Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru | National Assembly for Wales
Y Pwyllgor Plant, Pobl Ifanc ac Addysg | Children, Young People and Education Committee
Ymchwiliad i Addysg a Dysgu Proffesiynol Athrawon | Inquiry into Teachers' Professional Learning and Education
TT 26
Ymateb gan : Gwasanaeth Cyflawni Addysg I Dde Ddwyrain Cymru
Response from : Education Achievement Service for South East Wales (EAS)
· Arrangements for continuing professional development for the current workforce
· The role of initial teacher education
· The sufficiency of the future workforce
This response to the invitation to contribute to the Inquiry into Teachers’ Professional Learning and Education is provided by EAS on behalf of the four regional school improvement consortia in Wales. It contains information from and on behalf of the regions, and embedded appendices providing a level of detail for all of the regions.
The approach we have taken is to show how current provision of professional learning across the country addresses the following:
1. Coverage of all of the milestones
2. Inclusion of non-teaching and leadership participants such as Teaching Assistants and governors
3. Work across the phases, including into post-16
4. Work across the curriculum, including the change areas in KS4 and the work of Successful Futures and pioneer schools
5. Inclusion of partnership approaches to ITE (Initial Teacher Education)
6. Work with HE (Higher Education) partners on accredited programmes
7. Support for all types of schools and settings (including Non-Maintained Settings) and where relevant Further Education colleges and other providers
8. Commissioning of private sector capacity where relevant
9. Sharing by the regions of approaches and resources
10. Working bilingually
11. Growing capacity in the system to develop itself, for example through networks, triads and mentors for S-2-S work
12. Focusing on what we need to do now, in the face of current challenges, but also looking at the new curriculum and emerging standards for professional practice
13. Accessing and making use of resources, activities, people and organisations from around the world
14. Predicting the development
needs of the current workforce in the light of the emerging AoLEs,
and wider changes as exemplified by the ALN Bill
1. Coverage of all of the milestones
In all of the regions, most or all of the defined milestones are covered by the Professional Learning (PL) offer. This runs from working with HE partners to support their work in initial teacher education, through bearing formal responsibility for the induction of newly qualified teachers to work across a range of areas with experienced and excellent practitioners. In all of the regions, this includes provision to identify and develop future leaders in the teaching workforce.
2. Inclusion of non-teaching and leadership participants such as Teaching Assistants and Governors
This provision varies across the regions. In ERW there is regional training for TAs on providing good quality classroom support, and Governor modules have been developed and delivered. In EAS, there is an extensive programme of development and support for Governors, and delivery of these sits within the EAS business plan. In all regions support is provided for HLTAs and in some teachers who are not in full time employment in schools are able to access provision.
3. Work across the phases, including into post-16
All of the regions work across primary and secondary phases as a minimum. In some of the regions there is also provision for post-16 in the form of development and support specifically for sixth form leaders and specifically for the curriculum at A Level. In some of the regions work with FE colleges includes enabling access by college staff to published programmes on the same terms as school staff. In at least one of the regions services are delivered directly and specifically to college staff as a feature of the region’s partnership with the college. In at least one of the regions support is provided to work based training providers to underpin their delivery partnerships with schools.
4. Work across the curriculum, including the change areas in KS4 and the work of Successful Futures and pioneer schools
All of the regions make use of grant funding from Welsh Government to provide support across the curriculum and for the key change areas of KS4 and Successful Futures. This includes:
a. Support for the changes to GCSE in English, Mathematics, Numeracy and Science
b. Support for new GCSEs as they undergo phased change
c. Support for the implementation of the Welsh Baccalaureate
d. Extensive involvement in the Pioneer programme in curriculum reform and digital competence, including with selection of schools, delivery of key processes, events and activities and ongoing planning and support for the delivery of the AoLEs
e. The same level of involvement in the Pioneer programme in what was the New Deal and is now professional learning, focusing initially on the infrastructure for professional learning and now on the new curriculum and emerging implications for pedagogy and practice
5. Inclusion of partnership approaches to ITE (Initial Teacher Education)
All of the regions work to some degree with the current providers of ITE to support current provision, and in several cases this includes regional staff and schools delivering learning to ITE students as well as HE faculty staff delivering accredited programmes to schools under the auspices of the region. All of the regions have worked with potential ITE providers in recent months in support of their developing models for provision of ITE following the Furlong report, and in the most developed cases this includes the regions allocating Welsh Government grant funding to schools and ITE providers to develop models of partnership and to co-construct programmes.
6. Work with Higher Education partners on accredited programmes
There is work in all of the regions to deliver accredited post-graduate programmes through HE partners. This ranges from post-graduate certificate level work in, for example, equity in education or leadership, through to full Masters qualifications and work at doctoral level. As well as regions hosting and co-funding this work with schools to enable access to post-graduate work, there are several instances of regional staff delivering on post-graduate programmes and supporting doctoral assessment.
7. Support for all types of schools and settings (including Non-Maintained Settings) and where relevant Further Education colleges and other providers
We have mentioned work in post-16 settings in point 3 above. In addition to this, the regions provide support for the Foundation Phase in primary schools and in non-maintained settings. Examples range from supporting the introduction of the PDG for early years practitioners when it was introduced in 2015-16, to the delivery of comprehensive support for Foundation Phase pedagogy and assessment through regional teams and school-to-school support. The regions also support the special schools and PRUs in their areas, and routinely collaborate to improve provision of services to these schools on a cross-regional basis.
