Introduction
I had retired from full-time work in December 2009;
and was using my semi-retirement to catch up on something about which I felt guilty:
for 25 years I had not concentrated as much as I should have on how students
learn and how teachers might most effectively teach them to learn. And on how
educational managers should facilitate that.
I began in 2010 to think about that; and to
concentrate on reading that I had sorely neglected in the previous
quarter-century.
I talked to one or two pals: who made helpful
comments. And I wrote, basically for myself. Only then did I have a thought about publishing.
And so I wrote these little things, over about 12 months between mid-2012 and
early 2013.
GiIlian from the Times Educational Supplement in
Scotland (TESS) said “Keep your thoughts to 450 words max at a time.” Wise and
very helpful advice. Gillian also encouraged my natural tendency to be a bit flippant.
Hence for example the (purely literary) device of writing each piece as an open
letter to some exalted figure in the Scottish educational establishment. Two of
them responded, one publicly (that response is included). Scotland’s Minister
of Education, to whom I addressed the first few pieces, did not respond.
So there are 17 pieces about educational
development. Primarily addressed to a Scottish audience. But drawing on a wider
research literature; and on my experience (much of it in Scotland, but with
some in England, in Pakistan and in Uzbekistan; and little bits that were elsewhere).
It is all in “bite-sized [or byte-sized]
chunks”. And I have added to that three major bits of feedback that came into TESS.
I am sufficiently vain to think that some of
it might be of some interest (perhaps even use) to those who work as teacher
trainers and/or as education and management consultants. Feel free to use it as
you see appropriate. I have no
intellectual property rights. For I myself borrowed or stole almost all the
ideas from others, notably from Michael Fullan, Dylan Wiliam, Richard Elmore
and Fenton Whelan. They are confident and acknowledged giants in a land in
which I am a stumbling toddler.
Iain Smith
13 Dec 2013
1.
Transformational change must
grow wings in Scotland
| Published in TESS on 21 September, 2012 |
By: Iain Smith
Dear Mr. Russell,
At a time when there is talk of how one brings about transformational
change in Scottish education, you might be interested to know of my experience
in another system. It is a smaller system than Scotland - with 180 schools and
about 3,000 teachers and 50,000 students, i.e. it is the size of a large
Scottish education authority.
In that system (Pakistan’s), two foreign consultants and four local
staff delivered in June the first eight input days of a six-month programme for
36 senior school staff. The eight days focused these senior staff on: 1) making
the professional development of their teachers a central part of their job; and
2) concentrating on the management of teaching and learning (not the management
of buildings and budgets). After six months, they now have coaches and recall
days and a closed and monitored Facebook community, staffed by two UK
consultants and two of their own senior staff.
We have made extensive use of both videos and print from the Scottish
“Journey to Excellence” materials. These are now, I suspect, better known in
this foreign system than they are in Scottish schools.
Another example that might be worth thinking about comes from closer to
home: London. Professor Dylan Wiliam recently pointed out “that London schools
have been outperforming schools in the rest of the country not just in terms of
the progress made by students, but also in GCSE grades… last year London
schools outperformed those in all the other English regions” (The Guardian, 7
August).
If one follows this up, one finds that Ofsted attributes it largely to
London Challenge, which has been in operation since 2003. Some of its key
aspects include:
- Pan-London networks of schools that allow effective partnerships to be
established between schools, enabling needs to be tackled quickly and progress
to be accelerated.
- Teaching schools that provide extended coaching and practical
activities on their own site to groups of teachers from several schools that
need support and are within easy travelling distance.
So these are two examples of professional development work outside
Scotland. How many of these activities occur in Scotland? By and large, we can
only guess, which in itself is a bit worrying. We know that there has been some
considerable work on formative assessment. We know that there has been some use
of coaching in workforce development, notably with Scottish head teachers. We
know of the work that Tapestry does.
But mostly we know that Scotland lacks systematic provision when it
comes to such matters.
Could we do better, Cabinet Secretary?
Yours sincerely, Iain Smith
2. Professional
development journeys could be smoother
Published in TESS on 5
October, 2012 | By: Iain Smith
Dear Mr
Russell,
I am writing
basically about the professional development of teachers. I was encouraged
recently by two Journey to Excellence videos.
It was impressive to hear the testimony from St Luke’s High:
Student 1: “It’s become
much more common for pupils to be asked how they found the learning at the end
of units and things in classes. Pupils are asked to evaluate how they think the
unit went, how they think it could be improved for the next year’s classes.”
Student 2: “In years
gone by, I think, the pupil voice has been more to do with litter and toilets
and getting new vending machines and things like that - material things. But I
think now the pupil voice is about how we learn and challenging our own learning
and also the ways that we are taught in class.”
