HC 269 Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by David Weston, Chief Executive on behalf of the Teacher Development Trust
This submission considers the role of school partnership, co-operation and competition in the delivery of teacher professional development, from initial teacher education to ongoing and leadership development, and in the related drive to encourage teachers to engage more fully with evidence and research.
Summary
In order to facilitate partnerships which facilitates effective professional development we need to create tight partnerships with mutual responsibility for outcomes, shared goals, opportunities for collaboration, and some shared resourcing.
The current incentives system act as a disincentive for collaboration. We need to both incentivise and facilitate effective co-operation and school-to-school support.
1. Types of School Partnership and Co-operation
1.1 The English education system has a large range of different types of partnerships, from the formal to the informal, such as:
Membership of an academy chain.
Membership of a tight federation with executive leadership.
Membership of a loose federation with some shared services.
Teaching school alliances.
A maintained school as part of a local education authority.
Local school improvement partnerships.
Membership of national networks (such as the National Teacher Enquiry Network, Challenge Partners, Whole Education).
Affiliation to a university, perhaps as part of an initial teacher education partnership, masters education work, or joint research.
Affiliation to national training and/or support schemes, eg TeachFirst, Teaching Leaders, Future Leaders, Achievement for All.
Relationships between schools with NLEs, LLEs and SLEs and schools they are working with.
Secondary schools and their feeder primaries.
Partnership through union membership/affiliation/joint action.
1.2 These partnerships cover a full spectrum of opportunities such that schools are able to choose their level of independence and the extent to which they co-operate with other schools.
1.3 Not all of these partnerships have an explicitly defined role to play in professional development. Some of them explicitly foster the joint development of teaching practice across schools (eg Teaching School Alliances) while others tend to have no role (eg secondary schools and feeder primaries).
1.4 For the purposes of creating effective professional development of staff the following are needed:
Mutual trust, respect and responsibility between participants and leaders/facilitators;
A focus on long-term learning goals which are aligned to personal and organisational development goals;
Sufficient time and money to enable long-term, regular collaboration;
An ability to share and analyse data in order to evaluate progress;
External expertise, support and challenge; and
A culture of professional learning, disciplined innovation (risk-taking with sufficient safe-guards) and basing decisions on evidence (eg accessing research).
1.5 Tighter partnerships, federations and groupings are therefore more likely to facilitate effective professional development as there will be greater alignment of goals, processes and resourcing with an enhanced ability to share expertise. Tighter partnerships will also ensure a greater sense of shared responsibility and more opportunities to build up trust and respect, although this is more of a function of culture, leadership and relationships than any particular structure per se.
1.6 Overall then, we should be encouraging partnerships where there is some shared resourcing, shared development goals with some collective responsibility for improvement, an ability for staff to collaborate, and an ability to share data across the partner schools.
2. Incentives to Form Relationships, Tensions between Partnership and Competition
2.1 While schools are being held to account solely for their individual performance then it is inevitable that the top performing schools will have strong disincentives against collaborating with weaker schools. We generally see relationships being formed which are one-sided. Schools are happy to join networks that provide support, advice and resources for their improvement but any expressions of mutual responsibility will be overwhelmed by threats from Ofsted if they appear.
2.2 A radical solution to this would be to require every school to be part of a grouping of schools such that they will be held accountable for the group’s performance. However, with the current drive toward autonomy this may go against the grain.
2.3 Another possible solution, either in addition or as an alternative, would be to establish a database of best practice in order to form school-to-school improvement relationships. This would contain recommendations from respected major national organisations (such as subject associations, academy chains, unions, Ofsted, etc) of outstanding institutions and departments. Each recommendation would be accompanied by case studies and offers of further support. This support could be commissioned/purchased and there could be an element of accountability for improvement outcomes.
2.4 For example, if a school decides it needs to improve its History department then it would search the database for nearby recommendations and may find:
A local department which was highlighted by Ofsted in a best-practice case study.
A local head of department who is a Specialist Leader of Education within a Teaching School Alliance.
A nearby humanities faculty that has been recommended by the Historical Association for outstanding practice.
A history department in a nearby region which has been recommended by an Academy Chain for its innovation.
A history teacher who has been listed by a university department who has completed a doctorate in the pedagogy of history.
A history department which has been recommended by the ASCL union.
2.5 The school would decide which of these organisations it felt was the most aligned to its needs and values and then contact its chosen expert or department for support. The support may come in the form of:
A visit with follow-up coaching/mentoring.
A series of short secondments or job-swaps.
A series of joint lesson-planning, assessment and moderation meetings.
A training programme provided by the recommending organisation (eg the Historical Association or the ASCL union).
2.6 Schools who have been deemed to be “failing” may be directed to take part in one of these relationships by Ofsted whereas other institutions could choose to participate as part of their school improvement. Schools who are good or outstanding should be expected to be providing some form of school-to-school support and given credit for successful outcomes in partner schools. There may also be an element where less successful partnerships are penalised, although I’d be concerned that this would lead to further disincentives to engage in the first place.
2.7 The Teacher Development Trust has proposed this database of best practice to the DfE as we feel that it would complement our existing national database of professional development, GoodCPDGuide. We believe that it would be of significant value to enable more successful knowledge exchange within the education system and would help with the sharing and development of good practice in other areas such as curriculum development and narrowing the gap.
October 2013