Evidence-basedteaching:advancingcapabilityandcapacityforenquiryinschools
Case study
April 2017
Jennie Doyle
Millais Teaching School Alliance
Contents
Contents
Table of figures
Introduction
Context
Rationale
Literature Review
Our Initiative
Perceived Barriers
Outline of initiative
Methodology
Data Collection
Objective 1: Strategic Research and Development Team
Objective 2: Does cross alliance delivery of training on research increase capability of teachers to take part in research?
Overall Conclusions
Key Successes
Collaboration
Teacher Learning Opportunities
Momentum
Key Challenges
Time
Membership of the R&D Strategic Group
Senior Leadership Engagement
Key Learning Points and Recommendations
References
Table of figures
Figure 1: our initiative
Figure 2: project breakdown
Figure 3: series of statements
Figure 4: meeting feedback
Figure 5: quotes from interviews
Figure 6: key successes
Figure 7: key challenges
Figure 8: key learning points and recommendations
Introduction
This report is focused on how one teaching school alliance has implemented the NCTL Evidence Based Teaching project.
Context
The Millais Alliance is a cross phase Teaching School Alliance (TSA) consisting of 35 institutions across West Sussex. The TSA was one of the first cohort of teaching school alliances in September 2011. The TSA believed that the collaborative nature of the model would enable the alliance to support each other through the challenges of changing times. Through a culture of mutual understanding and trust, the alliance of schools can jointly overcome obstacles and use local strengths to offer opportunities. (Millais Alliance 2011) The TSA has been proactive in promoting cross TSA networks in particular through the development of strategic teams consisting of key members of staff from across alliance schools. These teams include CPD, Leadership, ITT and Research and Development (R&D).
Rationale
The institutions within the Millais Alliance are in a wide range of contexts, cross phase, special schools, single sex schools etc. with different priorities and foci. This can mean that working across the TSA has provided challenges as well as a range of opportunities for collaboration as across the TSA there are experts in most areas of teaching. However, in line with the national picture, involvement of teachers in research and using evidence to inform best practice has been identified as an area for development for the TSA because there is a gap between what is happening at the universities and on ITT programmes and what is taking place within schools in the TSA. This gap has become clear as trainee teachers work on research projects, using university guidance, whilst experienced teachers do not have this opportunity without completing Masters level study at a university. At the start of this project, there were a number of discrete pockets of research taking place that could be developed to increase the capability and capacity of EBT in the alliance.
Literature Review
There is a wide range of literature about the justification for teachers getting involved in research. For example the BERA/RSA report noted
There is sufficient evidence to suggest that engagement in and with research can be a very positive experience for teachers (BERA/RSA, 2014)
In the past decade, in the United Kingdom at least, there has been a developing groundswell of opinion about the importance of teachers engaging with evidence and taking part in research, for example in the development of ResearchEd, and publication of work by Brown (2015).
The growth of a research mindset has been trickling into schools from both top down and through grassroots movements. The work of Stenhouse brought the idea of teacher-researcher to the fore and this has burgeoned in the years since with the growth of teacher research collaboration with universities and increasing development with the Labour government advisory work of Professor David Hargeaves. As Cordingley has commented the work of Stenhouse
Laid the foundations for the steady development from 1996 – 2010 in England of several waves of investment in research informed practice. These ranged from the Teacher Training Agency Research Grants, the Department for Education and Skill-Funded Best Practice Research Scholarships and the National College Research Awards, to the more recent Government funding of R&D for Teaching Schools and National Scholarships for subject-based enquiry (Cordingley, 2015)
The growing momentum towards teachers taking part in research was noted back in 1998 by Dadds when she was looking at the development of research initiatives such as Best Practice Research Scholarships (BPRS) as a ‘sea change’ (Dadds, 1998)which is going against the general movement towards more control of schools. The continuing development of research through financial support for programmes such as the EEF initiatives builds on their groundswell. The latest report from the EEF states
Evidence is a crucial tool which schools should use to inform their decision making… (The Pupil Premium, Next Steps, 2015)
Some schools are starting to appoint teachers as Research Leaders, this is clearly demonstrative of changing attitudes towards research promoted by the government as part of the teaching school agenda.