It was encouraging to hear of the work in Portree Primary:
Head teacher: “Opening up the learning and getting members of staff, pupils and parents talking about what’s actually happening in the classroom is a very important step forward.”
Teacher: “As a Primary 7
teacher, I encourage the children to be involved in evaluation of their
learning on a regular basis. They’re involved in self-evaluation of a variety
of work - in particular for their maths. They take responsibility for marking
their maths at the end of a block of work.”
Excellent. But how widespread are such practices?
The first and clearest answer is: “We do not know”. A recent Universities Scotland report cites some extracts from what it calls “the limited (unpublished) research that has been undertaken into CfE implementation”. The extracts are not particularly reassuring. At national level we know of the well-regarded work by Tapestry. And, in science education, there is the acclaimed, and externally evaluated, work by SSERC.
At local level, we know that there are some schools with excellent practice. There is some poor practice. What is the balance? The most authoritative statement is probably that of former senior chief inspector Graham Donaldson, who observed recently that there was not enough good continuing professional development practice and that the future of CfE depends on it being greatly improved (TESS, 1 June).
Could that be done? At least one of my advisers is optimistic: “Let’s engage the profession, perhaps using the ‘family of schools’ or ‘cluster’ as the unit, and mount a systematic CPD programme, adapting the Teacher Learning Community model of Dylan Wiliam along with others that put teachers at the centre.: “Let’s get the teaching unions, GTCS, Education Scotland, the local authorities and external providers around the table and begin to map out a 5- to 10-year plan. It can be done, surely.”
Yes, Cabinet Secretary, it could be done.
Yours sincerely, Iain Smith
3. Deep
learning still needs 'zing' in the classroom
Dear Mr Russell,
A seven-year-old friend returned from school. She told her mother about Curriculum for Excellence: “It is about successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors.” Sadly, when the mother enquired what these words meant, the seven- year-old did not know.
I think we might all agree that CfE is about more than pupils (or teachers) reciting mantra-like phrases. My reading is that CfE has a heavy emphasis on what is variously called “meaningful” or “high level” or “deep” learning.
Some 50 years ago, a teacher in the Nicolson Institute wandered into my class to do a “please take” in history. One Albert.
The class was transfixed by his lesson. We had never experienced history his way. Let me quote his conclusion:
“In the late 18th century, warfare took a shock. A bunch of colonial guys rebelled. And some of these rebels formed an alliance with the natives. So the English armies in North America would put on their red coats, polish their buttons and have breakfast. Then they would go out to the plains to meet the pesky rebels. No army met them on the plains. ‘These cowards are hiding in the forests - let us go and have a look.’
“Up in the trees, the rebels and their native pals, none of them in uniforms, would draw on their bows. There would be a ‘zing’ and a red- coated brass-buttoned soldier would bite the dust.
“And thus, class, was created: 1) the United States of America; 2) guerrilla warfare; and 3) camouflage. All new concepts: and all three concepts changed the world for ever.”
Albert is long dead. But his lesson sticks in my mind. He had engaged me in deep learning.
We understand today a lot about what will engage school students in deep or meaningful learning. Albert would have scored highly on “use appropriate language” and “summarise the main concepts”. His lesson, while meaningful (at least to me), might have scored lower in other respects. His only use of AVA was to illustrate the “zing” by pointing his left fist towards the class and drawing his right knuckles back.
As Scottish teachers of the 21st century grapple with these issues, they have more secure evidence. Deep learning is encouraged by a) stating learning objectives at the beginning of a lesson; b) the use of peer assessment and self-assessment; c) the use of learning logs; d) personal learning planning; and e) giving extended thinking time to school students before expecting a reply to a deep question.
But, fundamentally, it is about lessons with a “zing”. Perhaps, Cabinet Secretary, some of your CfE documentation on “experiences and outcomes” loses sight of this just a little.
Yours sincerely, Iain Smith
4. Plenty of
evidence - but too little will to make use of it
Dear Mr Russell,
Would one accept in the 21st century a medical doctor who said: “I do not believe in medical science. I treat patients by instinct.”? Or a pilot who said: “Forget all this nonsense about GPS and radar - I fly by the seat of my pants.”?
Yet the educational equivalent is heard in some school staffrooms in Scotland (and, sadly, even more in university common rooms).
You must be overwhelmed with advice about classrooms, Cabinet Secretary. But is there an evidential basis for good practice in teaching? Some would say not. But I think there is.
A good starting point is the research of Professor John Hattie. The work (in essence the aggregation of many studies) has been going on for some 20 years now, and seems robust and increasingly influential across the world.
