CPD Team

The theme of the recent SELMAS dinner on May 24th at the St George’s Centre, Edinburgh was Donaldson and Me and a succession of impressive speakers shared their personal responses to the Teaching Scotland’s Future review.

The themes picked up by the various speakers didn’t hugely surprise: Linda McTavish, Principal of Anniesland College was enthused by the prominence of partnership working in the review and talked about how this was a functional necessity in her setting – without their partnerships with business, industry, schools etc the college really couldn’t operate. This addressed the issue of providing a bit of the “how” that discussion was identified as missing from the report – bearing this in mind sharing the Anniesland experience in partnership building and working might be a useful thing to do.

Jaqueline Scott, HT at Trinity Prmary School Edinburgh mentioned improving quality and entry selection as priorities, and also called for greater flexibility with time commitments for probationers, suggesting greater flexibility with time management and allocations for probationers. She suggested longer continuous stretches in class, then concentrated, focussed periods out of class to really reflect, share, consolidate and build on their experience. The weekly 0.7/0.3 split is sometimes seen as rigid and disruptive, and it stands to reason that a more flexible system would be more user friendly. Something for further discussion at the Probationer Support event we’re organising next week at SMC.

Gillian Hamilton was on her favourite subject – leadership; and asking what difference Donaldson will make to this theme. Looking to the future, the role of HTs will no doubt change, as it already has since Gillian was in the role and not necessarily in a positive way, with more attention to risk assessment, budgeting, behaviour and grievances tending to sometimes eclipse the HTs role as lead learner in a school. The virtual college, as suggested by Donaldson via the national CPD team, will provide a focus for CPD and connecting school leaders and should also help shape and support the various leadership roles a forward-thinking profession for the future might require.

The most contentious discussion of the evening came during the panel discussion at the end when Cara Aitchison Head of School at Moray House, Edniburgh saw Donaldson’s recommendations as an invitation to the TEIs in Scotland to diversify and offer specialisms, but suggested that the “traditional” model of teacher education ( research and university based) is best suited to an institution like Edinburgh, and more “vocational” approaches might be better if left to ” institutions in the west.” Not surprisingly, there was quite a reaction to this Interesting! No matter how teachers enter the profession, there is some merit in what Stephen Heppell says: “if they can’t make schools spectacularly good, what are they doing training teachers?” It makes sense – TEIs should be modelling the best in education and for a profession fit for our times, is that best done through lectures, essays and seminars? This relates tangentially to the discussion but is relevant none the less.

Other memorable moments: HT from Govan said his best teacher was his granny because

she knew him
she loved him
she knew how to get the best out of him. Simple, really.
And another HT from Edinburgh expressed some concern at the homogeneity of students coming into the profession; regretting the demise of the outlyers, the mavericks, the independent thinkers (and operators) who took risks, often defied authority and still commanded respect, made big impressions and like the aforementioned granny, got the best out of young people.

Sadly the discussion was just beginning to get interesting when the evening was brought to a close. SELMAS is a loosely constituted, open organisation which provides a forum for leadership – I hope we continue the conversations.

The article that follows was published in TESS on 20 May, 2011.

There have been big changes in our expectations of school leaders in the years since business managers first appeared as members of school management teams. Increasingly, headteachers report that their role in leading learning and raising standards is growing in complexity. New partnerships, internal and external, are now required to ensure that the educational experience of all young people is of high quality. So it seems a good time for business managers to review and develop the contribution they can offer to support school systems and school leaders.

In Continuing to Build Excellence in Teaching, the Scottish Government’s response to the Donaldson report on teacher education, it says there is a need for a “genuinely collective” effort to put excellence in teaching at the heart of Scottish education. To succeed in this, the report describes the need for everyone involved in the delivery of school education to maintain a focus on activities that make a difference to children’s learning.

Everyone is aware of the added value that comes from the professional skills of business managers in areas such as human resources, finance and administration, but less well understood is the contribution they can make to the creation of a positive and inclusive learning environment.

In the best circumstances, where there is a culture of engagement, business managers can play a key role in meeting the challenge of educational reform, building staff capacity to act creatively and innovatively, and supporting effective planning and resource management for best value. They can work with teaching colleagues to seek new opportunities for engagement in the wider community, and to build partnerships across professional boundaries. They can support other colleagues through offering coaching, mentoring and high-quality professional review and development.

They help to develop systems that focus on what matters and ensure all staff can spend their time on what gives best value to learners. And, crucially, they model best practice in terms of reviewing and planning their own professional learning and engaging in collegial learning opportunities.

The environment in our schools is very different today from 15 years ago, when the first business managers took up post, but the need for their expertise is greater than ever. They need to push the boundaries of practice in ever more innovative and creative ways in response to changing political and economic drivers for change. By doing this, they can offer a steadying hand in some of the stormy waters that lie ahead.

Margaret will speak at the first national conference on School Business Managers in Scotland: Efficiency, Effectiveness and Excellence, 8 June in Edinburgh. www.mackayhannah.com.

