learning programme that cannot be evaluated. Is this now, by definition, not to be entertained? Is it possible to have a valuable programme, even though you will not be able to tell whether it has carried out its purpose or not? Phrased like this, the answer seems to be blindingly obvious. Of course, it is unacceptable. Surely, it is pointless to even consider presenting a learning programme which is never going to be able to establish its validity or value. And yet … How far does the definition of professional learning extend? If the engagement with research, by reading relevant journals, is a part of this spectrum, then the act of browsing may (and, in my case, has, on occasion) may well lead the student into a fresh view or a new piece of knowledge that does prove useful. This, however, is not quite what Killion, or I, had in mind. For a senior leader or educational consultant, designing a professional learning programme, the specification or rationale of the design must be clear enough to allow for a clear evaluative tool or method. This is a key part, surely, of the SMART (Sensible, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound – my emphasis) design parameters. A key suggestion came, rather earlier, from Guskey (2000). His five-stage model provides a clarity and insight that deserves still greater penetration into everyday practice. His model (summarized here) suggests measuring: 1. Participant reaction – what did the participants think of the programme? 2. New skills or knowledge acquired – what did the participants actually learn? 3.  Organizational support and change – how has the wider organization (department or school) been affected? 4. Influence on the job – how has this new knowledge been applied?

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5. How has the professional learning programme affected productivity – what are the outcomes for the pupils? There are a number of things to consider here. First, going back to the earlier discussion in this chapter, we can readily compare item 1 in Guskey’s list to Coldwell and Simkin’s ‘What’, item 2 to their ‘How’ and item 3 to their ‘Who’. Second, the timing of these measures is clearly not in parallel. The participants’ reaction may well be an instant measure – here is the ‘what-went-well/even-betterif’ instant reaction form that so often arrives tucked in the back of a course pack. The question of participant learning may well need a more formal measure, a little while after the event itself – Guskey suggests written and oral reflection as suitable measures here – a place, perhaps for a coach or mentor figure to be formally involved. The third measure implies aspects of professional learning that are perhaps less often accounted for, either in planning or in evaluation, that of the effects on the organization.

Pause for thought Do you, in your experience of professional learning programmes, have knowledge of times when changes to the school – or even a department or faculty – were factored into the initial design or evaluation?

What might constitute evidence for evaluation at this level is also worth considering. Guskey suggests minutes of later meetings as one possible tool, which is an intriguing suggestion, raising as it does the possibility of a real use for this traditional recording tool. This points to another aspect of evaluation design, in that specifically designed and specialist tools are not always necessary. Data may be gathered from already existing records. It should be apparent that the time it will take for these effects to become apparent is increasing as we progress down the list. This continues with the last two. Guskey suggests a further reflection/coaching iteration as a measure of how the teacher is using the new knowledge or skills, and student records and interviews (and, interestingly, parent interviews) to gain a measure of the effect on the student population – going some way beyond the simplistic blunt instrument of test results. All of this is clearly demanding of time, but most significantly, in the atmosphere of continued professional learning, it is demanding of pace of development. There is a clear message here that a significant development programme should be given a chance to permeate through the system before the next programme is introduced. And how sensible, surely? Without measuring the effects of one initiative, how can the providers of professional learning be sure that they are introducing the correct, or

Assessing Impact

necessary, follow up? Guskey’s work has rightly been regarded as key in the thinking about this area. In England, the Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in Education (CUREE) has been working with schools and colleges to promote high quality professional learning programmes. One of the tools that is in the public domain is their self-evaluation scheme (CUREE, 2010). An examination of their scheme shows reference to the work of both Adey and Guskey. They take the thinking a step further, by encouraging the participants themselves to become active in the identification of what the outcomes of their own professional learning will look like. This moving of responsibility for evaluation towards the participant is arguably a critical (and under-addressed) factor in the evaluation process. For a participant, to be a coevaluator with the intervention facilitator is a key move in the continuing education of a profession that is devoted to learning. If the only evaluation measure is to remain the improvement of exam results in the pupil’s population, then professional learning will remain firmly in the realm of ‘done-to’ rather than ‘done-with’, of top–down programmes that only benefit the organization (see Chapter 1, Figure 1.10). To summarize, what we can take away from this brief overview of evaluation are these five positive ‘possibles’: – Pupil improvement may be the critical evaluation measure, especially in the eyes of politicians and the media, and it certainly presents itself as one that is easily obtained. However, defining exactly what is meant or expected as ‘pupil improvement’ may, in fact, be a confounding issue. To take a simple example, reported memories of favourite or inspirational teachers only rarely mention success in exams – rather they dwell on aspects of personality: enthusiasm, charisma and drive, which proved to have a lasting effect on the developing adult. Developing a measure for that – valid success measure though it might be – is not a simple task. – Having a clear vision of the desired outcome, before the intervention planning process is too far advanced, is important. To be unable to evaluate an intervention because the rationale and expected outcomes had not been clearly defined at the start is a major failure of process. – Teacher involvement is key. In many countries across the world, teaching is a graduate profession. Learning, as an adult, is a very similar process to learning as a child and it is reasonable to suppose that what constitutes excellent practice in a school classroom might also be considered in the same light in a professional learning context. Certainly, I have been aware, in my teaching of this subject to Masters students, who are also practising teachers, of a murmur of awareness that what we are discussing is not a new mystery at all – but a subject that resonates with them as practitioners in the field. Seen in that light, teacher/participants should be actively involved in many if not all of the stages in the professional learning process. One of the on-line papers that accompany this book details an intervention in a primary school, where all the staff were involved in the detail of the planning, and the evaluation as well as the actual process of the professional learning intervention.

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– The length of the programme is most important. The legacy of the five ‘training days’ a year in English state schools, although initially welcomed, seems to have led to a ‘one-off dependency’ in many schools – exacerbated by the practice of disaggregation, where five one-hour twilight training sessions replace one whole-day of training. The effectiveness of such practice has been called into doubt many times (Garet et al., 2001; Boyle et al., 2005; Guskey, 2009; Opfer and Pedder, 2010) and their evaluation is impossible in practice, as isolating the effects (if any) of one intervention from all the rest becomes an insoluble task. – Another unexpected effect of this move to a succession of short training exercises is that it increasingly becomes parochial in nature, both in subject matter and in the source of the training. The British Education Research Association (BERA) in its ‘Review Of The Role Of Research In Teacher Education’ (Furlong et al., 2013) clearly showed that access to external ideas through a combination of critical reflection and active engagement in research – inquiry orientated teaching – is the form of professional learning that brings with it the greatest gains for pupil learning. Although it may be that some Senior Leadership Teams and Middle managers have the breadth and depth of experience to make adequate in-house provision for their staff, they cannot have the time to keep pace with new developments, and so should engage with academics, for whom retaining a contemporary engagement is already a part of their job, in the continuing education of their staff. To set against these positives, there are a number of difficult issues to bear in mind: – The significance of clarity in vision and focus has already been mentioned in this chapter. For a school leadership team, however, the need to balance long-term needs with short-term demands, from a variety of internal and external sources, is a very difficult balance to achieve. As has been shown in the past (Fullan, 1992; Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012, for example), it is often the already successful school that has the capacity and leisure to step back and balance all the multiple confounding factors in its planning, while the school that is struggling is forced into a reactive mode, unable, or not daring, to ignore any external influence. – Second, the target driven and developmental culture that has been in place since 1988 has produced a large number of consultancies – some private (perhaps formerly local authority) and some university based – who offer a variety of solutions: quick fix or tailored to varying degrees. All of these assure the anxious reader of the infallibility of their service, but it can be very difficult for a pressured senior leader, responsible for professional learning, in a school to be sure of their provenance. Avoiding the potential ‘snake-oil salesmen’ that may be in this spectrum of consultancies is another time consuming and potential high-risk activity.

Assessing Impact

– Third, just as exam results are far from the only measure of impact, although other measures are less easy to access, so Ofsted (2006) demands that costeffectiveness be included as a measure of effectiveness presents problems in terms of obtaining a measure reflecting this. Here is another example of the need, if it is considered desirable, to include the means of collecting this datum in the planning stage. What constitutes ‘cost-effective professional learning’? How can this be separated from other costs associated with the intervention – whatever it may be? These are not questions that admit to a simple answer and may prove extremely difficult to solve in any valid or reliable way. – Finally – and as a summation of the preceding three issues – there is a real risk of innovation overload. The image of the struggling, but gamely selfimproving, school, submitting its staff to an unending series of one-off shortterm training sessions, is one that will be familiar to many ex- and practising teachers in England. The effect of such an imposition tends to produce cynicism and resignation in many staff, but is certainly not the only possible method. Interested readers should read some of the Case Studies in the online appendices that accompany this book.

