Prefer to read Enews offline? Click here to download the print friendly PDF version!
Contents:
The Philippa Blog
Developing Enquiry in Further Education
Bing CPD-ing
GwE North Wales
Live projects at CUREE
Get Involved
New faces at CUREE
Philippa's Blog
Once the quiet preserve of teachers with an appetite for higher education, use of research has become mainstream. Governments the world over promote it as a tool for competing with high performing territories like Ontario and Singapore. The Education Endowment Fund (EEF) now champions it, using its own trials and toolkit, as a means of closing gaps for vulnerable pupils. But too often, in the midst of this growing industry, 'use' of research focuses too much on the research itself and not enough on how it gets used and how it can help teachers and leaders achieve their aspirations for specific groups of pupils in specific contexts. Passionate as we are in CUREE about effective use of research and evidence from classrooms, we don’t see this as a virtue in its own right. For research to improve teaching, learning and school effectiveness on a sustainable basis it must be treated as systematic, work based, Continuing Professional Development and Learning (CPDL) at scale – adding an all important L to the traditional CPD.
This means developing teachers’ confidence so they see positioning themselves as learners as an opportunity to model deep learning for pupils, and a core professional skill, rather than an admission of weakness. That in turn means building schools as effective environments for research informed professional learning where high impact CPDL activities are wrapped around day to day tasks. Routine meetings include protected time for exploring evidence about how pupils are responding to changes arising from professional learning not just day to day bureaucracy.
The National CPD standards set out some of the key ingredients of powerful school and CPD contributions to working in this way. They are themselves, based on research - the systematic review of systematic review that we led. When all the contributions of CPD participants, described in the guidelines accompanying the Standards are in place they also create a platform for effective use of research at scale and for putting the L back into CPD
So it is very exciting to see the waves of Government investment in research and evidence informed CPD at scale described later. This E-news concentrates on the bottom up efforts of groups of teaching schools to deepen and extend their earlier, more responsive support for CPD and develop them into longer term and deeper interventions that can build self sustaining capacity – while jumping through the demanding bureaucratic procurement hoops that attend large scale public funding. The journey is a fascinating and rewarding one but we shan’t be relaxing until the goal is in sight – self sustaining interest in learning about and through research and evidence informed CPDL that is capable of systemically transforming the life chances of teachers and all their pupils, especially those who are most vulnerable.
Developing Enquiry in Further Education
CUREE’s partnership with Westminster-Kingsway and City & Islington Colleges continues this year, with preparations underway for a new round of enquiry applications and substantial progress being made in getting the college group’s new Innovation and Development Unit up and running. While CUREE has considerable expertise in supporting teaching professionals to engage in enquiries underpinned by high quality education research, supporting a college in creating an internal team which can provide this role is an exciting new opportunity. If you are interested in learning about how CUREE could help support you in developing a structure for helping colleagues conduct enquiry-based practice, please get in touch with email@curee.co.uk
Bing CPD-ing
After years of ‘str
ategic neglect’ of professional development as an instrument of school improvement in favour of structural change, the Department of Education (DfE) has fired off a salvo of new funded CPD initiatives. These represent a fantastic opportunity for teaching schools and others in the school-to-school support system but only if they have the foresight and the energy to grasp the challenge. Our current Secretary of State is minded to work with the system but she will need to see strong and early evidence of it being willing to work with her. In this article, I draw on CUREE’s experience of working with schools’ consortia in the early stages of these initiatives to flag up the practical opportunities and challenges.
It is a sad but unremarkable fact that schools’ first response to budget pressure is to slash professional development (CPD) spending. It is less widely recognised that all school improvement is achieved in whole or part through CPD - with or without academisation - so we probably shouldn’t be surprised that school performance has been on average static (see Rob Coe’s 2013 analysis for example).
Happily, after years of ‘not my job’, we have a Secretary of State who recognises that a) CPD has a key role to play in school improvement and b) it won’t happen without some injection of resources[1]. So in a few months we go from a CPD desert to a comparative deluge of national funds to an extent which challenges the system’s short term capacity to respond to the demand.