The work of Ebbutt and the development of the SUPER network research partnership between Cambridge University and six secondary schools (Ebutt, 2002)has made it clear that the appointment of research coordinators and close work with HEIs can enable an increase in both the capacity and capability for teachers within school in the network. This work showed that by appointing designated Research Leaders and or research coordinators within a school or TSA engagement with evidence by teachers can be greatly increased. This project provided an opportunity to develop the role of Research Leaders within Millais School itself and use them to work with the Research and Development Strategic Group developing the members of the group into research coordinators for their school.
With regards to teachers engaging in research within the TSA this has been taking part across the TSA but without centralised support and leadership from the Alliance as a whole. The Research and Development strategic group had been in existence for a number of years but was lacking in precise focus and buy in from schools across the alliance.
Our Initiative
Figure 1: our initiative
Overall objective: Increase the profile of evidence based teaching with the teaching school alliance by regular meetings of a R&D group and by provision of training to support all staff to increase capability and capacity for evidence based teaching (EBT).
Research Questions:
- What has been the impact of creating a network of research coordinators within the Alliance on increased capacity for evidence based teaching within the alliance?
- How important is research training on increasing capability and capacity for EBT in our Alliance?
These two research questions have been identified as being the most appropriate for the Millais Alliance, enabling the project to work across the variety of contexts that are found within the Alliance. There are also considerable differences in the amount of enquiry that is currently taking place across the Alliance with some schools having research based professional development programmes whilst others are emergent cultures (Ebutt 2002).
The Millais Alliance Research and Development team has historically met to discuss national projects and the meetings were largely informational rather than requiring a wide range of active engagement and involvement by the participants. The key aim of this project was to engage all members of the team in working collaboratively to increase capacity and capability in EBT across the Alliance. The aim was also to give the team ownership over a training programme to support their work in encouraging EBT within both the TSA and their individual institutions.
Perceived Barriers
The most significant perceivedbarrier to developing capability and capacity was the wide range of contexts within which the contributory schools are working. With different phases, school development priorities etc. the largest challenge could be getting this project high enough on the agenda that schools engage fully with the project. Whilst all head teachershopefully regard engaging in research as important there are significant day to day and individual school expectations and Government policy, which affects a teacher’s ability to engage in research (Leitch and Day, 2000).
A second perceived barrier is the time involved in all aspects of the project including the actual meetings and workshops but also the organisation of these. Convincing colleagues to engage in EBT when there are other significant demands on their time could potentially be challenging along with the additional time for members of the group to both attend meetings and facilitate the workshops.
A final perceived barrier is the level of understanding towards EBT within the various institutions. There are differing levels of capacity and capability therefore designing both meetings and sessions that fulfil a range of levels is challenging. Catering for teachers who have had very limited experience with EBT versus those who are doing or have completed post graduate research work.
Outline of initiative
The initiative started with the knowledge that significant numbers of teachers do not have the research skills to be able to effectively engage with evidence or produce research. This was demonstrated by a survey of the lead school in the TSA where only six out of seventy respondents strongly agreed that they can use information from research to help to decide how to implement new approaches within the classroom and similar numbers strongly agreed that they were confident in interpreting research information or being able to find relevant research.
The current national culture of teachers as practitioners rather than as learners who engage with research and possessing research skills has come about since the establishment of the National Curriculum which moved the discourse of teachers from being research engaged to determine both what and how to teach students to a more prescribed system where they are told what to teach and in some cases how to teach it. There is clear national tension between teachers as deliverers of knowledge as opposed to being learners and using the various forms of research to learn about pedagogy and practice.
However, this issue has been addressed at the lead school through the appointment of two Research Leaders with the clear remit to work both within the school and across the TSA to develop the engagement of teachers with evidence based teaching and encourage teachers to be proactive in their own learning and using this to inform classroom based practice. The school has also joined a county wide school-university network for the purposes of developing research.