Considering the individual However, there is still a danger in all this consideration of impact and effective evaluation. It is the problem that besets much of the research into human learning at any stage of their lives and any attempt to measure the learning of a population – let alone comparing populations. It is the problem that has haunted the establishment and reporting of English school public exam results in league tables. It is the issue with which psychologists have grappled – with varying success and findings – over much of the history of the subject. It is the relationship between the human as an individual and the environment in which they live – and the effects that this combination has on the progress through life of that individual. This is deliberately being kept general in definition. The intention is not to get into a rehashing of the IQ/nature-nurture debate. Rather, it is to encourage a consideration of the influence of a teacher’s own self, as an individual, on their own learning. In this section, we shall consider some of the writing in the field and set that against the findings of a small piece of longitudinal research into teacher learning and development, undertaken for this book. A commonly quoted trajectory for learning and expertise is that of the ‘S-curve’, where a slow start accelerates with time in the job but results in a plateau – implying a cessation of further development – after a while. Professional learning, it is suggested, may reinvigorate and extend this development curve, provided it is offered (and engaged with) before enthusiasm has given way to boredom and

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disconnection from the task. Establishing this window of opportunity for each individual teacher, all at different points on their own developmental trajectory – which trajectories in their turn will all have different parameters, is at first sight an impossible task. Simple solutions may be to offer a one-size-fits-all professional learning programme, in the hope that all the individual participants will find and take their own nuggets away (a model, which, anecdotally, is not born out in practice). As is implied throughout this book, the issue is with professional learning that is ‘delivered to’ the participants rather than ‘engaged with’ by them. (See my paper describing extended professional learning interventions in two schools on the accompanying website.) Two major contributors in this field are Huberman (1995) and the extension to this work by Day and Gu (2007). In both cases, extensive samples were taken to allow for a mapping of the paths that individuals might take through their careers. Huberman examined the relationship between the trajectory of teachers’ professional lives and their potential opportunities for professional learning (Huberman, 1995, 193). He identified different phases, which are seen as comprising a sequence moving from different aims, which present different dilemmas and so leads to different solutions, while making the assumption of commonalities between different practitioners within the trajectory experience. As someone who thinks in pictures, I have tried to summarize Huberman’s findings in the Figure 5.3. Essentially, he suggests that over a 30-year career, teachers may experience a number of distinct phases, which fit sequentially into one of four time slots. In all cases, there are comparative states which a teacher might experience. But the overall impression is that of a rather depressing fixity of the possible paths. As has been noted elsewhere, Huberman offers a six-year window at the start of an individual’s career, where, thanks to a variety of experiences, interacting with the individual’s own Figure 5.3  A summary of Huberman’s (1995) findings More positive disengagement Stocktaking -> serenity Expertise

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Less positive or conservatism

Career entry

1 to 3

Diversification and change 7 to 30 30+ 4 to 6 Years into career

Assessing Impact

personality produces the mindset that will almost dictate the rest of their time. Mel West (1978) talked of this in a course for aspiring middle managers at the Cambridge Institute of Education. He referred to the critical significance of luck in terms of a career. This can be viewed as a combination of being in the right place at the right time, together with the personality that would enable an individual to grasp and hold onto the opportunity that presents itself. Huberman takes a somewhat depressing view. Identifying a very limited number of opportunities where any individual might actually change trajectory. He also gives the impression that achieving serenity at the end of a career is rather less common than conservatism and cynicism. It is not difficult to find actual examples of this sort of career experience. In this paper comprising seven case studies – which may be found on this book’s website – Henry, a secondary teacher of History, gives an account in his three interviews, spread over ten years, of just such a career. He talks in positive and idealistic terms about the department he works in: About target setting: ‘all three of us should be putting it into the machine, so we can do things like trace progress and set targets and trace the extent to which we are meeting those targets’. About the use of computers in the teaching of History: ‘a lot of these youngsters don’t come in with a book background, but they come in with an IT background and I think it’s a question of using that IT background to develop learning’. Both of these positions are all very well, except that Henry’s Head of Department was completely opposed to any such practices and so Henry was thwarted. Now his personality comes into play, for Henry was the only one of these participants who was still in the same post at the same school ten years later. When interviewed for the third and final time, he was indeed cynical, conservative, suspicious of and disconnected from the school’s new philosophy in a school reborn as an academy. In contrast, Erica, a teacher of English, found herself in a similarly blocking situation: ‘I don’t see anyone else gushing about Publisher [the software the department had been trialling and evaluating as part of a professional learning intervention in 1999] …I think if we’d had a more substantial and solid department, it would have been great.’ Unlike Henry, ten years later (in 2010), she was Head of Media in a different school, having left the English department ‘because I thought there’s no way on God’s earth I’m going to take over English in the new Academy, it’s just big and they’ve renamed it Literacy, not English, which I disagreed with’. This was not a sudden change of heart. In one of her interviews in 2000, she regretted the same idea ‘we’ve got the literacy pressure unfortunately with Year 7, which has been a real downfall when it comes to using a computer and that sort of thing, because you can’t afford to slacken off for a minute’. So, for these two (and for the other five Case Studies) luck has certainly played a part, in the form of the departmental colleagues and leadership as well as opportunities for promotion. But so too has their own personality.

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In terms of the subject of this book – professional learning – Huberman identifies specific factors that influenced his research subjects over an extended part of their careers: – He found that teachers who steered clear of multi-classroom developments and who stuck to individual research (that might be seen as ‘selfish’ in the eyes of the school) tended to be more satisfied later in their career. There are distinct echoes here of Watson’s (1993) identification (in the first Impact Report into the use of ICT in schools) of a group of maverick teachers who were typically early and successful adopters of the new technology but who also failed to transfer this approach to any other staff in their school, thus in effect limiting the initiative to the time that they were teaching at that establishment. This was certainly true of Erica (above) and also of Michael, the Music teacher who might well have been a model for Watson’s maverick image. – Huberman also noted that involvement in district or national movements most often led to exhaustion, dissatisfaction and cynicism. However, these participants tended to remember the involvement phase as the best time of their career. – Third, teachers who actively sought role-change/shift were more satisfied than those who passively existed within their school. Henry is an excellent example of the latter, while Sonia – a teacher of Science – presented an excellent example of the former. She was a most promising newly qualified teacher at the start of my case study and had quickly gained promotion within the department. However, she found this change in focus away from teaching and into management and leadership issues increasingly unsatisfactory. She felt it was the school, and so moved away, but then took the opportunity to become an AST (Advanced Skills Teacher – a post brought in the 1990s that recognized and rewarded the dedicated and skilled classroom teacher. Increased pay came with a responsibility for one day a week leading professional learning within the subject.) Sonia had no doubts about this: it ‘was about developing people, going in, supporting people. You’d be doing something and you’d be given time to do it. Everything clicked into place because I think I hadn’t enjoyed being acting Head of Faculty when [my original Head of Department] was ill and I’ve ended up now doing it three times and each time I’ve hated it more and more’. Here was a young teacher whose life was transformed by her change in direction. – Finally, having excellent specific cohorts or classes and/or achieving success in the classroom contribute to a positive career perception for many participants. This is certainly true of Erica, but also of Frieda – a teacher of Modern Foreign Languages. The original intervention had introduced her department to a piece of software called ‘Fun With Texts’. From being a somewhat cynical and suspicious user of computers:

Assessing Impact

It suddenly became as demanding as an ordinary classroom lesson. It was a much better way for learning, but the idea that this was going to make my life easier, went out the window, because it doesn’t. If you are going to do it properly, you would have to plan your lessons probably more than you normally would. I was able to address people’s targets at the same time… I did something today in my ordinary teaching, which I don’t normally do, we were doing a reading text, and normally they translate words, first word, second word, third word, and I picked out the two lowest, the really weakest of the pupils in the class and it came from nowhere, it didn’t actually, I wasn’t conscious that I did it, it was only afterwards that I realised I done it, where I said ‘Here is the sentence, can you pick out the colours in that sentence’ and I have never done that before, ever, I have never done it… I am still learning, definitely still learning. I never thought of it enough to say to somebody, how do you teach them to get the gist of this, whereas this is what they want, they actually do.

