CPD Team

Thanks to a wee prompt from Fearghal Kelly (CfE support officer in East Lothian), I picked up on this research study of one Science department in a school in Australia.

“Our analysis reveals three important findings:

• the negligible impact of school policy on the work of the teachers
• the willingness of teachers to utilize appropriate expertise, regardless of the source of that expertise
• and the manner in which these teachers have developed a community in which teaching practices, both individual and corporate, can be discussed and critiqued.

The clear implication of these findings is that it is teachers, working within the department and wider science education community, who were making the conceptual change from professional development to professional learning.”

This research is also featured in the most recent research round-up from LTScotland, which this month also includes CPD-related research into CPD in ICT for educators in England and an evaluation of the Chartered Teacher Pilot in Wales.

The GTCS magazine has a great article about learning rounds in its latest edition. It includes a range of quotes from headteachers, local authority people and many others. For example, Gary Johnstone of North Ayrshire Council says that “Learning Rounds, importantly, exemplifies the power of learning together; within, across and beyond schools and with staff at all levels working alongside each other.” and Tom Hamilton of the GTCS adds “the SFR requires that registered teachers take responsibility for their professional learning and development through working collegially with fellow teachers on continuing professional development and it is really positive to have this aspect of professionalism so well exemplified through the Learning Rounds model.”

You can read the full article here http://tinyurl.com/yjzv8mu

I came across a very interesting article in the Harvard Education Letter (Vol 26, no 1) by Richard F Elmore, an old friend of the National CPD Team and indeed of Scottish education.

He reflects on school reform over the last 25 years, by considering how the work he has undertaken has changed his thinking and his habits of mind, and how he has been influenced by others.

He comes to three significant conclusions:

1. He used to think that policy was the solution. And now he thinks that policy is the problem. He describes the American system as “overwhelmed with policy, conditioned to respond to the immediate demands of whoever controls the political agenda, and not invested in the long-tern health of the sector and the people who work in it.” He believes the answer lies in building a stronger profession by “direct engagement with practitioners, rather than trying to “fix” schools with policy”.
2. He used to think that people’s beliefs determined their practice. Now he thinks that people’s practices determine their beliefs. He used to believe that improvements in student learning would come from changing teacher attitudes about what children can learn in order that they change their practice. He now believes that what people believe does not greatly influence the way they behave. Rather the largest determinant of of how people’s current practice is their past practice. He says “people demonstrate an amazingly resilient capacity to relabel their existing practices with whatever ideas are currently in vogue.” Elmore now cares more about what people do, and their willingness to engage in deeply unfamiliar practices.
3. He used to think that public institutions embody the collective values of society. He now thinks that they embody the interests of the people who work in them. He says that the phrase “We’re in it for the kids,” is a monument to self-deception. He believes that the public school system is among the most self-interested institutions in America, staffed by people who are not unusually corrupt, immoral or venal, but simply acting according to their interests. He claims that the greatest leaders of social transformation – Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela  – “led by providing an opportunity for people to bring their voices and actions to a common endeavor – not by confusing their own interests with those of the people they hoped to help.”

Would love to hear comments on this – or indeed what did you use to think . . . but now think. . . ?

Graham Thomson and I were delighted to do a presentation and lead a discussion on this theme at the recent Practitioner Research event at St Georges in Edinburgh.  Linda Blencowe who is the Research and Development Fellow at the school arranges these early evening events on a regular basis, and it was good to see so many colleagues coming along after school to talk about learning and teaching. You can contact Linda at lab@st-georges.edin.sch.uk to find out more about this excellent example of teachers teaching teachers.

The photo shows Graham and I with the headmistress Helen Mackie.

Selmas Conference 2009

The Impact of Change

11th September 2009

Once again education leaders from all over Scotland gathered in Stirling for the annual Selmas conference.

As in previous years conference was addressed by the Cabinet Secretary. Fiona Hyslop MSP who spoke of the increase in spending on education by the current administration, and the somewhat disappointing decline in the rate of improvement within the system. She invited school leaders to develop a culture that is genuinely aspirational, and that is built on a commitment to innovation and change. Curriculum for Excellence offers us all the opportunity to engage pupils in learning that has breadth and depth and that raises standards for everyone. She spoke of her optimism for the changes and of  her view that schools were now engaged in working on the CfE agenda for change.

Margaret Alcorn followed with a brief input on the need for an aligned system, with confident and cheerful leaders all focused on the “main thing”. She spoke of the need to continue to consider the values and principles of CfE.

We then heard from a panel of 5 educational leaders. David Cameron spoke of the challenge for local authorities to provide consistency and cohesion; Christine Forde spoke of developing leadership to make an impact in the classroom; Neal McGowan asked whether we had the right climate for leadership within Scotland, and suggested too many headteachers were compliant and lacked freedom to act creatively; Alex Wood summarised some of his learning from the International Summer School and Jenny Campbell suggested that some heads were overly involved in the detail, perhaps because this was a comfort zone, and that it was important to develop a high performance mindset. The delegates then engaged in a lively discussion on the points raised by the panel.

