Brunel University London

College of Business, Arts & Social Sciences

Department of Education

Advisory Board Meeting

Wednesday 10 December 2014, 16.30-18.00

Room HALB 204

Minutes

Present:

Janice Howkins, Head of Bentley Wood and EdD student – Acting Chair

Viv Ellis, Head of Department of Education, Brunel University London

Gert Biesta, Director of Research, Education, Brunel University

Claris Boamah, Assistant Head, Willow Tree Primary & PG Cert student at Brunel University

Mayuri Nakarja, Department Administrative Assistant, Note taker.

Apologies received:

Robert Jones, Head of Haydon School

Ann Bowen-Breslin, Head of Hillingdon Primary School, Chair

Deborah Jones, Director of Teaching & Learning, Education, Brunel University

Kali Birchley, Senior Youth Worker

Meg Maguire, Department of Education at Kings College London

Lorraine Harrison, Head of School of Education, Brighton University

1. Welcome and apologies

2.Minutes previous meeting

No issues with last minutes. Accurate.

3. Terms of reference

All happy with terms of reference. Subject for review at future meetings.

4.ITE Consultation: Collation of Responses

Documents: Brunel ITE Consultation November 2014 responses.xlsx

ITE Development Consultation Document.pdf

Viv began by explaining where this paper arises from and that it is an ongoing piece of work since April 2013.

The main point of the discussion was that the Department has designed a new approach to teacher education based on conversations and discussions with people from the schools Brunel works with (quite a large number of primary and secondary schools).

This new approach has a number of implications for the schools, one being

that students are in the school from the start of the school term, and that they are there in a much more active capacity because they will have received preparation during a summer school.

The new approach also implies that the Department wants to work with the schools in ongoing improvement of what happens in schools — so that is a stronger partnership than seeing the school just as a place where students do their placements. It also means, therefore, that the school needs to see itself as playing a role in the education of the students to become teachers.

So what has been proposed is a more close relationship between the Department and the schools, with a greater responsibility for the schools in the education of teachers. The key practical point is that students will be there from the start of term.

All schools we work with have received our proposals, but only a very small number have responded, so the question was whether this is a sufficient basis to go ahead.

The discussion in the meeting focused on the pros and cons, and all present felt that there were more pros than cons, and that it would just be important to communicate the positives to all schools.

One issue that came up was whether we should run a pilot with a small number of schools, but we all felt that this would slow things down. So the conclusion of the meeting was that the proposal is a good idea that will improve the quality of teacher education and that we should go ahead implementing this, as a pilot, but not a pilot with a small number of schools but as a pilot to be rolled out in all schools and then to be reviewed after a year.

5. Dates and times next meetings –

Mayuri to send email to all proposing some dates in February 2015. 11th Feb or 25th Feb.

6. AOB

We will be organising our own placements from now on. It was previously done through SWELTEC

Lorraine McCormack is working on simplifying programmes.

Chairs Actions for Head of Department

  1. To respond to ITE consultation by 30 January and suggest a whole programme pilot for one year.
  2. Finalise the SWELTEC settlement.
  3. Communication of the principle underpinning our desire to run the pilot.