Here, indeed, a positive perception, which with the resulting change in her approach to the teaching of her subject, contributed to her rapidly moving on to a promoted post in another school. This was not perhaps the best outcome for the school that had provided the opportunity and it is an issue that will be discussed later, the sense that successful professional learning may be to the benefit of a different institution to the one that provided it. Day and Gu (2007) do offer a rather more open and flexible model, summarized in Figure 5.4.

Emotional level

Figure 5.4  A summary of Day and Gu (2007) findings

Aspiration promotion or classroom expertise

Developing efficacy Reducing efficacy

0–3

Classroom knowledge update Strengthening effectiveness Effectiveness enhancement and support

Self-efficacy, morale and emotional wellbeing

4–7

Mediating external policy initiatives

24–30 8–15 16–23 Professional life phase (years)

Professional care and emotional wellbeing 30+

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Their VITAE (Variations In Teachers’ work, lives And Effectiveness) model is based on interview data collected from a population of primary and secondary school teachers over a three-year period. They identified six phases rather than Huberman’s four and also offer a somewhat more optimistic view of the flexibility within a teacher’s professional life. However, they also found a very early critical factor – that of positive support from the school leadership and colleagues – in which their sample allowed them to identify contrasting sense of an individual’s efficacy as new teacher. Day and Gu then identified the continuing effects of this early influencing factor on the next two phases. Interestingly, they identify different professional learning needs within the career trajectory (unlike Huberman who took a more one-size-fitsall approach). They also, in contrast to Huberman’s sample, found an end-of-career group who still demonstrated a high level of motivation and commitment, avoiding the earlier universal disengagement model. Overall then, this model is aspirational. Offering a trajectory which leads from an initial learning phase up to a high-level sustaining (‘wise’ perhaps?) concluding stage. This sense of aspiration and upward intellectual development feels a little like Maslow’s hierarchy. It also contains echoes of Hargreaves (2000) collegial professional, whereas Huberman’s findings echo Hargreaves autonomous professional persona. The issue that is not addressed by either of these two most interesting models is the possibility of transfer. Huberman seems to view the universal professional learning programme as an opportunity for each individual to take from it what they need, while Day and Gu identify specific professional learning needs for each subgroup at each phase of the trajectory. But, neither of these seems to offer the struggling teacher with a path across the trajectories. In the seven case-studies paper, the participants who managed to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them did so largely through their own efforts: – ‘I’ve learned with the children really’ … ‘I had to learn it [Media technology] as I was studying and I was using the kids also and we were all kind of pitching in together’. (Erica) – ‘I began to see all sorts of possibilities for writing music and so on, so I got an Atari ST [early personal computer] and just started using it at home’. (Michael) In terms of the professional learning model detailed in Chapter 1 (Figure 1.10), Huberman’s model sits firmly in the ‘top–down benefitting the organization’ cell of the matrix, while Day and Gu’s proposals can be readily positioned in the ‘bottom– up for the benefit of the individual’ cell. However, most of the case study examples mentioned here seem to have been almost entirely initiated from the top. Henry, at the end of his final interview, gave some details of a top–down initiative which he had been invited to lead.

Assessing Impact

The Head gave it to [his Deputy] and she gave it to me on the pretext that we’ve got to find you a new job. I didn’t really want to go at all. But as I say, I’ve never been to any training that has more enthused me’. Later in the conversation, however, his self-doubts rise to the surface. It would be hard…I would have to train the staff who are going to put it in. It’s a question of enthusing, motivating and actually simply doing the practical work of facilitating the program and validating people when they’ve done it well. It would be organising the training and essentially getting the team on board.

He was, by this time, well on the way to talking himself out of the opportunity, an example of a personality effect that was anchoring Henry within his depressing selfimage.

Concluding thoughts This has been a tightly packed chapter, bringing together, as it has, a consideration of some of the issues surrounding the evaluation of professional learning programmes, with an examination of the role of the individual teacher in their own professional learning. Evaluation stands in a very particular place. It has an over-arching importance in the success of a full developmental design, and yet it is frequently omitted or merely acknowledged in actuality. The individual teacher has a key role in their own career trajectory, always accepting the ‘good fortune’ aspect – although there was some evidence presented which suggests that the successful personality may create their own luck – in that they have the eyes, and the inclination, to see and then seize opportunities that present themselves. In contrast, you will have read examples of teachers who argue themselves out of advancement, denying opportunity while loudly regretting their bad luck. Returning to part two of the chapter title: ‘but what is it all for?’ I suggest three answers: 1. To measure the effectiveness of a professional learning programme. If the intention of the designer or facilitator is genuinely to improve teaching and learning, then some measure needs to be taken. However, a quick and easy tool (such as test results) may not be valid measure. Arriving at a sensible set of measures, and then collecting that data reliably, is a difficult process and will require a longer lead-time than is currently normal practice. 2. To enable an effective pacing of the speed of delivery of professional learning programmes. If it is accepted that a key part of evaluation is a ‘before’ or baseline measure, then to rush into a new intervention before the effects of the

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previous initiative have been noted, is to condemn the new one to an ineffective evaluation. 3. To raise the awareness and skill-set of the professional development strategists. Interviews with teachers in English schools frequently refer to group learning programmes in their schools. Here, a whole teaching body, or a large subset, is all expected to attend the same training programme. This makes no allowance for the influence of the individual teachers’ personality, maturity and attitude. The next chapter is devoted to some strategies that senior leaders might use to address the issues raised here.

Note 1 See https://thehub.walthamforest.gov.uk/news/planning-assessment-without-levels-articledylan-wiliam for a recent example.

6 Developing Professional Learning Strategically: Taking Control of Intent and Design

Introduction

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Considering the limitations of current practice

105

The possibility of alternative solutions

106

Addressing the issue

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Situational Leadership®: An overview

108

Plotting the routes through complexity

112

Concluding thoughts

115

Note

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I

n this chapter, you will find:

– Introduction – Consideration of the limitations of current practice How a school leader might use this information in the development of as Professional Learning strategy to encourage and promote continued school improvement – The possibility of alternative solutions – Addressing the issue ○ An overview of Situational Leadership® (Hersey & Blanchard) Provides a framework for discussion – Plotting routes through the complexity The professional learning matrix from Chapter 1 is offered up to Hersey and Blanchard’s model and from that superimposition the suggested strategic developmental model is derived – Conclusion

Introduction So far, we have been concerned with identifying and clarifying some of the major way-markers that allow for knowledgeable navigation through the hinterland of professional learning. This is a necessary precursor for, too often, the beleaguered senior leaders in charge of professional learning programmes in a school find themselves at the mercy of a very short lead-time, a limit to their own capacity to afford adequate time for planning and the siren call of a number of consultants in the field, all of whom offer their own ‘correct’ solution, but at a price. Lack of capacity also precludes adequate research into the provenance of these experts still less the validity of the solutions on offer. There is generally a lack of time to distinguish between the honest broker and the ‘snake-oil salesman’. There is also – as implied at the end of Chapter 4 – the real, and managerially correct, desire on the part of those positioned in the top–down role to exert some sort of strategic control over professional learning while at the same time allowing for the benefits of bottom-up contributions, while inhibiting the disadvantages of the same. This sounds like a difficult point of balance to attain. This chapter will address these issues. We shall look at evidence of the failure of particular leadership styles and consider research that identifies a beneficial route. This will feed into a re-introduction of a long-established theory, which I suggest has the potential to enable all those in a leadership position to plot the most beneficial routes through the complexities of professional learning.

