CPD Team

This recently published report into the English system is of interest as Graham Donladson begins his review into the training of teachers in Scotland.

It is a hefty piece of work;  it reaches a number of interesting conclusions, and makes some pretty radical  recommendations. For example, in terms of CPD, it finds that there is not a strong enough culture of professional development among teachers, and that “the licence to practice” requires a generous and guaranteed entitlement to professional development. The report calls for ring-fencing of minimum levels of spending on CPD by schools, ‘at earliest opportunity’ and describes the need to attend to the ‘neglected needs of supply teachers’.

Read the full report here

This is a guest post from Rhona Mackenzie of West Dunbartonshire Council

West Dunbartonshire has had an involvement in the Microsoft Innovative Teacher initiative since 2006.

Initially this project was concerned with fostering a community of practice which involved all our Glow mentors but a year ago the focus was moved, by Microsoft, to peer coaching. This involved a week long facilitators’ course near London which I attended in November 2008. As the week progressed, it became obvious that this was a methodology which would fit well with the Glow rollout in our authority.

The rollout of Glow within West Dunbarton had stalled for over a year due to technical problems with our firewalls. While we had made a gentle start in our rollout in the summer term of 2009, we were looking for a way to jump start the process at the start of the new academic session. The peer coaching strategy seemed to fit the bill and we sent out an invitation to all our education staff to take part. It was decided that the only viable way of running the course was to offer two days during term time with paid cover: one in the summer term of 2008/9 and one in the autumn term of 2009/10. The rest of the course would take place over four days during the summer holidays. Two identical four day courses were held, one during the second week of the holidays and the other during the second last week of the holidays. All the staff met for the initial day at the end of June and will come together again in the autumn term. The first course in July had 12 staff attending whilst the August course had 8. Both courses had a mix of Glow mentors and enthusiastic practitioners.

Because the main part of the course took place during the summer holidays, there was a very relaxed atmosphere. No one was worried about what was happening in their classroom while they were attending the course and the fact that everyone felt they were in their “own time” added to the lack of pressure. Each day started with an icebreaker activity which helped set the stress-free atmosphere for the rest of the day.

All staff were asked to bring an idea for a lesson which they could use in the new school session. The plan for this lesson became the basis for the peer coaching protocols and also for the creation of a Glow group designed to enhance the lesson. The pattern for each day consisted of an icebreaker activity, a Glow activity, such as resizing images for Glow, Glow Chat, Glow Meet, Glow Learn (taster session only) and a number of peer coaching protocols and other strategies. As well as the new experiences and outcomes from the Curriculum for Excellence we also looked at other initiatives such as “Beyond Engagement” from Becta and spent some time in discussion over these. This gave staff a chance to explore Glow and current pedagogical thinking in a meaningful way, to interact with and learn from each other and to investigate practices which impact on using Glow effectively. We also had a session looking at freeware such as Xmind and AutoCollage among others.

Towards the end of the course, all participants were asked to create a coaching plan showing how they planned to take the peer coaching approach to Glow forward in their own establishments. It became obvious very quickly that the SMT in the school would have to buy into this method of introducing Glow.

The feedback at the end of the two four day courses was that everyone was leaving with a clear understanding of how Glow could enhance the learning and teaching in their class, a greater knowledge of other establishments and sectors within the authority as well as some new found friends.

We now have a dynamic peer coaching Glow group at authority level which will be our main method of communication and collaboration. We do, however, have two dates in our diaries for face to face meeting. The first will be a twilight in September just to get together and discuss how everyone is using Glow within their own practice. We will also be examining roadblocks and reminding ourselves of strategies to overcome them. The second day will be towards the end of November when we will have a full day examining the impact that the peer coaching is having on each establishment.

The evaluations from each of the two four day courses show that the course was greatly enjoyed by all who attended it. The proof of the success of the course, however, will be the uptake of Glow in the peer coaches’ establishments. Microsoft is having the peer coaching programme independently evaluated and West Dunbarton is one of only three local authorities that are taking part in this evaluation.

Jim and Scottish Government colleagues are talking to a number of authorities about the roll-out of the FR pilot. For those of you who are interested you might like to look at the evaluation of the pilot that was conducted jointly by the University of Glasgow and the University of Cambridge.

If you’d like to know more then feel free to contact Jim or any other member of the team.

