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- The Philippa Blog
- Quality Mentoring - Securing and Retaining the Next Generation
- Build your own R&D and Staff Development Programme
- CUREE Welcomes Professor Andy Goodwyn!
- Come Say Hello!
The Philippa Blog
Just when we all thought we knew what frantic was, everything moved up a gear in the few weeks between Christmas and Easter and now we are all facing the run up to SATS and exams. To build on a poster on a meeting room door in a school in Lincolnshire where we're working with one of our three amazing groups of primary school heads on evidence based peer review this week - "Children are the priority, change is the reality, evidence helps us link the two". The gears CUREE has been pedalling through (fast) which I think will interest you came from three main sources:
Teacher Development Fund for learning through the arts
First we were working with the Paul Hamlyn Foundation to consult about and launch the pilot of its new Teacher Development Fund to support CPDL for embedding learning through the arts in the primary curriculum. This is going to take place across the four home nations so we met in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London and Bristol - all in 2.5 weeks!
I am excited about this at lots of levels. First the focus is on CPD and Learning not just CPD. Second there is such deep enthusiasm for focussing on learning through the arts and lots of obstacles so support for ensuring teachers have access to the CPDL experiences and specialist support they are thirsting for matters. Third because the arts have very different places in the curriculum and a diverse cultural infrastructure in the four nations, the learning from across all the pilot sites will be very rich. I'm really looking forward to great, arts rich curriculum narratives. Fourth because the ten providers invited to submit proposals based on expressions of interest really did have exciting and different ideas! Last but not least - this is that rare thing - a pilot preparing for a long term roll out at scale! What luxury to learn deeply and at a measured pace! We feel very privileged to support PHF and the pilot sites and will keep you posted!
International work
Second there has been lots of learning from and with colleagues in other countries. There was brilliant ResearchEd event in Gothenburg and you can see the videos here. My session was very interactive and it was stunning to see all those Swedish teachers working on complicated issues about effective CPDL in a foreign language! As you will see, peer teaching and co-planning are seen as areas with great potential there. It was nice of David Weston to say "the incomparable Philippa - now sporting rock star head mic!"- the reality was they almost had to glue it on because a) I move about/ gesticulate a lot and b) I have a very small head. Not sure rock stars have these problems...
My third trip to Sweden this year to the wonderful Swedish Union of Teachers conference was equally stunning but very different. It was in Swedish (except for my bit) but I discovered I could follow what was going on by translating tweets on my phone! Go Twitter! What I loved was the fact that teachers from all phases and at all levels belong to the same association. In fact I met a Deputy Vice Chancellor who I had met previously at OECD conferences who had swapped to this association the previous week - because she was so impressed with them and especially with their interest in CPDL and research.
Local engagement with research and evidence that lasts
But it isn't just other countries and charities who are impressing me with a serious and sustained commitment to supporting CPDL and teacher and school leaders engagement in and with research. A teacher from a school where we launched a research route map in partnership with in-school champions two years ago bounded up to me at a partnership conference for lead practitioners between SSAT and CUREE a few weeks ago to say he had just received the final professional enquiry project impact report so he now had one from every single teacher! Go Kees! As you will see below, we are finding a number of schools are succeeding in using our research route map tools to build genuine scale, depth, capacity and evidence into CPDL...
We seem finally, in partnership with schools, to be building a picture about how to create lasting, long term CPDL and research informed practice that works for both pupils and for teachers.
Philippa Cordingley
Quality Mentoring - Securing and Retaining the Next Generation
We’ve all been focussed on the content, pedagogy, behaviour management aspects of ITT - thanks in part to the Carter Review. But the review’s recommendations about improving the quality of mentoring have been on a slower burn. Yet the quality of mentoring is key not just to teacher quality but to their understanding of what it means to be a teacher.
Mentors are the people who offer the strongest and most immediate role models to trainees. Those whose aspirations to become teachers translate into a commitment to become and remain an excellent one need to be in touch with colleagues who are explicitly modelling exceptional facilitation of learning - this time professional learning. But this is a demanding role not just something good classroom teachers can do without thinking about it. They need to work out how to reframe what they know about teaching young people and make dialled in practices explicit.