Developing Professional Learning Strategically

Considering the limitations of current practice Attempting to get an accurate measure of the performance of an education system, especially one where education strategy has been absorbed into government practice, is not straightforward. Frequent changes of the measures employed for assessment complicate any longitudinal studies. For example, on a 50-year scale in England, how can we easily and assuredly assess the change in outcomes, when the measures have varied from General Certificate of Education (O levels) and Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) to General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSE)? These in their turn have been influenced by the introduction of School Assessment Tests (SATs) at a varying number of stages over time. Internally, the systems are also unstable. According to HMI reports, the first GCSE results showed the average 16-year-old attaining a grade F. A very short time later, the average was a grade C. Did this represent a change in teaching and learning practices or a change in the grade boundaries and exam question setting? The question also arises as to whether the change is for the greater educational good or for the immediate political benefit – but that is of course open to dismissal as paranoia by spokesperson for the government of the day. Researchers and investigative journalists have made several attempts to work through this confusing fog of incompatibility. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, there was concern about the long-term effects of the National Curriculum – and the near simultaneous introduction of comparison of schools through league tables based on results. Harlan and Deakin-Crick (2002) gave evidence to show that discussing testing in a school through a collegiate approach had a positive effect, whereas focusing on performance outcomes was more negative. Wyse and Torrance (2009) commented that ‘test scores have plateaued since around 2000 and in-sofar-as they indicate anything meaningful about educational standards this suggests that progress has stalled’. In the same year, Whetton (2009) saw that ‘test results are being used for too many purposes and that the high stakes nature of some of these distorts teaching and learning’. If we consider this emphasis on testing and competition, together with a sometimes punitive inspection regime as evidence for an apparent leadership style, there can be little doubt that it is unrelievedly autocratic. The emphasis is exclusively in the task, with little acknowledgement of the people who are carrying it out. It is also evident from the research documentation that this has not been completely successful over time. Mansell (2013) is kind when he accepts that every performance measure will be imperfect and may well produce unintended consequences but warns that change cannot happen until someone examines the underlying basis of our current system. This is, of course, nothing new to the wider management world – even though it seems that it has not been absorbed by education practice – in England at least. The next section will look at some of the contrasting evidence. First, we shall unpack some of the issues that have surfaced so far.

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The majority of the cited comments above are aimed at a government level, but the behaviours have been echoed at many levels within the school. This is an effect of using test results that are initiated at class (and ultimately at individual pupil) level to decide on whole school status. The autocratic, task-focused, style has been emulated by head teachers, which in turn has distorted classroom activities, as teachers increasingly taught to the test, especially towards the end of each key stage (Pollard, 1994). This approach did not meet with universal approval and many heads were aware of – and critical of – the demotivating effect on teachers of the league table system (Webb and Vulliamy, 2006). In the same paper, they also reflected on similar effects further down the school structure as teachers saw similar effects in their pupils. It is possible to argue from this – also supported by personal observation – that, since the introduction, by the government of the day, of test-based measures of school performance coupled with an overtly autocratic leadership style, this has necessarily become the leadership style of choice for many head teachers and for many classroom teachers. It is a style which, as we shall see, has some positive aspects, but which does not lead to lasting improvement – rather, if overused, it produces resentment and disaffection.

The possibility of alternative solutions In the last quarter of the twentieth century, the National College for School Leadership, in England, gained some international reputation as a source of excellence in the field of the preparation of new populations of school leaders. The National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH) became, for a while, a prerequisite for any aspiring head teacher seeking appointment in an English staterun school. In support of that, the College commissioned writing and research to extend the relevant body of knowledge. One of the iterations of the NPQH included reference to one such piece of work by the Hey McBer consultancy (NCSL, 1999). The research ‘carried out research based on a random sample of 3,871 executives, drawn from a database of 20,000’ identified six key leadership styles, which I have summarized in Table 6.1. You will see, from this figure, that there was nothing too radical here. It is interesting to note in the final column; how much favour appears to be given to the Authoritative style. It is tempting to visualize a generation of hassled and ambitious young future heads seeing this as a permission to over-use this style – and to feel justified in so doing. There is no foundation for this statement, beyond the evidence of the figure itself and the apparent emphasis on this style by many new head teachers, in England, over the last twenty years. There are certainly other factors at play. Some are personal: the schools I visited at that time, the specific teachers that I have listened to and the media stories that I have read. Others – the developing

Table 6.1  Six key leadership styles (after NCSL, 1999)

Modus operandi Style

Emotional intelligence competencies

When the style works best

Overall impact on climate

Coercive

Demands immediate compliance

Do what I tell you

Drive to achieve, initiative, self-control

In a crisis, to kick-start a turnaround, or with a problem employee

Negative

Authoritative

Mobilizes people towards a vision

Come with me

Self-confidence, empathy, change When changes require a new vision, catalyst or when a clear direction is needed

Most strongly positive

Affiliative

Creates harmony and People come first builds emotional bonds

Empathy, building relationships, communication

To heal rifts in a team or to motivate people during stressful circumstances

Positive

Democratic

Forges consensus through participation

What do you think?

Collaboration, team leadership, communication

To build in or buy consensus, or to get input from valuable employees

Positive

Pacesetting

Sets high standards for performance

Do as I do now

Conscientiousness, drive to achieve, initiative

To get quick results from a highly motivated and competent team

Negative

Coaching

Develops people for the future

Try this

Developing others, empathy, self-awareness

To help an employee improve performance or develop long-term strengths

Positive

Developing Professional Learning Strategically

Leadership style

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climate in state school education, the perceived demands of the inspection system and the increasingly specific demands or targets set by government – are external to the individual schools. That the training programme approved of other styles is beyond doubt. One iteration of the NPQH session followed up this table with discussion about how successful heads used these styles, and, dividing them into short-term and long-term styles, identified the long-term Democratic and Coaching styles as being in frequent and effective use. Leaders of less successful schools were typified as users of fewer styles and tending towards the short-term. However, and notably, there was very little suggested about how a leader might step back and decide which styles would best fit any specific situation. It is to that area that we shall now turn.

Addressing the issue It was great good fortune for me to encounter, in 1978, the work of Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard who produced a joint paper, which in 1972 became the first iteration of Situational Leadership®. This framework led to the founding, by Hersey, of the Center for Leadership Studies1 which gives practical insights into the approach that a knowledgeable leader might pursue. It combines not only aspects of several theories of leadership styles but also, and significantly, aspects of followership preparedness and needs. I have also found, in practice, that it has relevance for every level of school leader – for heads of department as well as senior leaders – and for classroom teachers who will find themselves leaders and managers of several interlocking and overlapping teams in their day-to-day work with groups of pupils. Indeed, if I may permit myself a small detour, I would argue from personal experience that developing the idea of teacher-as-leader is a most effective focus for professional learning in any school. It was not for nothing that Teach First in England (and Teach America in the USA) chose teaching as a leadership development vehicle for their bright young graduates. What follows will, of necessity, be a brief overview of a few of Hersey and Blanchard’s ideas. For a full discussion, I would recommend the latest edition of their book: Management of Organizational Behavior (Hersey et al., 2012).

Situational Leadership®: An overview The first step is to imagine the variety of leadership styles (you might refer back to the Hay Macber styles in Figure 5.1) and then trying to establish a framework to encompass those leadership styles. It does not take a great leap into the dark to suggest that a leader may be task focused to a greater or lesser extent, and that they might also be concerned with the people who comprise the team that they are leading, because there will, in all likelihood, be a variation along both these aspects,

Developing Professional Learning Strategically

in isolation and in combination. Leaders may spend a large – or a small – amount of time in task-oriented behaviours. Similarly, they will spend much – or a little – time in relationship behaviours, that is, paying attention to the people who are carrying out the tasks.

Pause for thought At this point, do go back to Figure 5.1 and try to populate the matrix above with the six styles identified by the Hay McBer research. It is also possible to summarize the styles suggested by the various combinations of focus: how might you typify the ‘high task/low people’ leader, for example?

I am indebted to Mel West for his suggestions as to suitable labels (made during a course for aspiring deputy heads that I attended in 1978) and which proved to be quite unforgettable. He suggested: ‘Autocrat’ for a leader who spends a lot of time on task and little time on the people, ‘Democrat’ for a leader who spends a lot of time on both task and people, ‘Charismat’ described those leaders who spent little time on the task but a lot on the people in the team and finally ‘Abdicrat’ was his rather jokey (but memorable) label for the leaders who spent little time on either. The only problem with such labels is that they may produce a prejudicial attitude – they certainly did in me – it took some time for me to see the real value in the role of ‘Abdicrat’, for example – but we shall explore this a little later (there is, as you will see, a very good case for this last style being used in some circumstances). This labelling is all very well, but it needs to demonstrate its relevance and usefulness. There are two important steps to take here: First, the leader – or aspiring leader – should take a considered and reflective view of themselves (maybe by asking colleagues in a 360-degree exercise) to identify their own ‘natural’, ‘default’ or ‘comfort’ style of leadership. It is suggested that we all have one. Hersey and Blanchard go further and suggest that we also show tendencies or aspects of one or two others. What, they suggest, is key is understanding that being able to change leadership style deliberately is a high skill of leadership. Which brings us to the second aspect of this model. In addition to understanding the significance and potential of different leadership styles, it is also very useful to have some idea of which style to employ and when. This requires some deeper understanding of two things: the nature of the task in hand and the team which is to be led. Hersey and Blanchard are particularly concerned with the team itself – and so the first part of this discussion will assume that the task itself remains stable. You should also assume that the membership of the team remains stable as well. Clearly, these are most unlikely parameters in the real educational world. However, examining a simplified situation will shed some light on actuality.