The SELMAS Committee are pleased to invite you to register for this year’s Forum which will have Donaldson and me as its theme

Over a pleasant dinner, guests will hear from a range of speakers from education who will talk about their personal response to Teaching Scotland’s Future, and will have the opportunity to engage in discussion and reflection with a wide range of colleagues.

The Forum will take place in St George’s School for Girls in Edinburgh, at 6.30 on Tuesday May 24^th. Places are limited and will be allocated on a first come; first served basis. The cost of the evening will be £10 which will include the dinner.

Book your place by completing the form below and sending it with your £10, cheques made payable to COSLA, to Ruth Johnston, National CPD Team, Cosla, Verity House, 19 Haymarket Yards, Edinburgh EH12 5BH

Carpe Diem School in Yuma, Arizona is one of a new type of “Bricks and Clicks” school. In this article in the Harvard Education Letter, Brigid Schulte describes a very different educational experience on offer to students. They are offered a combination of the best face-to-face teaching and cutting-edge online curriculum. Results are impressive with the school being designated as “highly performing”.

The hybrids began to develop in the States after the US Department of Education released a meta-analysis of on-line learning that seemed to confirm that a blend of face-to-face teacher time and on-line curriculum produced better outcomes than either strategy on its own.

Also worth checking out is the Top Ten Web Tools for Education by Dave Saltman – “In the quest to work smarter, not harder, teachers are flocking to an ever-expanding galaxy of web-based tools for help with everything from classroom manage- ment to classroom discussions . . . . “

Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee Report

The Parliamentary committee which has been looking at local authority funding of education and children’s services, and the future of schools management in Scotland reported earlier this week.

A large number of organisations and individuals gave evidence to the committee on issues such as the future structure of state school education,  arguments for and against change, future issues and models of governance, the number and role of local authorities, collaboration and shared services, school autonomy, leadership and devolved school management, and many other related issues.

The Committee expressed a hope that this report will form a useful starting point for  debate. Although it does not offer a complete vision for the way ahead, it has set out a number of key principles on which there appears to be broad consensus. The Committees hopes that these key principles will guide those responsible for decisions on the future of education and children’s services and on their funding.

The IER was an exploration of education system reform, and an opportunity to share challenges faced, solutions tried and lessons learnt among school systems. Ministers considered how good systems could become great.

Lots of interesting reflections in relation to ICT as a transformational force for education, assessment systems that match required outcomes, and the “enormous” challenge for teaching and leadership. It suggests great school systems will need to:

• recruit top talent into teaching and school leadership (no room for complacency!)
• support and manage our teachers and leaders to be successful
• establish a normative model of teaching practice and embed it in daily practice and in professional development
• offer leadership development to school leaders

Read the full report here

You may – like me – have good and positive memories of the 2007 McKinsey report into the best performing school systems, which offered a very simple solution to school improvement, “It’s the teacher stupid.” The authors reached the conclusion that “the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers”, and this acknowledgement of the central importance of professional learning and teacher development for school improvement has since been further explored in “Teaching Scotland’s Future”.

McKinsey et al have now produced a second report which looks at how systems continue and sustain improvement, regardless of their starting point. It considers the need to contextualise the practice of other countries to take account of local circumstances, and the need to select interventions based on where the system currently is located. It describes some of the “sources of ignition” that are present in every sustained improvement. There is an interesting section which explores the implications of Michael Fullan’s findings around “Collective Capacity” which “enables ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things” by developing a better understanding of effective practice, but even more powerfully by working together to generate commitment. “Moral purpose, when it stares you in the face through students and your peers working together to make lives and society better, is palpable, indeed virtually irresistible. The collective motivational well seems bottomless. The speed of effective change increases exponentially“. These findings are particularly interesting to the CPD Team in regard to the continuing and developing interest in Learning Rounds across Scotland.

Check out the full report here

CPDLead is a professional community on Glow for all leaders of CPD. It will be particularly useful for establishment CPD Coordinators, QIOs in local authorities and LA and national development officers.

It is a work in progress but it will be all the stronger for your involvement! CPDLead is facilitated by Catriona Oates of the National CPD Team.

To find out more and join CPDLead, see the ‘Change here for…’ panel on the front page of CPDCentral.

Margaret Alcorn from the National CPD Team is taking part in a high profile event aimed at teachers from all over the UK is coming to South Lanarkshire.

The interest in Learning Rounds as a tool to bring educators from many different contexts together to talk about learning and teaching continues to grow. In recent months we have seen the beginnings of Learning Rounds being used to support inter-agency collaborative working, and a number of university staff in initial teacher education schools have expressed interest not only in how it might support student teachers, but also in how it might offer a strategy to build “strong and meaningful” partnerships between universities and schools as we begin to consider the implications of “Teaching Scotland’s Future”.

There is also increased interest in the model from school leaders who see it, not only as a significant opportunity for individual professional learning, but also as a powerful way to build collegiality and shared practice within and across school communities.

We have been asked to put up once more the complete and revised Toolkit, and you will find this below. There is also a lot more information about Learning Rounds earlier in this blog – just click on the link in the panel on the left.

If you are using the model, or have found the resources useful, the team (National CPD Team and SCSSA) would really like to hear from you. If you need any further help or information, please also get in touch.