8. Commissioning of private sector capacity where relevant
All of the regions make some use of private sector capacity to enhance provision and to ensure flexible and responsive approaches to the needs of schools. This includes:
a. Use of consultants for specific forms of challenge, advice and guidance
b. Engagement of commercial professional learning programmes such as Olevi
c. Work in partnership with commercial providers to deliver accredited programmes funded by work-based learning contracts
d. Work in partnership with commerce and industry to give practitioners and leaders access to expertise from outside of education
9. Sharing by the regions of approaches and resources
The regions routinely share resources and approaches, and routinely enable access by schools in one region to services and support in others. This includes but is not restricted to:
a. Schools in one region working on programmes of support in other regions to generate critical mass to enable activities to go ahead
b. Schools from adjacent regions working on programmes of work where they share common interests or challenges
c. Shared staffing between the regions to address a specific support need, such as the WBQ in south Wales
d. Shared intellectual property, such as the planning and teaching resources developed to support new qualifications at GCSE level, or resources used in the Pioneer programme to enable schools to structure their conversations around the new curriculum
e. Shared and common planning and inter-regional support and challenge for key processes, such as in teacher assessment and school categorisation
10. Working bilingually
All of the regions work bilingually, and in the north and west in particular the provision model ensures access to all services and development activities in both languages. Where critical mass of schools makes provision of bilingual and Welsh medium services more challenging in the south, the regions work together to enable access to services. Where intellectual property is shared between the regions, for example in the case of resources to support the curriculum pioneers, it will often be the case that one region develops a prototype which another adapts for use across a range of schools, including translation and adaption into Welsh from English.
11. Growing capacity in the system to develop itself, for example through networks, triads and mentors for S-2-S work
All regions have strategies to grow capacity for self-improvement, and in all cases these extend into the provision of professional learning by schools. This is most strategically the case with the Professional Learning Pioneers, where the regional plans include development of the professional learning model by schools and delivery of a range of programmes that span the milestones. It also includes but is not restricted to:
a. Professional learning networks within and beyond the Pioneer programme – so including GCSEs in the core and non-core subjects, for example
b. Extension of the understanding of the curriculum reform and professional learning initiatives to ‘non-pioneer’ schools through brokered support
c. Triads working on categorisation and improvement planning
d. Groups of schools exploring leadership and alternative forms of governance
e. Challenge and support on a triad and pair basis looking at categorisation and development planning
f. Project development and delivery, often in response to WG grant opportunities such as those represented by grants to explore equity and wellbeing, to develop a pilot approach to GTP and ITE, or to develop models of enrichment and experience
g. Clusters of schools working together on the basis of their shared interest in the learners whose provision they share over time – so primary and secondary schools working together to explore how they can better develop services for commonly ‘owned’ groups of learners
h. Use of practice directories to enable quick access to sharable expertise
12. Focusing on what we need to do now in the face of current challenges, but also looking at the new curriculum and emerging standards for professional practice
We have referenced above the current, short and medium term challenges and opportunities in teachers’ professional learning that the regions address through core funding and with the support of a range of WG grants. In the longer term, the regions are working together and individually to address a range of learning and development issues including but not restricted to:
a. New teaching standards, and the implications of these for practice and the development of practice
b. New leadership standards, and the implications of these for practice and the development of practice – specifically in terms of a clear account of the relationship between the emerging standards and leaders’ ability to self-assess
c. Schools as learning organisations, and the OECD work on structured approaches to organisational learning at the levels of school and clusters of schools
d. Emerging pedagogies, and the implications for practice of Successful Futures, the new curriculum and new approaches to teaching and learning as reflected in the new standards
e. New models of school leadership and governance, and the development implications of these for the current workforce
13. Accessing and making use of resources, activities, people and organisations from around the world
We are aware in the regions that we need to work together to maximise the impact of what we do, and that we need to collaborate in the best interests of all learners, teachers and leaders in the system. We are also aware that we are doing this in an increasingly complex global environment, and that the learning we need is not only to be found in our own region or country. To this end, regional colleagues have worked in and with practitioners from around the UK and more widely, including but not restricted to:
a. The University of Stirling and the access it provides to learning from Scotland
b. Universities and research establishments in England and Ireland
c. Practitioners in Scandinavia, California, Denver, Boston, Hong Kong
d. International organisations of education research and development such as The Asia Society
e. The British Council
14. Predicting the development needs of the current workforce in the light wider changes as exemplified by the ALN Transformation Programme
The regions are aware of the range of challenges and opportunities presented by the areas of work covered in this paper. There are wider changes afoot, however, such as the implementation of new legislation around ALN. The regions are ready to play their role in partnership with Local Authorities in developing practitioners’ and leaders’ knowledge and skills in this area.
Appendices – further detail on provision and service offers
Central South Consortium: Professional Learning Opportunities for School Staff in the Central South Wales Region
The EAS Professional Learning Offer, 2016-17
The ERW Menu of Support, 2016-17
The GWE Update regarding Professional Learning, January 2017
