Woodrow ECER 98 Teachers Teaching Teachers 1
Semi-detached and Desirable – Teachers Teaching Teachers
Derek Woodrow
Manchester Metropolitan University
Paper Presented at the European Conference on Educational Research Ljubljana, Slovenia 17 - 20 September 1998
Abstract
This article explores the lessons to be learned from the major investment in advisory teachers during the 1980’s. Recent government initiatives; the Literacy Framework, The Numeracy Framework, ‘Beacon’ schools, and the proposed advanced teacher grades; all presuppose the actions of teachers teaching in other teachers’ classroom. The major focus of the 1980’s advisory teachers was the same, the initiation of change within classrooms. Largely using anecdotes from the teachers themselves a variety of concerns are highlighted. This includes the problems of negotiating entry, the establishment of credibility, the problems of being labelled ‘an expert’, moving the focus of concern from the children to the teacher, the time scales involved and the consequent problems of covering ‘enough’ schools. The intentions of this discussion is to identify the need for Continuing Professional Development initiatives, of whatever kind, to build on the range of existing knowledge garnered during the past twenty years or so. It is important that we progress rather than keep rediscovering old wheels – exciting though that may be for the explorers.
The implementation of the raising standards strategy through the National Literacy Project and the National Numeracy Project has led to the resurrection of the idea of ‘advisory teachers’ to provide direct support for teachers in working in their classrooms. Coupled with the plans of these two national projects has been the institution of the ‘advanced teacher’ grade in the salary scale. These appointments are designed not just to provide high remuneration to teachers recognised as being outstanding, but to do so in return for a commitment from them to work with other teachers in promoting good teaching in their subjects or phase. Beacon schools have also been identified, again with an imperative to provide other schools with support. Finally we have a video of ‘best practice’. Most of these initiatives appear to have a built in assumption that watching good teaching will improve teachers performance, an idea which past experience would suggest needs some qualifying. There is also another fairly simplistic assumption that those who can do a task well can teach others to so the same. In the much more overtly skill based arena of sport this is no longer seen as necessary consequential relationship. It clearly helps to be good at something to be able to demonstrate it, but there are many other coaching skills involved. Many years of watching Manchester United have not improved my performance at soccer - that would have needed much more practice and hard work than just watching.
The re-emergence of the advisory teacher might be though to represent a positive cyclical development of teacher support mechanisms. If there was a single body with statutory responsibility for staff development then that is what might have emerged as a long term plan – a kind of Brunerian spiral CPD curriculum. In practice the return of the advisory teachers is essentially a circular development. Searching for a proper path the system has come round to the same point as last time – like the lost car-driver who suddenly recognises a building (s)he passed some time before. It is vital that we learn from our experiences and that the lessons of the last advisory teacher scheme are learned and applied. This article reflects upon some of the issues that emerged in 1980’s initiative. The title comes from a description of their work by Colin Biott (1991) which sums up their position, part classroom-attached part central-services, part teacher part advisor, part outsider part insider.
The major commitment of resource to this initiative followed the Cockcroft report (1982) into the teaching of mathematics, and led to the announcement by the then Secretary of State, Sir Keith Joseph, of the funding of 300 mathematics missionaries. This was quickly followed by science advisory teachers and then a cohort of CDT support teachers. It took two or three years for them to develop their services and begin to recognise the best ways for them to create development. It was at this point, when real impact was beginning to accrue, that they were deflected from their mission. The existence of this army of inset workers proved indispensable in implementing the new National Curriculum and most LEAs quickly used their recently developed inset skills to this end. This inevitably left the subject developments for which they were recruited high and dry. Two years later they were again redirected to other duties - the introduction of the new SATs in the very early 1990’s. Some LEAs were able to retain a vestige of the service during their cuts in the early 1990’s, but most had to relinquish the asset. One or two retain a sizeable service, often utilised to do contract work for other bodies.
When the initiative started most of the services started from scratch and LEAs constructed a variety of different patterns, indeed it followed the pattern in many government inspired instant solutions of not looking at existing experience and utilising the knowledge already existing. A number of LEAs, ILEA, Manchester and Walsall amongst others, had already experimented with literacy and numeracy services and learned some lessons, but these lessons were generally disregarded. This allowed some avoidable problems to re-emerge, but it did also, of course, produce some new and different solutions. The data for this discussion derives from a substantial commitment by Manchester Metropolitan University to appraising and supporting advisory teachers from a dozen or so LEAs in the North-West over a five year period from 1984 when they were inaugurated until their effective demise in 1990. It also draws heavily on the record presented by Biott (1991) who was working in the North-East where again much co-operative inter-LEA support took place.