First was the Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund (TLIF) - £17m or so – then Strategic School Support Fund (SSIF) Round 1 - £20m - and Round 2 (expected to be £40m). Round 3 of SSIF follows soon, as does the next tranche of TLIF in 2018. Also coming down the ramp is Opportunity Area funding and the new kid on the block - Multi-Academy Trust Development Funds (MTDF). These are not all exclusively CPD but all have CPD as an essential element. Happily, further education is not left out with recent announcements of a Strategic College Improvement Fund (closely mirroring SSIF) and funding for National Leaders of Further Education (sound familiar?)
So this is good – right? Well, who can argue that more money is a bad thing? And it’s also very good that the DfE both sponsored and endorsed the Standard for Teachers Professional Development and is expecting provision within the new funds to meet these standards. Even better is the expectation that proposals under these funding streams should be able to show evidence of efficacy – a reason to believe that they might actually work. So you might expect that we CUREE folk are walking around punching the air; after all, this pretty much encapsulates what we stand for. We are pleased that is true but our delight is somewhat alloyed by our experiences of helping several schools consortia specify and write bids to these various funds. We worked intensively with eight bidding groups in SSIF Round 1 (seven of which were successful) and a further five in Round 2 and we’ve provides support for a variety of proposals for other funding sources.
And what have we learnt from this?
- This is a better arrangement than the one it replaced (lots of bitty, very short term one-on-one funding which was too small and too short to have any real impact). The new funds are much larger scale (commonly around £500k) on a longer time scale (up to 20 months);
- There is a much stronger commitment to rigorous targeting and evaluation (though it remains to be seen how much this focuses on process and outcomes rather than mere auditing) ;
- The bidding process is onerous and getting more so. TLIF was a procurement exercise beyond the capacity of most schools and consortia (and local authorities) but SSIF now runs it a close second. It’s conceptually challenging (e.g. does the Logic Model stand up?), demands a lot of research and other evidence and requires the players to build and nurture networks of providers and ‘customers’ – all within a small time window;
- It requires a willingness to commit to levels of investment (mostly in expensive senior staff time) and risk which a lot in the public sector generally (and teaching schools in particular) feel unable to make on the 30% chance of getting funding;
- The demand for evidence of efficacy is challenging for all concerned - the bidders because they have little experience of this approach and the bid evaluators because they struggle to establish evidence benchmarks, thresholds and exemplars. Even the evidence providers are challenged because there isn’t enough of it in sufficient detail and, important point, addressing the actual wicked issues confronting schools in difficulty;
- Better though it is, the new system still doesn’t make provision for developing the capacity of the system. The bidding window is short (typically six weeks) but, more importantly, the bidder (plus partners) is expected to have one or more interventions ready to go and to have all the staff and other resources on standby and ready to be assigned when (if?) the bid is approved;
- Already, after only one bite of the TLIF and two bites of the SSIF cherries, we are seeing bid fatigue and a growing feeling amongst teaching schools that they can’t commit any more capacity.
Having worked in an official development role with teaching schools in the past, I am very keen for them to seize the opportunities these funds represent to show that the school-to-school support system can work at scale when properly funded and evaluated. If they don’t in sufficient numbers, there’s a real risk that the teaching school network will be seen to have flunked it when the big chance came along. Of course, it would be better if the application and approval system was less burdensome and bureaucratic and better still if the funding was even less ‘quick fix’ oriented and accepted that some money needed to go into supporting building capacity.
It is good to see the new enthusiasm at policy level for professional development as the vehicle for school improvement and, with it, some recognition that struggling schools need sustained help over months and years not weeks. But teaching schools and others in the local school-to-school support system should be in no doubt that they have a short time to show they can take on school support systematically and at scale, moving beyond the established 'artisanal' approach. Our current secretary of state has the air of a woman in a hurry and she won't wait for the school-led system to catch up.
