Teachers Doing It For Themselves!

It appears that we have a whole new set of terms to add to our ever expanding lexicon of acronyms and educational bodies! As the jargon of yesteryear – TVEI; TRIST; GRIST; MSC, TTA; GTC,;NCSL; NLC; BPRS; AST; NLE; and LLE¹ – fades away into obscurity, emerging over the horizon comes the brave new world heralded by the likes of NIoT; SLDT; and specialist partners. This new realm will be characterised by “best practice incubators”, “virtuoso lectures” and “knowledge-rich curriculum development” … and accompanied by a myriad configuration of Federations, Trusts and Academies.

This relates of course to the recent announcement by the Department of Education that the newly formed National Institute of Teaching (NIoT) will be run by the School-Led Development Trust (SLDT), which itself is made up of four prominent School Trusts: – the Harris Federation; Outwood Grange Academies Trust; Oasis Community Learning; and Star Academies. In addition, the work of the Institute will be supported by fourteen “specialist partners” which include two universities – Newcastle and Birmingham – and a rather peculiar mix of organisations ranging from the well -known, such as Microsoft and Teach First, to the curiously named “Hable” and “The Difference.”

The ambition trumpeted for the NIoT is considerable. It‘s website declares:

“It will evolve teacher and leader development up and down the country by using its own cutting-edge research on best practice to inform the design and delivery of its high-quality professional development programmes. It will be a truly school-led organisation.”²

Similarly, Nadhim Zahawi, the former Secretary of State for Education proclaims:

“Excellent teachers need excellent training, which is why our first of its kind National Institute of Teaching is going to be so important. The Institute is going to revolutionise the way teachers and school leaders receive training in this country, with cutting edge research alongside training delivered by national experts …”³

The promotional information ahead of the Institute’s launch in September includes:

• A truly school-led organisation. The NIoT will be run by schools for schools. Programme participants will have an experience that is school-based with programme design and delivery benefitting from the input of current practitioners – teachers, senior leaders, headteachers and executive leaders– who understand the demands of teaching workloads.
• A best practice incubator, which will find, interpret, generate and communicate research, applying the insights to the design and delivery of professional development programmes.
• A substantial investment in teacher and leader training research in England. The NIoT will make its research available for free to all teacher training providers so that it can be applied to improve teacher development across the country.
• An impact-focused organisation. Its unique position gives the NIoT the opportunity to link data on teacher and leader development with data sets on pupil achievement, enabling it to see what truly makes an impact on children’s outcomes. This is something not done anywhere in the world outside North America.
• Once Degree awarding powers are granted, it will become the only university in the UK solely focused on the development of teachers and school leaders combining academic awards with outstanding practice in schools.⁴

So, the mood music accompanying this development gives the impression that it is a unique phenomenon without precedent or antecedents. In fact the momentum towards professional development being school-led has been building for many decades.

From the 1990s onwards the mantra of school self-governance and self-improvement has been intoned by successive governments. Back in 2001 the then DfES Strategy for Professional Development, entitled Learning and Teaching, was founded on the cornerstone belief in “learning from each other; learning from what works.”⁵ This principle has subsequently underpinned Government educational thinking and policy ever since. The strategy put the spotlight clearly on the classroom, the value of grounded professional development and the importance of teachers learning from peer practitioners. Locating professional development within the context of the school and the classroom has in turn led to an increasing appreciation of the fundamental links between the learning of teachers (and other staff) and the learning of children and young people.

Alongside and indeed helping to inform and shape this direction of Government policy, have been similar messages from educational thinking and evidence. Successive professional development reviews and research reports appear to have reached a clear consensus about what makes a difference. This indicates that what works best is professional learning which has the following ingredients: It is school-led, school-based, specifically focussed on the classroom and on bringing about improvement in teaching and learning … with the added zest of some external input, but again this should be strategically determined and managed by the school itself.

In an era of both increased competition and collaboration, this self-help, self-control ethos also came to determine the lens through which professional development and improvement were viewed across the whole school system. Again the key refrain was that we need to learn from each other, within and BETWEEN schools, to tap into the professional expertise that lies latent in the system, and to learn from what works. (Hargreaves, 1999; Handscomb, 2002/3).⁶ Then, in a series of publications David Hargreaves set out the essential elements that constitute the self-improving school system (Hargreaves, 2010, 2011 and 2012).⁷

All of this clearly laid the ground which has given rise to the proposals for the National Institute of Teaching (NIoT) and the operation of the School-Led Development Trust. Thus, the emergence of the Institute is not an innovative bolt from the blue but instead can be seen as part of a continuing trend of school-led development within a self-improving system philosophy.

The latest issue of Professional Development Today (PDT 22.4) reflects the breadth of this thinking and practice in its rich range of articles.

It includes contributions on research evidence on what professional development works; how to make evidenced-informed practice part of everyday teaching and learning; articles on learning from the pandemic related to models of compassionate leadership and embedding Blending Learning; exploring the concept and practice of “mutuality” in providing quality of choice for the most disadvantaged; and articles on transforming classroom practice through improving feedback and mathematical reasoning.

Together these contributions show how much of the teacher-led developments envisaged by the new National Institute for Teaching are well underway.

References

1. I guess a special, but rather sad prize, ought to go to anyone who is able to recognise what all of these historic acronyms stands for! They are: Technical and Vocational Initiative; TVEI Related In-Service Training; Grant Related In-Service Training; Manpower Services Commission; Teacher Training Agency; General Teaching Council; National College for School Leadership; Network Learning Community; Best Practice Research Scholarships; Advanced Skills Teacher; National Leader of Education; Local Leader of Education.
2. NIoT (2022) School-Led Development Trust appointed to lead new flagship teacher and leader development and research institute – National Institute of Teaching (niot.org.uk)
3. University of Birmingham (2022) University of Birmingham now specialist partner for newly formed National Institute of Teaching – University of Birmingham
4. Star Academies (2022) School-Led Development Trust appointed to lead new flagship teacher and leader development and research institute | Star Academies
5. DfES (2001) Learning and Teaching. Strategy for Professional Development. HMSO.
6. Hargreaves D H (1999) The knowledge creating school, British Journal of Educational Studies 45/2; Handscomb G (2002/03) Learning and developing together in Professional Development Today. Winter 2002/03
7. Hargreaves, D. (2010) Creating a self-improving school system, Nottingham: National College for School Leadership.; Hargreaves, D. (2011) Leading a self-improving school system, Nottingham: National College for School Leadership.; Hargreaves, D. (2012) A self-improving school system: towards maturity, Nottingham: National College for School Leadership.