Memorandum submitted by the General Teaching
Council for England (GTC)
SUMMARY
The GTC is committed to developing thinking
on a future accountability model which ensures public transparency
and accountability, encourages teacher professionalism and trust,
supports the development of teachers' informed practice and best
informs school improvement.
The GTC has established a Collaborative Forum
on the future accountability framework involving a range of key
partners, including the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted).
A principal aim of the Forum is to identify
the policy barriers and opportunities for strengthening school
self-evaluation within the accountability framework.
The conclusions and findings of the Forum will
inform GTC advice to the Secretary of State for Education and
Skills on this policy area in Summer 2004.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 The GTC is committed to developing thinking
on a future accountability model, which ensures public transparency
and accountability, encourages teacher professionalism and trust,
supports the development of teachers' informed practice and best
informs school improvement. The GTC intends to use the conclusions
and findings of the Forum to inform its advice to the Secretary
of State for Education and Skills on this policy area in Summer
2004.
1.2 Following a GTC seminar in April 2003
on school self-evaluation, the GTC has established a Collaborative
Forum on the future accountability framework involving a range
of key partners, including Ofsted. The Forum held its first two
meetings in July and September 2003 and will meet a further four
times in November 2003, January, March and May 2004.
1.3 The GTC's starting point is its commitment
to a three-level model of school self-evaluation involving:
— rigorous internal self-evaluation
involving all stakeholders;
— monitoring of and support for the
processes of self-review by external advisers; and
— external audit and quality assessment.
2. TERMS OF
REFERENCE
2.1 The purpose of the Forum is to:
— create a co-ordinated exchange of
research, policy and practice;
— identify the policy barriers and
opportunities for strengthening school self-evaluation;
— develop working papers to influence
policy;
— act as a means of diffusion of practice
to schools and Local Education Authorities (LEAs); and
— culminate in GTC policy advice to
the Secretary of State for Education and Skills on the national
accountability framework.
2.2 The Forum is examining the inter-relationship
of inspection, self-evaluation, peer review, performance data,
collection, interpretation and application, professional standards
and performance management.
PROGRAMME OF
WORK
3.1 In order to identify the policy barriers
and opportunities for strengthening school self-evaluation the
Forum is:
— reviewing issues arising from the
current inspection framework, the existing role of school self-evaluation
under the framework, and the perceptions of the longer term role
of Ofsted, and the development of school self-evaluation;
— taking evidence from a range of LEAs
and school perspectives concerning the impact of the Ofsted framework,
including evidence concerning LEA/practitioner experience of the
support for schools with serious weaknesses/in special measures;
— exploring how other areas of GTC
policy and that of other organisations may support the development
of an accountability framework with a greater degree of teacher
professional judgement. One obvious example is the GTC's Teachers'
Professional Learning Framework[2]
and the way that it promotes professional learning as an opportunity
"to take a leading role in school improvement and developing
practice". Reviewing the relevance of and issues arising
in current national policy agendas such as innovation, school
networks and collaboration, diversity pathfinders and evidence
of the experience of schools involved in shorter inspections;
and
— exploring ways in which the rigour
of school self-evaluation processes could be increased. This might
include looking at effective models of collecting and interpreting
data, practice in bringing together "hard" performance
data and stakeholder attitudinal data. A further theme could be
to review different approaches to evaluation.
MEMBERSHIP
4.1 The Forum includes one representative
from each of the following organisations:
— Department for Education and Skills
(DfES)
— National Association of Educational
Inspectors, Advisers and Consultants (NAEIAC)
— ConfEd (Confederation of Education
Service Managers)
— Local Education Authority (LEA) practitioner
— Local Government Association (LGA)
— The Education Network (TEN)
— National College for School Leadership
(NCSL)
— National Governors Council (NGC)
— National Foundation for Educational
Research (NFER)
— The six teacher organisations
— National Confederation of Parent
Teacher Associations (NCPTA)
— Teacher Training Agency (TTA)
— Representatives of the London
Institute of Education and Sheffield Hallam University
4.2 In addition, 10 schools have been invited
to take part in the Forum. In addition other organisations, local
authorities, schools, young people and researchers will be asked
to contribute to the Forum on specific issues. Workshops on school
self-evaluation issues for two respective groups of parents and
governors will be organised during the lifetime of the Forum and
the findings will be fed into the Forum's deliberations.
20 October 2003
2 The GTC's Teachers' Professional Learning Framework
offers a map of professional development experiences to help teachers
and school leaders identify and plan for effective learning opportunities
for teachers' to develop their practice. Back
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