Where trainees criticise their training, they highlight the poor quality of the mentoring, a judgement frequently endorsed by Ofsted. CUREE has researched teacher initial and continuing professional development and school improvement for nearly 20 years. From that we can emphatically endorse the centrality of good – and trained – mentors. From that basis we also created a national Mentoring and Coaching Framework. We also created a set of digital resources –including video animations and other tools - to support local training in mentoring.
We have used these with over 500 mentors in partnership with Bath Spa University, Teach First and most recently Sheffield Hallam this year. In Sheffield, participant numbers shot up from 25 to 125 in just five days
So why don’t you see if the tools and videos work for you too? Or we can work with your SCITT/School Direct partnership to run a workshop. The resources are available from our website here. You can view a sample of those resources on line here. We also support the resources with workshops, seminars face to face and virtually. Contact Gillian Sheail (0247 524 036) to find out more
Paul Crisp and Gillian Sheail
Build your own R&D and Staff Development Programme
CUREE are proud of our continued partnership with the Holy Rosary Teaching School Alliance in Liverpool, who have built a school and staff development programme from a Research Route Map commissioned from CUREE. Starting in 2015 on Stretch and Challenge colleagues from the Holy Rosary Alliance explored potential research questions based on areas of interest in their respective schools for them to investigate throughout the year as well as ways in which they could use the Route Map tools collaboratively.
After colleagues completed their action research projects they were supported by CUREE and their peers in writing up their findings. This went so well they commissioned an extension of the Map to incorporate more challenge/ progression for both colleagues and pupils.
“Working in partnership with Curee (Centre for the Use of research & Evidence in Education) we are developing a route map which collects evidence based good practice and adding our enquiries to it as we ‘grow’ our own expertise, this recording of our learning journey is developing shared knowledge and building capacity for future teachers in our schools.”
The work was of such high quality that TES Research Corner featured several of their reports. Schools across the country have been getting in touch to learn more about their exciting research as a result!
It’s never been a better time to plan and start your Route Map journey as a new series of Off the Shelf Route Maps have just been launched around a number of common classroom concerns. Dip your toes in the water with our themed Routemaps on:
- Improving motivation and Engagement
- Strategies for enhancing differentiation
- Maths Across the Curriculum
These are launched next week as additions to our existing routemaps and Guided Pathways on:
Most are available in primary and secondary versions. For a conversation about how a Routemap can be tailored to the particular issues for your school phone or email Bart Crisp here at CUREE. You can also talk to us at the many upcoming conferences and even get a discount!
Bart Crisp
CUREE Welcomes Professor Andy Goodwyn!
This year we were delighted to welcome to the team Professor Andy Goodwyn as our new Director of Research, who joins us from his previous role as Head of the Institute of Education at the University of Reading where he remains a professor.
Andy taught English at secondary level for twelve years in Coventry and London before leading a PGCE English programme for twenty years, and a MA in English and Language for a similar period. Andy has also worked closely with organisations such as the National Association for The Teaching of English, the DfE, Ofsted, Routledge and Pearson. Known internationally for his research, Andy has already made strong contributions at CUREE and we look forward to working with him further.
We also say a fond farewell to our Colleague, and Principal Research Manager, Dr Natalia Buckler who moved on to a new role in late February (following a devilish quiz at her leaving party). We thank Natalia for all of her substantial work at CUREE over the years and wish her best of luck in her new role and we know lots of you who worked with her will wish her well too!
Come Say Hello!
Conference season is very much upon us, which means it's also a great time to meet the CUREE team in person! We'll be at numerous conference events over the next few months, including;
- A Brief input from Philippa to the Westminster Forum on 10th May
- The Warwickshire Heads Conference 10th June
- Inspiring Leaders 15th-17th June at the ICC, where Philippa will be launching our new research about effective approaches to regaining momentum in pupil progress for schools serving vulnerable communities
- The TDT, OUP Developing Great Teaching Conferences in Cardiff on 21st and London 23rd June ( Philippa is both doing a keynote and contributing to a panel)
- Festival of Education, 24th June and ResearchED Rugby on 25th June where Philippa will be also exploring our new research about strategies for re-gaining momentum
Our calendar of research and evidence informed CPD programmes are also well underway, featuring an exciting line-up of sustained workshop programmes and free taster events on a variety of topics. Find out more on our website, or get in touch with joe.askew@curee.co.uk
Contact Us
Curee
Centre for Use of Research & Evidence in Education
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Tel: 02476 524036