There were three clearly delineated, but progressional, sections to the project:
Figure 2: project breakdown
Redevelopment of Cross TSA R&D Team
The starting point of the project was the redevelopment of a R&D team across the TSA with scheduled meetings every half term. This group was re-launched by a Research Leader at a Head teachers meeting at the start of the project with a flyer of information. This group was designed to be a combination of sharing good practice, support from the HEI, identifying training needs across the TSA and thendesigning a training programme to meet these needs. The profile of the group was given further prominence at a cross TSA TeachMeet event where a presentation was given by a Research Leader. As a result of this the group consistedof representatives from seven of the institutions within the TSA.
Provision of Cross TSA Training
With the remit of this project presented at the first R&D team meeting the decision was made by the team that the most effective approach to increasing capacity and capability in EBT would be the provision of a series of workshops designed to enable colleagues to both engage with research and work through their own enquiry questions. This was originally planned to be three workshops but it was later decided to hold two sessions and then a ‘celebration’ type activity. It was thought the final ‘celebration’ could provide the opportunity for colleagues to demonstrate their skills, network with colleagues from across the TSA and be inspired by presentations from the HEI and other researchers.
Two workshops were held focusing on increasing capability and capacity in research across the TSA. The workshops were attended by colleagues from across the TSA, the first one, in January 2015, was an introduction to research and EBT and the second one was on using data and evidence to support learning. The two sessions were attended by a total of twenty-seven colleagues from across the Alliance. Both sessions were delivered by an expert from the local HEI and werefocused on showing teachers how to engage with evidence. They were held at 2.30pm and therefore although schools didn’t need to pay for teachers to attend there was a financial commitment in terms of providing cover for lessons.
The first workshop, in January, was delivered by colleagues from the HEI. The focus was on deciding what research was appropriate in individual contexts, writing a research proposal and ethical considerations. This was very much a training session with the HEI delivering key learning ensuring attendees were able to develop their capability. It was attended by twenty one teachers from across the TSA with representatives from all phases.
The second workshop was held in May and was an opportunity for colleagues to share their experiences so far and included short presentations from colleagues across the TSA. There was then the opportunity to problem solve challenges faced in individual projects with support from the HEI. It was attended by eighteen teachers from across the TSA who went on to work on a variety of ten different projects in a range of contexts and a range of types.
TeachMeet
The final celebration event was developed into a TeachMeet following the example of one already held in the TSA which had been very successful. This was an opportunity for colleagues who had taken part in research this year to disseminate what they had found and how it had increased their capacity in relation to EBT and what their next steps were.
The TeachMeet was originally scheduled for July however as the event got closer it was clear that there was very little interest possibly because it was close to the end of the academic year. Therefore, the decision was made by the R&D team to move it to October to try and encourage a greater level of interest.
This had the impact of enabling the keynote speaker to launch their book at the event which effectively increased the profile of the event. A second key note speaker, an experienced leader of research and member of SLT from outside the Alliance also explained what it means to be a research engaged teacher. There was also a range of teachers from across the Alliance giving brief presentation on the research that they have completed including three members of the R&D team. There were additional presentations from both HEIs and experienced teacher-researchers from other TSAs. The various presentations were intended to enable teachers to take ideas of EBT back to their schools and classrooms in a range of small and larger scale projects that they could potentially complete.
Methodology
Data Collection
The purpose of the methodology used was to be able to evidence the impact of the R&D group meetings, workshops and TeachMeet on developing capability and capacity in EBT. The main means of data collection was through the use of questionnaires and field notes although some interviews took place with colleagues from within the lead school. A combination of quantitative and qualitative data was used because this enabled the collection of information from a wide range of respondents for example in the questionnaires which could then be further developed in the interviews. The use of field notes was useful because it was an opportunity to record impressionistic jottings to provide qualitative data and project broad pictures of what was going on across the TSA.
Objective 1: Strategic Research and Development Team
To enable greater understanding of whether the R&D Team was effectively increasing EBT, both individually and across member’s institutions, a range of questions were administered twice during the project using an online survey programme to collect the information. One was done six months into the project and a second one at the end of the project. The questions asked were intentionally not identical but show evidence of progression in capability and capacity across the teaching school alliance. The questionnaire sample size was small, for both, five out of a possible seven members of the group completed the questionnaire.