Welcome to our latest newsletter looking at the exciting ways schools engage with Research and Evidence!
In this Case Study Newsletter, we look at Little Ilford School’s work with CUREE to evaluate and develop its current CPD programme. We also explore how the school’s learning has been integrated into a core training structure, ensuring maximum impact for staff and students (download a print-friendly pdf version here).
Starting Points
Little Ilford School is a mixed multicultural secondary school for students aged between 11 and 16 years in the London Borough of Newham. It was rated as ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted in 2012.
Back in February 2017, Little Ilford’s deputy head Helen Marriott, decided she wanted to review her school’s CPD programme. She wanted to find a simple way to evaluate the impact on staff and students, as well as increasing its effectiveness.
“The focus on a small group of targeted students enables me to gain a deep understanding of these strategies”
Middle Leader
What Little Ilford School did
CUREE’s “Evaluate the Impact” programme was identified as the most suitable way move forward for Little Ilford School. CUREE’s Rebecca Raybould ran three sessions with Helen, and senior colleagues Kate Chadwick and Fahima Minshi. Following the introductory workshop, Helen, Kate and Fahima used the provided tools to assess middle leaders’ experiences of their current continuing professional development and learning (CPDL) offer.
This provided valuable insights, for example showing their desire to access research that had direct relevance to classroom practice. A follow up workshop explored these insights as well as planning a small-scale enquiry to develop an aspect of CPDL for these middle leaders. This involved middle leaders exploring research into Metacognition, and planning collaboratively how to use this in their classrooms observed by peers to gauge pupil response. This experience was valued by middle leaders as an effective way of working together.
During the final workshop, Helen and Kate reflected upon what had been learnt from the work with middle leaders and explored tools and practical strategies to strengthen professional development across the school.
The programme therefore provided a springboard for the reconstruction of the CPDL programme. Teachers and leaders can now choose from a number of sustained courses ranging from considering the use of technology in the classroom to developing a m
ore personalized learning experience for pupils.
Little Ilford has created a new structure for all CPD inspired by the zones on a CUREE Route Map (http://www.curee.co.uk/block-content/what-route-map ); every sustained course involves teachers/leaders in:
• Gaining an overview of relevant research evidence
• Exploring their students’ or pupils’ starting points and the wider evidence in more depth
• Finding out how other teachers have developed their practice and evaluating their own progress
The revamped programme has started to have a significant impact on CPDL at Little Ilford. The sessions have sparked interest in engaging in wider research and linking this knowledge back to teaching practice and development. It has also facilitated peer support and actively encouraged colleagues to share experiences. Teachers and leaders are now in a position to evaluate the impact of the CPDL on students.
“I think the changes to the CPD programme will have a positive impact both short and long term. In the short term, the ‘case study’ format makes the programme more meaningful because it really encourages teachers to experiment new strategies and directly assess their impact. In the long term, it helps teachers to familiarise themselves with pedagogical research which will inform the planning of the schemes of learning for the new curriculum.”
Helen Marriot- Deputy Head
Next steps:
Helen and Kate are now working with middle leaders across the school to enable them to actively take ownership of the development process and encourage further communication amongst colleagues.
Little Ilford School is just starting its own unique CPD journey. If you want to find out how your school can evaluate its CPD programme and take the first steps on your own CPD journey please email paige.johns@curee.co.uk or Call 02476524036
Additionally, if you want to read other any of our other case studies visit http://www.curee.co.uk/news/curee-e-news-archive