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A team of individuals, addressing a task for the first time, will, in the main, be at the start of a learning curve. They may be willing (they may not) but they will, none of them, be able to perform the task effectively. However, if the task and the team stay stable, they will gain greater understanding of the nature of the task and of each other’s work habits and skills and this will lead to greater preparedness (maybe willingness) increased ability and skill. After a while, we might expect them to be working as a team and to have mastered the task. This, Hersey and Blanchard suggest, provides the clue to the most beneficial style for a leader to employ. We can consider this in a series of scenarios, expressing the way a leader might position themselves with respect to the team according to their expertise and experience. So, an inexperienced and unprepared team (a department, say, with a high intake of new teachers, or facing a radically revised curriculum) will need a leader who will tell them what to do, emphasizing the task over the team members themselves. Their ideal leader will be someone who, like an old-fashioned teacher, stands in front of them – telling them exactly what to do. As they gain experience of the task and each other, then they will respond best to a leader who begins to involve them in discussion about the progress of the task. You might picture this team as a group, with the leader in the centre, consulting with them about the task in hand. Later on, in their development, they may become good enough to begin to work independently – their leader is now a nearly equal member of the group, participating in the discussion about the task. If both the team and the task remain unchanged, then the team may become so skilled that the leader need hardly be present – the leader has delegated the running of the task to them. So, if you compare the rather pejorative terms I used earlier with the roles and approaches of the different situational aspects of leadership in this model, you will see that there is a valid role for all four of the styles, even the ‘Abdicrat’ – who need not have given up at all, but have actually identified – or helped create – a selfsufficient and effective team who will now work best if left to get on with it. So, here is a potentially very useful tool for every leader in education – from Secretary of State, to classroom teacher. Using self-appraisal tools developed by Hersey – and also a form of 360-degree review – it is a straightforward (though perhaps personally challenging) exercise for the leader to identify their own ‘comfort’ style. Then, a close study of the team concerned, and a series of measures of their development, will allow for a tracking of their progress, and thus the leadership style that would be the most effective way of building upon that state and extending it. (This reads rather like a Vygotskian model. The leader/teacher, in every scenario above, is moving the team out of their comfort zone and into their zone of proximal development, scaffolding their progress by employing the most appropriate leadership style, or styles: telling, consulting, participating or delegating – as required for the continued forward movement of the team.) By implication, the reverse will also be true – a leader who is too fond of their own comfort zone may well be contributory to the failure of the team. A dyed-inthe-wool autocrat may well prevent their team from maturing and attaining any true autonomy, while a convinced democrat may inhibit a new raw team from progressing at all, leaving them floundering in a poorly informed and unfocused state.

Developing Professional Learning Strategically

There are, of course, a number of problems with this ideal – all due to the annoying habit of the real world to upset all the carefully controlled variables. Let us return to the caveats I mentioned earlier: – ‘The task remains stable’: which, of course, it doesn’t in the modern world where school-based education has a political as well as a social component. Depending upon how radical the change is, so the ability of the team will be progressively challenged. In extreme cases, the leader may take the view that the team needs a period of autocratic leadership to redirect them. For a stable and experienced team, this may well produce an emotional and resentful response – depending, of course, on how sensitively the leader introduces the idea. – ‘The team remains stable’ – which begs the question as to what constitutes stability. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate (HMI) conducted a study into pupil mobility (‘non-standard’ arrival and departure from classes) and concluded that a 10 per cent shift – so a total of three pupils either arriving or leaving a class of 30 over a given period, for example – would be enough to destabilize the class (Her Majesty’s Inspectorate, 2002). In my own research (2006), I noted that the departure and replacement of three Science teachers in one year was enough to destabilize the running of that very successful department. – Now, a classroom teacher, working within this model, is very unlikely to treat their whole class as one team. The most successful (part-time Masters) students that I had, who tried this out, developed small groups within their classes who they worked on individually, switching from style to style depending upon the developmental stage of the group they were working with at the time. Nonethe-less to have to factor in a churn of new pupils during the school year – and the readjustment that any class makes when a departing pupil leaves a gap in the existing social and working networks – must make the effectiveness of the teacher that much harder. – So too a head of department, faced with a near 50 per cent turnover (in the example I gave just now, the Science department had a complement of 8 staff) has a difficult decision to make about how they adjust their leadership to meet the relative inexperience of the new team – as a team. For although the simplistic approach would be to return to an autocratic – or perhaps a democratic – style, there is the likelihood of there being resentment from the already experienced longer serving department members, whose baseline response may well be along the lines of expecting the new comers to conform to their already established norms. It is also of passing interest to apply this model to the political and inspectorial side of schools as teams. Today’s view of the old-style pre-Ofsted school inspector as a clubbable and cosy visitor, acting a little like a bee cross-pollinating one school ideas with another may carry some truth. The attitude of the HMI of those days fitted best into the ‘abdicrat’ leadership label, judging by the position they adopted in discussion. This may well have been perfectly acceptable, provided that all the schools they visited were actually experienced and effective organizations.

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However, over-casual as this may now appear, the approach taken by many iterations of Ofsted inspectorial teams seems to have been at the other end of the spectrum – and for a near authoritarian stance to have been the norm – based on the premise that school teams were inexperienced and ineffective organizations. Now, this may well have been justified in the early years – as many schools were indeed new to inspection of this kind. However, with one or two notable exceptions, this approach has not been modified over the years. Even when it has, the autocratic/telling style has permeated the ways in which successive secretaries of state – together with the civil service – have ‘led’ schools in their public pronouncements. The assessment of schools through the use of public exam results – and imposed floor targets – is itself a version of autocracy. Little wonder then, that ‘test scores have plateaued since around 2000 this suggests that progress has stalled’ (Wyse and Torrance, 2009), as continued autocracy will prevent the development of team maturity and produce an increasingly resentful attitude in the team. This returns us to the comment from Harlen cited earlier in Chapter 1, that ‘constructive discussion of testing within school through a collegiate approach had a positive effect’ – which correlates with a democratic or charismatic leadership style. The message is that change is possible without constant recourse to an inflexible autocratic or authoritarian leader.

Plotting the routes through complexity It must be clearly stated, at this stage, that there are many excellent examples of school leaders who follow a version of this model. I have met executive heads (running six or more schools in a loose federation) who show astonishing and admirable skills in developing their staff and then gradually stepping back as they reach a level of skill and self-confidence as a team, such that they can run the school effectively without the constant steer provided by an over watchful head. But, there are also examples of heads who seem to remain suspicious and who are less able or willing to delegate. This spectrum of leadership confirms what was said in the previous chapter about the messiness of school organization and development. A successful school is fragile – or to put it the other way around, it is as stable as its various component parts, and the way in which they inter-relate.

Pause for thought This is the ‘So what’ moment. Given the sets of variables that have been presented in this chapter, what sense might you make of it. How might all this information help you, or your senior leaders, to make strategic decisions about the professional learning developments within your school?