After lunch, we watched the “My big idea for Scottish education” DVD, then listened to a description of Learning Rounds from Graham Thomson. The headteacherof Irvive Royal, Stirling Mackie, and a teacher of technical, Alan Hume, from the school then described their experience of Learning Rounds in a school setting.

We finished the day with Karen Prophet of Edinburgh who spoke about models for change in the context of Curriculum for Excellence. She said that in order to interpret the complexity of curricular reform, we require leaders not managers, and returned to one of the recurring themes that had characterised the day, that is the role of headteachers to be “Leaders of Learning”.

The feedback from delegates suggests that once again, SELMAS managed to offer a challenging and stimulating day, packed with opinions, information and opportunities to network.

The National CPD Team are looking for a passionate CPD leader in a Scottish educational establishment to assist with the development of CPDLead. CPDLead is the new online community for CPD Leaders on Glow (to be launched at the Scottish Learning Festival).

As an associate of the CPD Team, you will be challenged to:

1. Promote sharing of practice using the sharing section of CPDLead
2. Promote discussion of professional learning topics on CPDLead (and through CPDFind)
3. Make CPDLead a listening post for CPD Leaders

The ideal associate will be:

• a CPD leader (coordinator) in Scottish educational establishment
• be committed to effective and innovative CPD practice
• familiar with the Glow environment (but that’s an added bonus)!

The associate work is funded by the National CPD Team and takes the form of reimbursement for your local authority and / or the associate in their own time.

If you are interested, drop ruth@cosla.gov.uk an email.

This (rather long) post summarises most of the links to our Leadership Summer School. As more links appear, we will update this post. Please share with us your own thoughts, experiences and links for the event!

The ‘official site’

You can get more information (including the programme) on the  Summer School site. Copies of all the Powerpoints will be available here soon!

Twitter

Before, during and after the 4 days, some colleagues used Twitter to discuss the leadership topics. If you want to see their links, thoughts and comments, here’s what to do:

1.       Go to http://tinyurl.com/lss09latest

2.       Read the comments made. (Please note for those unfamiliar with Twitter, each comment must be less than 140 characters. This can sometimes lead to perceptions that commenters are a tad brusque!)

3.       Click on blue links with http:// in front of it to follow a link

4.       Click on blue @ to see who is making the comment (eg@cpdscotsman will take you to Con’s Twitter account)

 Monday

Chair – Annette Bruton, HMIE

Tuesday

Chair – Tony Townsend

Wednesday

Chair – Frank Lennon

Thursday

Chair – Michael Kellett

Slideshow courtesy of @mikecoulter

During last week’s Summer School on Leadership, I was privileged to host a TeachMeet ‘unconference’ on the broad topic of educational leadership. If you haven’t heard of them before, an unconference is where the participants take charge. There are no special guests, keynote speakers or even an agenda!

Only a few weeks before the event a blank page was posted on the Teachmeet web site.  Participants were urged to sign up to deliver a micro-presentation (no more than 7 minutes), a nano-presentation (no more than 2 minutes) or just to ‘lurk’. Distributive leadership in action or sheer madness expecting educational staff to give up a holiday evening to attend a CPD event?

Word of the event spread through email, blogs and Twitter. The online conversation included suggestions of topics for debate by a number of colleagues including @frankcrawford of HMIE. By the evening of the event, we had a sell-out crowd (more than 60), generous sponsors, and more speakers than we could fit in.

The format was a mixture of group activity, learning conversations and short thought-pieces. Group activities included:

• “describe your ideal leader through the medium of ….Lego”
• Randomly generated activities using this tool from @johndavitt
• contribute your favourite leadership characteristic for the Leadmeet09 Wordle (thanks @katiebarrowman).

The speakers were randomly selected using a tool from classtools.net . Sadly, many were willing but only a few were chosen! The lucky ones included David Noble, Margaret Alcorn, Frank Crawford, Gary Johnstone and David Pyper (all the way from Ontario, Canada!)

Even the unlucky ones get a say thanks to the power of online technology. Here’s Ian Stuart’s presentation on Situational Leadership

The online aspect continued throughout the event. Some people attended remotely using webconferencing technology set up by @parslad . In addition, many attendees ‘tweeted’ their comments, asked questions and  posted pictures (thanks @tessawatson).

The last part of the event was the ‘show and tell’. You can see a selection of the Lego Leaders here (thanks @annemcghee). Other collaborative works, such as the ‘Leadership Blues lyrics’ and ‘The French Revolution in 20 seconds movie clip’ are awaiting permissions and legal advice!

The next Teachmeet is a fringe event to the Scottish Learning Festival. I would recommend it!

If you want to know more, or if you attended #Leadmeet09, please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Con (aka @cpdscotsman)

- Well don’t miss the next major event in the School Leadership calendar. There are still a few places left for the SELMAS Leadership Conference in Stirling Management  Centre on Friday September 11th.

The theme is “The Impact of Change” and you can reserve a place by contacting selmasbooking@st-georges.edin.sch.uk.