Structures and Objectives
Most of the advisory teacher services comprised groups of three to six teachers with a specific subject brief, often with good liaison between groups. They usually contained one third nominally secondary and two thirds nominally primary. I say nominal since they often became more flexible than this as their skills grew. There was a great advantage in mathematics in that the Mathematical Association’s Diploma in Mathematical Education was about four years old and already had a sizeable output from which a cadre of enthusiastic and well informed teachers could be drawn. The Cockcroft Report provided an agenda for action, related to the encouragement of investigatory approaches and to the use of calculators. In the same way the increasing commitment to introducing science into the primary schools required helping teachers to explore similar investigatory work in science. The recent classroom experience of the appointees gave them initial credibility, and they were generally appointed on three year contracts, which has a superficial rationale of renewal of that relevant recent experience but which in practice created significant problems when the time came to return. Some of these problems lay with the distrust of schools for the training they had received in leadership and what they might want to do in the school. The other problem lay in the sense of increased expertise of which the advisory teachers were aware and which they wanted to continue to use and develop. The new programmes seem to be about to repeat these situations. A supported way back into the ‘profession’ must be built in to the process. Coupled with this is the question as to how readily the schools will be willing to release their best staff to national service. The increase in parent power means that parent governors have been known to object to ‘loaning’ staff to another school, even when replaced by well known and very effective replacements. The notion of secondment can therefore become problematic.
The advisory structures in which the advisory teachers worked also worked towards the rapid creation of a coherent provision. Most LEAs had inspector/advisors had a major part of their role committed to supporting curriculum initiatives. Many LEAs still had teachers’ centres in which much of this work was focussed and from which LEA working parties were created by the advisor/inspector. The Advisory Teacher services were a recognition that short inservice courses could often only take a teacher so far in changing their curriculum and that of their colleagues, and that in-classroom support provided an immediate vehicle for change within the teacher’s own context. Indeed the existence of those short inservice courses provided a vehicle for entry into schools and a prepared ground. LEAs were looking at that time towards a coherent and managed support service for schools.
Changing classroom practice is difficult. Indeed one of the major comments by HMI on the ‘success’ of the national curriculum was that although schools and teacher planning had improvement this is not always translated into classroom improvement. Getting into classrooms is difficult, and many of the anecdotes from advisory teacher explained how difficult that was. It is important therefore, that the new initiatives anticipate and expect such problems and are patient in their attempt to solve them. There was a great deal written about ‘change-agency’ during the 1980’s and the practice-grounded theories it developed needs to be heeded.
At a conference held in 1988 to consider the appraisal systems and outcomes that had been initiated, and appraisal was taken seriously, a number of issues which concerned the operation were identified.
- Management structures and systems
- Balancing demands on advisory teacher time
- ‘Contracts’ with schools, negotiating entry to schools and classrooms
- Maths (or whatever) within the whole school curriculum
- Professional support and reflection time for advisory teachers
- Recognising a ‘good’ job
- Reporting, to whom, why and how
- Whole school v. individual teacher approaches
- Teams, pairs or individual advisory teacher operation
It is not intended here to elaborate in these issues. What is presented here are some cautionary tales from earlier times. Some stories come from Colin Biott’s evocative descriptions (Biott, 1991) whilst the remainder come from the evaluation material gathered by the author as part of the Manchester Metropolitan University advisory teacher support team.
What are the advisory teachers there for?