Developing Professional Learning Strategically

Reflect back, for a moment, to Figure 1.10. To save you turning pages, it is repeated below. You may remember that, at the start of this book, I was suggesting that different forms of professional learning might emphasize different aspects of both benefit (whether to individuals or organizations) and origin or inspiration (whether the impetus is from the top or bottom of the leadership ‘pile’) (Figure 6.1 provides a reminder here). Let us now consider possible relationships between this modelling and leadership. As is so often the case, the extreme cases seem straightforward. A leader who is set in a mainly autocratic position might be expected to favour imposed courses and initiatives to direct the individuals and the whole organization in the direction that they desire. At the other extreme, an abdicratic (if ineffective) or empowering leader might well favour a bottom-up and more individually focused style of professional learning. So, at first sight, it is tempting to try for a one-to-one match between the two matrices. But this is too simplistic. This is to fall into the trap of allowing the illustration to become the truth. To see if there is any mileage in a match between the arguments in Chapter 1 and this chapter, consider the broad variables that have been presented. They are:

Reflective teacher

Practicefocused masters

ion ef ss o Pr Individual

Organization

Top-down

Initiatives

Imposed course

Initiatives

Bottom-up

Top-down

Academic masters

Bottom-up

Figure 6.1  The full possible range of teacher education programmes (Burstow and Maguire, 2013)

Tips for teachers

Collegiality

Cr

aft

Individual

Organization

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– Leadership styles – in terms of both comfort styles and best solutions – Team maturity and skill/confidence levels – The variability of the actual situation in which the learning is to take place and address – and the accuracy of the assessment of that situation – The range of Professional learning options – The desired outcome, which in itself is a non-straightforward area for delineation – The means by which progress towards this outcome – and the part played in that progress by the chosen intervention – may be effectively and accurately evaluated. This now begins to resemble an elementary form of systems analysis. Leadership styles, team maturity and the situational variables are all inputs, items that are already present at the start of the process and which need to be fully understood before making a decision. The desired outcome is the intended result of the process, which again needs to be fully understood and clearly defined before the process begins. Professional learning is then the process itself, which will make the transition between the inputs and the outcome. So, this is beginning to suggest a need for an effective system of analysis to arrive at a clear understanding of both the existing variables and of the desired outcome. The leader, who is one of the most important factors in the whole developmental mix, must have a clear understanding of themselves. This means a humble, accurate and nuanced view of their own abilities and shortcomings. A good leader, while having vision, should also have the generosity and courage to move outside their own comfort zone – taking risks as a leader if necessary – to facilitate the gaining of the desired outcome. The maturity of the team also needs to be fully understood. Within any school, this is unlikely to have only one answer. There are multiple teams in the school, and individual staff members will occupy a space in more than one team. Arriving at an understanding of the multiple maturities will be helped enormously by having an effective group of senior and middle leaders who are aware of their own teams’ performance levels (and arriving at these skill levels may in itself require some profession learning). It also seems highly likely, that this sort of analysis will show that the learning needs of different teams will also be different – that a ‘one size fits all’ whole school training session – except as an introduction, will not be the sensible solution. The environmental variables: the political and local demands external to the school – and the identified internal needs, will add a further layer to the already complex model. Isolating the national demands and deciding what emphasis needs to be given to each is a demanding task – and which is more difficult in a school that is in difficulties, as the feeling is that no national demand dare be ignored. Once again, the effects and implications of these environmental variables may not be the same for every section of the school, further supporting the view that whole school professional learning may not be the best solution.

Developing Professional Learning Strategically

The desired outcome, despite the prevalence of SMART target advice, may often be as vague as ‘To be better’ at whatever the identity of the learning topic of the moment. Unless you have a clear picture of the destination, how will you know when you have arrived? Unless you have a clear set of evaluation measures ahead of time, how can you design the best process to arrive at that solution? This will be considered in more detail in the following chapter. Once all these areas are clear, then sensible consideration can be given to the particular professional learning programme(s) that will act as the developmental bridge between existing situation and desired outcome.

Concluding thoughts This chapter had been concerned with the significance of the leader in effective professional learning. School improvement literature is divided on whether the head or the teacher is the most significant factor in a pupil’s learning, but all are agreed that the leader’s influence is pivotal. It is, therefore, most important that school leaders should be self-aware and cognizant of the effect that their approach style and decisions will have on their staff and, hence, the school.

Note 1 See https://situational.com/.

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7 Concluding Thoughts

Introduction

118

The model reconsidered

118

Negotiating with curators and moderators

120

Discussions within the university

121

Time frames and fine grains

121

Research in schools

122

Working towards a point of balance

123

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Effective Teacher Development

– The model reconsidered A revisiting of the diagnostic model of teacher development discussed in Chapter 1 – Negotiating with curators and moderators An invitation to reconsider the model and apply it, from a reflective stance, to your own specific context – Discussions within the university The possible relationships between schools and teacher educators that might encourage a theoretically inflected professional learning programme – Time frames and fine grains – Research in schools Possible issues should a school become a researching organization or engage a researcher-in-residence in their school – Working towards a point of balance Possible future developments and how well the wider educational world is placed to respond to the future waves of policy initiatives in relation to teacher development

Introduction At the beginning of Chapter 1, I suggested that the train of thought, that I was proposing to follow, was actually beginning in the middle. Having spent the last six chapters in an unpacking of the beginning (needs analysis and planning) and ending (outcomes and evaluation) processes, it makes sense to return to the starting point for a reconsideration of the original model in the light of the intervening detail.

The model reconsidered You will remember that the model represents an attempt to place an analytical structure around the variety of professional learning approaches that might be employed by members of staff in an organization. It places them within a framework formed of three axes, representing three frequently discussed aspects of such interventions: the source of the initiative, the main beneficiary of the programme and the implied view of the status of the recipient. These three headings, each represented as axes, provide an eight-cell matrix which may be populated by seven specific types of learning programme. These appear – once again – in Figure 7.1: I have suggested, throughout this book, that this model might provide a useful overview for those responsible for the professional learning within their organization.

Concluding Thoughts

Reflective teacher

Practicefocused masters

ion ef ss o Pr Individual

Top-down

Initiatives

Imposed course

Initiatives

Bottom-up

Top-down

Academic masters

Bottom-up

Figure 7.1 The full possible range of teacher education programmes (Burstow and Maguire, 2013, 113)

Tips for teachers

Collegiality

Cr

aft

Individual

Organization

Organization

It immediately suggested itself to me as potentially valuable for the mentor in a performance review discussion, or for the senior team members who are faced with the task of producing an ongoing programme of professional learning for their organization. It provides for several possibilities. First, at a very straightforward level, it provides a list of options. I am aware, from many years as a deputy head, of the constant pressures and the frequent lack of time to prepare allied with the need to perform, and being capable of producing solutions at a moment’s notice. One solution to this is for the individual leader to become dependent on a narrow range of favourite, familiar and reliable solutions – in much the same way as the harried classroom teacher finds themselves, at the end of term report writing stage, falling back on a small subset of phrases to express their opinions about their pupils. With this model, the leader has a variety of non-hierarchical possibilities to consider. The model also encourages them to consider both the present state and the future needs of their mentee and, thus, offers a possible direction that their professional learning might take. At the simplest level, then, this model provides an aide memoir for the over-stretched and under-prepared senior leader. Second, it suggests a number of destinations – and it is the multiplicity that is important here. It is an abiding impression that many schools apply professional learning in a one-size-fits-all manner. There seems to be a recognition that schools need to become better – and that it is the teachers’ improvement that is key to this. But, there is a parallel desire to make the professional learning feasible, cheap and

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addressing needs that have been identified by the senior team (perhaps as a response to external sources, such as inspection). The danger, therefore, is that all teachers are made to do the same programme, which carries with it all the attendant risks, discussed in Chapters 5 and 6. My model encourages a recognition of the different ways of viewing the variety of professional learning. It also encourages the view that teachers are not a collection of identical clones, but a school full of individuals, working towards the same end, but by a variety of different routes and being placed at different stages on the various paths. To return to the situational leadership® model discussed in Chapter 6, the mentor may set their knowledge of the positioning of their mentee on the leadership matrix (for this applies equally well to teachers of children as well as to their leaders – teachers are after all leaders and managers of teams of around thirty individuals) and then juxtapose the professional learning model to make a decision about the most suitable intervention for that individual. Third, it allows the planner to consider a variety of options. Any team that is planning and evaluating the effects of their interventions should be doing so with an eye to the desired destination for their organization and the people in it. This model implies a variety of ideal positions and philosophies which may or may not match those expressed by the current secretary of state for education. A leadership team that is looking to develop a staff of obedient and dutiful technicians will plan for a very different professional learning programme from the team that is aiming for a school staffroom populated by independent-minded and empowered professionals. The model presented in this book allows the leadership team to step back for a moment – something that is a rare event in this profession – and consider both the current state of the school and the ideal, desired state. The model then offers the opportunity to discuss the available routes that will best move the school (or a section of that organization) further towards that ideal.

Negotiating with curators and moderators Further to the internal discussions imagined above, school leaders will almost certainly find themselves in discussion or negotiation with external participants in the professional learning programmes of the school. These participants may be actual or potential, known colleagues or consultants or those who are selling their own programmes or approaches. In all likelihood, these parties will be talking from a position of knowledge, at least about their own specific programmes or interventions. They will, as experts in the field, be versed in theoretical background and equipped with the tools to identify, within the school, the needs which their own programmes will meet. Once again, it is quite possible for a less well-informed school leader to be unable to present much in the way of discussion or bargaining points, when presented with

Concluding Thoughts

a knowledgeable consultant who is keen to promote their own particular solution. This model provides for an alternative view. It is non-linear, non-hierarchical and non-specific. Interventions are written as broad types rather than in any detail. At the very least, it will provide a context to provide a frame for any discussion, one that offers contrasting alternatives and the reasoning behind them.