I am delighted to be able to join you here today at the 2nd Scottish Government International Summer School on School Leadership.  The excellent turn out during the summer holidays is a clear indication of the significance that this event has for educational leaders.  I am pleased to see that we have wide representations from within schools (headteachers, deputy headteachers, principal teachers, chartered teachers and classroom teachers) and from local authorities and other stakeholders.  I am also glad that the summer school has again been able to attract interest from abroad.  I am sure you are all enjoying your week – it certainly looks an interesting, varied and challenging programme. I want to do two things as I speak to you this afternoon. 

Read more…

CPDConfer our new tool for discussion on key CPD developments goes live on the afternoon of the 28 February and can be accessed through the CPD Scotland site.

The first edition concentrates on coaching and mentoring and contains examples and accounts of practice from across Scotland. It also features pieces written by Gary Bloom and Jan Robertson who offer international perspectives on coaching in education. Thanks to the many folks in the CPD community who have shared their work and colleagues in LTS who have helped bring CPDConfer to life. 

Please join in the live discussion and share your ideas at  http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/cpdscotland/cpdconfer/index.asp

And if you want to encourage colleagues to join in, send them this CPDFind entry.

Click to read the Coaching and Mentoring summary

This post comes from Graeme Finnie (leadership consultant with Learning and Teaching Scotland).

“This is an important period of growth in coaching and mentoring in schools and local authorities and this commentary reflects the extent of the development supported by SEED 2006/2007. In it you can read about examples of approaches taken and the impact that coaching and mentoring is making in many local authorities. Of course this is not the whole story. There are many other developments going ahead which are not described here and you should get in touch with your CPD contact to find out what is happening in your area. Work is also underway (see the earlier blog entry) to develop case studies and examples of practice which will shed more light on the impact of coaching and mentoring for pupils and students, teachers and school leaders, in schools and classrooms across Scotland.”

Please note some edits have been made to the original posted commentary (17th Dec 07)

As part of the CPD online initiative, which is being developed by Learning and Teaching Scotland in partnership with the National CPD team, a pilot of an online coaching and mentoring environment for Curriculum Managers, Principal Teachers (Faculty Heads) was developed. This was based on Learning & Teaching Scotland’s online communities’ tool which currently hosts, amongst others, ‘Masterclass’, ‘Deputes Together’ and ‘Heads Together’.

You can read an evaluation of the pilot here evaluation-of-faculty-leaders-pilot-28-08.doc

The Flexible Routes to Headship pilot programme has been operational for 9 months involving 30 participants across 5 local authorities. A unique feature of the programme is the support provided for each participant by a Professional Development Coach. This support is currently focussed on each participant’s Professional Learning Plan constructed following self evaluation against the Standard for Headship.

Timescales
Assessment criteria and performance Read more…

This is a brief update on some work which Graeme Finnie and I are taking forward to develop examples of practice and approach to coaching and mentoring with the working title “A Guide to Practice”. 

The aim is to build on the project commentaries, the CPD paper on coaching and mentoring and other initiatives underway to develop a practice focused publication to further support coaching and mentoring developments.  The core of the Guide to Practice will consist of case studies, examples of approach, key learning and outcomes from across the spectrum of coaching and mentoring activity taking place in Scottish schools and authorities.    We think we have reached a stage where we have an important story to tell about developments over the last couple of years or so and this is an opportunity to highlight the quality of the work, that many of you have been involved in, to the wider educational community.   Over the next few weeks Graeme Finnie and I (and perhaps others we will ask to assist with this) will make contact in relation to specific examples of developing practice we would like to follow up on.

We envisage using a combination of interview, discussion and workshops to develop the content and we’ll come back to you with details on these.

One of the areas we will focus on is how coaching is being developed in the classroom to support learning and teaching.  We know of some examples, we’re sure there are more, please think and let us know.   We’ll have some other specific requests which we will let you know about in due course.

We hope, with your help, to tell a great story about coaching and mentoring in Scottish schools and we are aiming to produce a LTS publication in Spring 2008.

Please get in touch if you have any questions/ideas.

John Daffurn / Graeme Finnie

Graeme Finnie is the guest for this post

We had a great conversation about coaching and mentoring at the Summer School. Ollie has reminded us of the different ways that teachers and school leaders can work with coaching and mentoring and the distinctions that it can be helpful to make in terms of these approaches. During the SEED coaching and mentoring initiative we’ve created opportunities for teachers, school leaders and other professionals to talk about how they are taking things forward in their own schools and authorities.  You can hear a selection of them on CPD Scotland. These were recorded at a large group conversation at Pollock Halls earlier this year.