‘Initially some heads and teachers were ambivalent about the contribution that enabling teams might make to their schools. They recognised the value of the extra help in developing aspects of the practice to which they were committed but were concerned that selection to take part in the project singled them out as in some way failing or ineffectual. … This meant that enabling teams has particular difficulty in establishing effective relationships in some schools’
(DES, 1989, para. 15. Quoted in Biott, 1991, p6)
There was clearly some apprehension about advisory teachers going in to schools. There is always the feeling that their intrusions involve some covert (and critical) reasons and assumptions for intrusion. Again the increased role of governors may well lead to such questions, though where OFSTED reports identify ‘weaknesses’ it may be somewhat easier to justify – though no more palatable. Two points to note are the assumptions that advisory teachers were ‘developing aspects of their practice to which they were committed’. This is clearly not necessarily, nor perhaps even normally, the case with these new intruders. They are to be there to implement the new strategy, or to emphasise their version of ‘good practice’ regardless of the aspirations or commitments of the receiving school. Change under sufferance is difficult to make effective. The second point is one that will be echoed later, that the teams attempted to build relationships with the school so as to ‘help’ and ‘lead’ them into improvement rather than cajole and browbeat them into change. Professional relationships were at the heart of the project and these take time to develop. This negotiating time is critical to these assumptions and looks unlikely to be available to the new teams, who have a rather large ‘case load’ if they are to reach the schools other developments have not reached. Time and again the old advisory teams stressed the time they committed to negotiating entry, action and exit from schools, and this limited the number of schools in which they were able to efficiently and effectively operate. These negotiations were not always smooth and sometimes the very status of advisory teachers is questioned.
‘I arrived at an inner city primary school, which had identified its needs and requested support. A telephone call established an appointment for 1.30pm. Arriving at school just before time and parking in the builders’ yard, I made my way through the gauntlet of men working on the school extensions. I was met by a statement that someone else was with the Head. Twenty-five minutes later the Head came to ask if I would like a cup of coffee whilst I was waiting – still waiting, I thought, but at least it was official – and still no explanation. No question about whether I was able to wait.
By the time the coffee arrived and was finished the Head disappeared down the corridor with his other visitor. I reflected in the fact that the school had asked for this visit. I intimated that I had another appointment at 2.45 and must leave by 2.30. When the Head eventually appeared at 2.15 we had 15 minutes in which to plan the project and cost the needed support. I promised to return at half term (five weeks on) with to negotiate the commitment of the service!’
(Manchester advisory teacher)
Who says they are experts?
The next quotation comes from an American description of kind of roles the advisory teachers were engaged in.
‘Teachers placed in positions that bear the titles and resources of leadership display a caution towards their colleagues that is both poignant and eminently sensible. The relation with other teachers that is implied by terms like mentor, advisor, or specialist has little place in the ordinary workings of most schools. Even the simple etiquette of teacher leadership is unclear.’
(Little, 1988, p 84. Quoted in Biott, 1991, p13)
The nature of professional leadership is an interesting one. Certainly the view of the headteacher as ‘primus inter pares’ has been challenged by recent changes. And it has led, of course, to some dis-inclination to assume the role. It is interesting to note a contention by the managing director of a computing company. He maintained that ‘educational management courses’ were probably the best training courses for his business. The reason being that they dealt with businesses with flat – single layered almost – professional structures in which the ‘employees’ were not able to be hierarchically structured but operating in a mutually supportive egalitarian assumption. There has been a change of managerial language in primary schools consequent upon the National Curriculum, and it is conjectured that that has been partly responsible for the decline in interest in taking on these important roles. The NPQH has also more industrial (as opposed to professional) assumptions about managing teachers implicit in its approach. It is true that the teacher’s view of the role of teachers has changed with the National Curriculum. For many they are no longer (were they really ever) in charge of the curriculum, but are now expert deliverers of a curriculum designed by others. They have become highly skilled artisans delivering packages of ‘learning’ rather than professionals who take full responsibility for their actions. As such, of course, the imposition of experts to enhance their skills is less problematic, indeed to be welcomed. In this context ‘showing’ and ‘watching’ are probably more naturally productive activities. The downgrading of the teacher’s role is nearly complete.
So what do they do?
‘There was sometimes a mistaken expectation by schools that support team members would play the ‘expert’ or ‘superteach’, rubbishing the efforts of the school and producing a wonderful packaged curriculum out of a hat. Even had I been able to do it I would not have trod that slippery path. The problem with going on an ego trip is the certainty of a trip over the ego.’
(Biott, 1991, p46)
Clearly the new Advisory teachers will not be able to escape this problem. They will be seen as super-teachers and will need to live up to that description, with every slip magnified. The ‘advanced skills teachers’ will already be labelled, as will those from ‘beacon schools’. The teachers attached to the numeracy/literacy project may be able to assert a slightly different role, but they will inevitably be importing an outside curriculum; a prescribed order which may or may not (and probably not since they will be expected to tackle the problem schools first; see DFEE, 1998) suit the school’s intentions and methods. Rubbishing is to be expected.