Discussions within the university Professional learning programmes, their theorizing, design, implementation and evaluation are also very much within the remit of a university school of education. Faculty members may be consultants within a school, tutors within a basic teacher training course or facilitating a masters level programme aimed at developing the new or potential leaders of school-based professional learning. As has been mentioned already, the successful and well-designed professional learning programme is closely related to the successful and well-designed school teaching programme. It is always a pleasure to hear a part-time masters student remark how much the two conversations share a common ground. With this in mind, the model provides a useful extension and addition to the existing theorization of the subject. I am not aware of other attempts to map intervention types onto this three-dimensional matrix and it has made for a useful starting point for discussion within seminars. In a similar way to the previous section, it provides a context to facilitate a thoughtful distance from the subject – so as to promote considered argumentation. It is not offered as a new set of stone tablets, rather as a test-bed – ‘are these suggestions valid?’ is as useful a way of examining the model as any – and I would appreciate considered responses in this area. To have the options laid out in this manner also allows discussants to consider multiple solutions to specific problems. Since the great education reform bill in 1988 (Gillard, 1998), schools in England have been increasingly subjected to centralized control and demand in terms of aims and outcomes. Sometimes, the demands have been accompanied by particular and detailed requirements about the professional learning intervention, but where this is not the case, then a measured discussion as to the most suitable type of intervention may provide a measure of ownership for the school. The model is designed to feed and inform that conversation.

Time frames and fine grains While thinking in terms of government interventions, the issues of time and measure of detail both arise. The disjunction between the life of a government administration and the duration of a child’s time in schooling has long been a matter of tension to

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those who plan schools’ curriculum and professional learning. It is a rare government that is prepared to wait beyond its own period in office to see outcomes from any intervention. More often, short-term quick-fix solutions are brought in which will quickly demonstrate, to the media at any rate, the incisiveness of the current secretary of state. A similar situation exists for a newly appointed head teacher. It is a truism that heads need to make changes within their first year in post if they are to be accepted as a credible change-agent in the eyes of the staff. For both these situations, it may be better for the school – and also for the likely success of the intervention – if the developmental period is extended. Lasting change in a whole school may take years rather than months to show. Successful change may be more likely if the planning stage is extended and design polished rather than rushed. In both cases, the evaluation phase should extend well beyond the ending of the intervention itself (as discussed in Chapter 5) and the rapid introduction of a new and unrelated intervention may conceal or prevent any continued evaluative measures. While time often needs to be extended in an intervention, the detail too often needs some further attention. I have returned time and again to the risks inherent in a single intervention being expected to work for all staff. The discussion in the first section of this chapter deliberately used the one-to-one interview of a performance management cycle to raise the question of the specificity of much professional learning. It is often the case that the needs of a single teacher are specific and unique at that time and in that staff room. On the other hand – as illustrated in the online case studies that accompany this book – it is quite possible to design a single staffwide plan, which becomes specific and personal in the freedom of response from the individual teacher as the particulars of the intervention are worked through. Here too, the issue of time is reintroduced. Without the time to plan adequately and then to implement thoroughly, the effectiveness of the intervention will be undermined.

Research in schools This leads naturally to the idea of teachers as researchers, to the researching (or inquiring) school. There are many very good examples of the power for change contained within this aspect of professional learning. Aspects of inquiry can be identified in three of the four types of intervention in the ‘professional’ plane of the model and in one or two on the Deliverer/Technician plane. In its various iterations: action research, professional masters, teacher inquiry and researching schools, the notion of teachers as actively seeking to analyse, intervene and evaluate within their own classrooms, has proved to have the potential for providing effective and lasting professional learning. Here though, the role of the head teacher becomes critical. There are examples of restrictive and controlling heads preventing specific research overtly or occasionally covertly – as teachers have been unwilling to report negative outcomes for fear of their head teacher’s reaction. There are also many examples

Concluding Thoughts

of excellent practice in the part of head teachers. The common factor in these cases seems to be an honesty and humility on the part of the head, who recognizes the professionalism and skills of their staff. In these cases, heads are willing to accept accounts of the failure of an intervention are prepared to support the work being done by their teachers and who are frequently involved in inquiry themselves, thus setting the example to their junior members – ‘doing it with’ instead of ‘doing it to’ is a very powerful message. I am struck by the number of ways in which schools are engaging with research. You will be able to read of some examples in the online appendices or this book – where schools have adopted an in-house approach, relying upon their own internal expertise. I am thinking particularly of a secondary school where the head had a doctorate and the whole of the senior team and heads of faculty were masters graduates, clearly a sufficient basis to be able to support a school wide inquiry programme. There is also the example of a primary head –herself a masters graduate – who used her assistant heads as research leaders within three inquiry groups. Within already published accounts, there are Sue Brindley’s (2016a) account of the CamStar programmes and Mel Ainscow’s (2015) accounts of his teams work as researcher-leaders-in-residence within one town. In both these cases, the academics were facilitator/advisors. The teachers were the researchers of their own practice – more examples of the power of ‘doing it with’. Taking these last two sections together returns to a comment I made in an earlier discussion of this model. There (Burstow and Maguire, 2014, 115) I expressed the hope that there would be room to develop ‘values-based’ professional learning. It is this that we are seeing in the exemplars of research/inquiry that I cite here and online. Here are heads, and their teachers, engaging in development that is based on the good values of the improvement of pupil learning within a secure and respectful (of pupils and teachers) environment, rather than jumping through specific professional learning ‘hoops’ – such as behaviour management – which are isolated from practice, brief in delivery time, poorly evaluated and potentially quite disrespectful to the teacher – in that every teacher may be required to attend and that the assumption is one of incompetence. This is an extreme and skewed view of course, and one which many schools would, rightly, deny. However, there are schools for which this is true. I am writing from experience as a school teacher, senior leader and visiting university lecturer. I know how often professional learning is carried out as a response to a trend or fashion or following an imposed recommendation from a ‘higher’ authority.

Working towards a point of balance As has been demonstrated in these pages, and as those working in the field will know, there are many sources that seek to provide an impetus for professional learning. One of the aims of this book has been to map a landscape within which it

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might be possible to see a route that would enable planners, both inside and outside a school organization, to achieve a balance point between the various competing influences. Above all other needs for the planner, I am convinced, is that of being fully informed. The planner who is over-confident and mistakenly assured of their superiority in the field is open to the errors of over-parochialism, on one hand, and unquestioning acceptance on the other. Over-parochialism can occur where there is an over-emphasis and ill-founded trust in the strength of their home-grown expertise. To deny any need for an external viewpoint, any need for an expert outsider’s opinion is to run the risk of engaging on an inward spiral of development, which may leave the school unable to respond to a change in circumstance. There are, of course, schools where confidence in the local skill-set is well placed. I have written about one or two of these in earlier chapters. However, in all the examples that I have included, the senior team members were still maintaining a watching brief to check that their understanding was still accurate. They were maintaining and updating their own level of expertise, by reading and through conversations with advisors, consultants and university colleagues. They were aware of changes and developments and were prepared to search out and engage external sources when a need arose. It is blind self-confidence that increases the risk to the organization. Unquestioning acceptance lies behind a couple of my researched examples. In situations like this the planning process tends to the laissez faire. In one case, individual teachers were given the freedom to select and book places on courses with no overall guidance. At one level, this might be evidence of a trusting and confident senior team, but it might well also be a symptom of a poorly informed and over-relaxed planning process. The brief observations and interviews I carried out in this school showed how little evaluation was carried out on the various professional learning events that were being attended either at the proposal stage or following attendance on the course. Decisions about the type of professional learning were identified in performance review, but there the matter rested until the next review interview, a year later, when there might be a question about courses attended over the intervening period. This seems like a high-risk procedure, where the school may well be sleep-walking into problems. There seemed to be no awareness, on the part of the senior team, of the level of individual teachers’ knowledge of the various programmes that were available, beyond a trawl through the flyers received from independent consultancies, universities and other training bodies. The effect, visible in the staffroom at break and lunchtime, was to produce a satisfied and comfortable teaching body, who were clannish and independent – an old-fashioned, ‘loosely-coupled’ (Olson, 1992) staffroom. A secondary point, but worth reinforcing here, is that the consequence of this approach was to remove the site professional learning from the regular workplace – an approach which has, over the years, become associated with diminished impact on the learning of the pupils.