Paul Crisp
Paul Crisp was Teaching and Leadership Adviser in the West Midlands until 2016 and continues to support the development of the regional teaching school system
[1] Though many would argue that this is merely recycling a part of the recently axed school support budget
GwE North Wales
It was an exciting start to the school year in North Wales where we kicked off a second year of work with the Challenge Advisers and Subject Leads. Through the use of their bespoke Route Map, many of these participants have now completed their very own research based classroom enquiry. These completed enquiries will be added to the GwE Route Map, enabling other colleagues to see approaches that have already been undertaken in the area and how effective they were to their specific context. It was extremely encouraging to see that some of the approaches that were trialled by participants last year are now being rolled out as a whole school initiative due to excellent success rates with classes and individual learners.
This year our colleagues from year 1 are taking it a step further and engaging with the role of Champion, helping to build capacity and sustainability into this model for North Wales. They will be designing and delivering CPD to their colleagues and other schools on the use of the Research Route Map and helping others to develop enquiries of their own. We are really excited to see the fruit of this years’ work!
If you are interested in running a programme like this one in your school, MAT or area please contact Niamh at niamh.mcmahon@curee.co.uk for more details.
LIVE projects at CUREE
Wellcome Rapid Evidence Review of Subject Specific CPD:
We would like to thank all of those who took part in our focus group event for the Wellcome "Rapid Evidence Review". Practitioners, providers and experts from across England and Wales came to the Wellcome Trust to discuss subject specific CPD across the UK. We were nervous and excited to share our findings from the project and it was a pleasure to see a wide range of colleagues engage with the research. We are grateful to those of you who have given your time to be interviewed as part of the project
CUREE is working in partnership with the Institute of Education (IOE) and Durham University a project following up of the findings of the Developing Great Teaching 2015 Review. The project examines the evidence base surrounding the impact of subject specific CPD for teachers with a particular focus on Maths and Science CPD across the UK and explores the wider international context.
It was great to see interest in the project from colleagues and we look forward to being able to share the full report soon.
Paul Hamlyn Foundation:
In October, CUREE launched our second year supporting the formative evaluation of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Teacher Development Fund, with the first project-wide sharing day of the year. Colleagues from across the four nations gathered at the mac in Birmingham to discuss findings from the Year 1 pilot and collaborate in sharing their learning from their experiences. This exciting programme will continue to develop teachers' skills and confidence in facilitating learning through the arts for their pupils, and support access to and progress in arts-based learning for disadvantage young people throughout the 2017-18 academic year. CUREE will be continuing to support both the Foundation and the TDF projects throughout this year, to build the picture for what the public roll-out of the Fund might look like in 2018.
Get Involved
As part of a research project with Education International investigating the factors which influence teacher identity in seven different countries, CUREE are currently conducting surveys of teachers in Berlin, Sweden and Kenya, to find out about their professional priorities, development and national context.
If you are a practicing teacher or school leader in Berlin, Sweden or Kenya who would be interested in taking part in our research, you can access the surveys here:
- Berlin working alongside GEW BERLIN
- Sweden working with Lärarnas Riksförbund
- Kenya working alongside KNUT (Kenya National Union of Teachers)
New faces at CUREE
We're pleased to have welcomed a number of new members to the CUREE team. As well as adding greatly to our talent pool, our new colleagues also restore the team gender's balance to the traditional female majority!
Evangelia Araviaki joined CUREE at the end of summer as an Executive Assistant. Evangelia has a Masters in English Language Teaching and has a background in Early Childhood Education. She had already made a big impact.
Following her recent graduation from university, Paige Johns also joined the CUREE team. After studying for a Masters in Research Methods in Psychology at the University of Kent, Paige has joined CUREE as a Marketing and Research assistant/co-
coordinator. She has already been involved in a number of projects.
Finally, we welcome Elizabeth Barnard, who joined CUREE as the Senior Operations Manager. She has worked across a broad range of setting including local government, the NHS and the third sector. Elizabeth has already been involved in developing the business, marketing and office systems.