Concluding Thoughts

Alongside the need for full information, there is the issue of leadership style. This was discussed in Chapter 6, but I shall return to it here for the role it plays in attaining a balanced approach to a values-based professional learning programme. The most successful schools, in my series of studies, shared a particular approach from the leaders of professional learning – whether it was the head, deputy or another senior team member. In every one of these schools, the leader was well informed but was also an excellent communicator and facilitator with their staff. They did not dictate or force programmes upon them. They occupied a more democratic or charismatic position with respect to their teams. The effect of this was to engage the staff (and in at least one case the governors, parents and senior pupils) fully in the process. There was considerable staff freedom and responsibility, in terms of the specific route they could adopt through the learning process. There was relevant and balanced use of local, in-house expertise and external facilitation and advice. There was, in all cases, an ongoing process of evaluation – mainly by conversations (not necessarily always as formal as an interview) – throughout the intervention and for some time afterwards. This latter process provided very useful data for the senior team, but also maintained the confidence of the staff because of the real interest being taken by the leadership in the progress of the intervention and the resultant staff learning. The collegial atmosphere in the staff and classrooms of these schools – demonstrated in the level of professional conversation – the welcome (in terms of words and body language) given by staff to senior leaders visiting their lessons – was remarkable, and a contrast to the somewhat shuttered feel of the more old-fashioned school referred to above. This level of engagement and involvement produced its own rewards. It was noticeable, in my own interviews, as well as observations around the schools, how these interventions affected staff/pupil interactions as well. Staff commented on how behaviour had improved both inside and outside their classrooms. Heads remarked upon how staff retention had improved – and in one case recounted how this approach was appreciated more than a move to a promoted post in another school. This combination – of full information of the issues surrounding professional learning, and full knowledge (and understanding) of the leadership styles that will promote lasting change – are the markers on the road towards a balanced approach to a values-based professionally learned teacher population. This balance, if retained, may well provide the flexibility that every school will need to retain its relevance to local and national demands and developments. That being said, schools and educational organizations are messy places. For the foreseeable future, there will be a variation in performance across the schools of any country. Therefore, schools that are excellent at developing their teachers may well have to accept their role as providers of excellence to their less proficient colleagues. But, to paraphrase an executive head – who led a federation of six schools in the first decade of the twentyfirst century – ‘to spread excellence is a moral imperative. Children get only one chance at a period of full-time education and who are we to deny the best opportunity to any of them.’

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Index autonomy of headteachers 79, 110 of teachers 4, 5, 15, 16, 40, 42, 43, 51, 73, 77, 79 Black Paper 4 British Educational Research Association (BERA) 94 Cambridge Institute of Education 97 Certificate of Secondary Education 105 change in cpd models 8, 122 factors 2, 3, 8, 9, 69, 105 imposition 10, 24, 70, 77 in management models 35, 36, 45, 70, 91, 111, 125 measurement of 6, 107, 122 need for support 44, 112 as process 8, 73 reasons for 8 resistance to 72, 73 role of head 50, 92, 109, 122 in schools 57 teachers as key 9, 28, 67, 89 thinking about 70 class behavior 53, 125 cross-fertilisation 62 destabilization 111 division into groups 111 population change 111 pupils in a 60 size 38 as unit of teaching 4, 19, 21, 55, 111 classroom 3, 4, 20, 51, 58 assistants 53, 57 atmosphere 125 based research 122 distortion of activities 106 interactions 89 observation 89 practice as professional learning 93 CUREE 93

David Blunkett 78 Department for Education 14 education of children 77, 78, 125 consultant 91 continuing 94 of the educated 37 Europe 39 function of 3, 7, 20 governance 70 greater good 81, 105 Higher 16, 37, 44, 45 impact 46, 105 imposed targets 10, 24, 46 leaders 110 messy 72, 125 practice 105 religious 52 role 18 sociology, psychology, philosophy of 25 special needs 51, 69 stability 109, 111 standards 33, 90, 105 strategy 105 education and politics 46, 105, 118 Act: Butler 1944 3 debate 36 Local Authority 69 Malaysian ministry of 28, 34, 36 Micro-electronics in 24, 38 Nigeria 38 policy 118 privatization 77 reform bill 1988 121 secretary of state 78, 120 state school 108 Welsh Assembly 29 World bank 35 World opinion 34, 36, 38 education qualifications Bachelor degree 28, 44 certificates 105 General Certificate of Education 105

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Index Master’s degree 17, 29 micro-management of 36, 44 post-graduate certificate of 44 of teachers 16, 19, 25, 29 technical and vocational 27 education research 49, 67, 69, 94 Centre for Use of Research and Evidence 93 experiments in 36 experts 49 Institute of 52, 97 evaluation Chiltern project 10 factors 18, 57, 62, 70, 89, 122 impact focused 22, 46, 90, 93 informal 89, 125 lack of 124 literature 13, 14, 68, 71, 86, 88 measures 85, 90, 92, 93, 101 outcomes focused 10, 53, 56 planning for 16, 18, 22, 85, 90, 91, 101 of professional learning 84, 94 responsibility for 93, 121 self 34, 55, 60, 93 evidence education 34, 44, 93 for leadership effects 104, 105, 124 of professional learning 22, 54, 60, 73, 75, 80, 92, 105 of resistance to change 73 General Certificate of Education (GCE) 105 General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) 105 Graduate Training Programme (GTP) 13, 25, 38, 44, 59 Grant Maintained schools 34, 36 Great Education Reform Bill 1988 121 Guardian, the 39 head teacher autonomy 79, 110 role 7, 34, 37, 42, 43, 49, 60, 68, 71, 79, 80, 106, 122, 123 Her Majesty’s Inspectorate (HMI) 5, 88, 105, 111 initial teacher education as apprenticeship 4, 42 deficit model 5, 38 in Normal schools 4 reworking 7 school-based 5 teaching placement 4, 25 universities 44, 77 in-service courses 5, 7, 13, 15, 43, 44 inspection methods 5, 33, 34, 42, 108

Ofsted (see Ofsted) style 34, 70, 78, 105, 112 James Report 4 local education authority (LEA) 69 Lysenkoism 36 Malaysian ministry of education 28, 34, 36 marketisation of education 5, 8 Masters of Teaching and Learning (MTL) 52 micro-electronics in education 24, 38 MTeach 52 Nigeria 38 Ofsted 44, 51, 80, 90 Prime Minister 4, 5 professional development effect of imposition 7 external influences 10 imposed targets 13 professional learning absorbed into practice 9, 10 change in schemata 3 collegial 9 compulsion 10 conditions for development 3, 8 continuing 12, 93 delivery 80 design 14, 90, 121 effective 4 evaluation of 9 function 13 head teacher 59 impact (see evaluation) imposed 7, 10, 77 intervention 40 issues 15 and leadership style 7 needs: bottom-up 14 needs: top-down 14 and performance management 7 personnel 59, 102 phases 67 planning cycle 121 population 3, 68, 73 as scaffolding 10 school 8 tensions 3 theory 13, 15 professional status 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 14, 26, 27, 29, 39, 40, 44, 78, 100, 120 professional subject associations. See Subject Associations

Index ResearchEd 49 Ruskin College address 4 Schools Assessment Tests (SATs) 105 Schools Council 4 schools market forces 4, 8 schools marketisation of 5 Secretary of State for Education 78, 120 self-evaluation form (SEF) 34 Subject Associations 4 teachers advanced skills (AST) 98 autonomy 4, 5, 15, 16, 40, 42, 43, 51, 73, 77, 79 and change 9 delivery agents 5 de-professionalised (see professional status) as individuals 37

as leaders 108, 110 learning 4, 52 post-professional 43 process based 5 role 7 trust: lack of 8, 42 trust in 63, 70, 80, 124 Teacher Development Authority (TDA) 15, 23, 45, 67, 80 teacher education 44 Teacher Training Agency (TTA) 13, 67 teaching unit 4 Technical and Vocational Initiative (TVEI) 27 Times Educational Supplement 39 University College London, Institute of Education 52 Welsh Assembly 29

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