If Hattie is correct, he sheds new light on issues that have long been controversial - e.g., class-size effects. A short (and simplified) exemplification of his messages is as follows:
1. Those schools in
which teachers set high expectations are effective in what they achieve.
2. Concentrating on
feedback (what we typically call Assessment for Learning) is very effective in
causing large gains in student learning.
3. Reducing class sizes
is largely irrelevant to achievement.
4. School development
planning is often irrelevant to student learning.
5. Focusing on reducing
disruptive pupil behaviour is highly effective in causing gains in learning.
6. Encouraging school
students to tutor other students is good at increasing learning - for the
students being tutored and for those doing the tutoring.
And if I made Hattie my starting point, I would add to that list: Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam; Fenton Whelan; Richard Elmore; Michael Fullan. All have soundly evidence-based things to say to Scottish education.
But how much of their work actually influences the professional development or practices of Scottish teachers? Black and Wiliam have had some influence. Fullan is quite well known, but mostly ignored. Sadly, the rest are far from being household names.
I tried out a draft of these ideas with a very senior figure in Scottish education. He replied: “Teaching should be a high-reliability and high- validity profession and we should be relentless in ensuring that our young people experience the most informed pedagogical practice. We have been far too tolerant of amateurism. (We need a) culture change at all levels, including both teachers and parents, many of whom see teaching as being mainly about personality, content knowledge and craft.”
In short, Cabinet Secretary, if the practice of a Curriculum for Excellence is to be put on a sound basis, we need some work on that agenda.
Yours sincerely, Iain Smith
5. Here is my
seven-point strategic plan. Climb on board
Dear Michael,
Can I call you that? I feel we are now firm friends.
In February 2011 you gave a remit to Education Scotland that included:
- to build the capacity of education providers and practitioners to improve their own performance;
- to promote high-quality professional learning and leadership.
These are admirable points, but the evidence from my well-informed advisers is that delivery is limited. The Education Scotland website has some excellent materials. But capacity-building is about rather more than materials.
So how might one go about national capacity building, notably for Curriculum for Excellence? I have drawn on international evidence and on the experience of colleagues, and have sketched out a seven-point draft strategic plan. That is rather presumptuous of me.
1. Select heads, deputes
or others with the potential for significant training roles within their school
or within a cluster of schools. Preferably have pairs of participants from the
same school (especially with large secondary schools) or at least pairs from
natural clusters of schools. Over a period of time, one might want to target
perhaps 1,200 staff nationally.
2. Plan for them a
programme on the leadership of learning. Sustained capacity-building
programmes, extended over a period, can contribute to development in a way that
"one-off" concentrated courses cannot: the research on that is clear.
Make only some of that centre-based, i.e., out of school. Centre-based training
becomes effective when it is interspersed and followed up with local
"between school" and "in school" development.
3. Whatever number of
centre-based days can be afforded, put these in two or more blocks, for
example, if it is five days, make it 2 +2 +1. There are organisational and
financial costs in that. But the game is about cost-effectiveness and the
evidence on cost-effectiveness is pretty conclusive.
4. Organise participants
into pairs of critical friends or small self-help groups who will provide peer
support to each other over an extended period.
5. Give them experienced
coaches to support them in their work. There is much research evidence that
testifies to the beneficial effects of coaching and mentoring.
6. Make the central
focus capacity-building for CfE. Have substantial amounts of the programme
concentrate on action planning, i.e., how will they facilitate the improvement
of learning within their school or cluster of schools?
7. Employ an
adult-centred methodology of programme delivery. What is ineffective is
lecture-style teaching. What are effective are: a) modelling; b) coaching; c)
apprenticeship (working some of the time with a more senior colleague, perhaps
their coach); d) concrete suggestions on new teaching techniques; and e) joint
analysis and planning. These are the techniques that they should subsequently
use down at school and cluster level in running professional development there.
It would all work splendidly well.
Yours sincerely, Iain
6. What do they
want? Better professional development
Dear Michael,
It is hard to believe that a Curriculum for Excellence can thrive without some extended professional development for the Scottish teaching workforce.
International research evidence overwhelmingly supports the value of particular practices. In a sentence, professional growth and development work best when they are approached by teachers working collegially together - and doing that work on an extended basis, not for an isolated day or half-day.
This has worked successfully in some schools in Scotland. Indeed the Journey to Excellence videos on the Education Scotland website contain excellent examples of collegial development over an extended period of time. I have watched the Balwearie High experience of formative assessment on about 20 occasions. It is excellent and encouraging. And Boghall Primary is interesting on critical skills.
But we do not know how extensive this practice is in Scotland. Certainly I do not; and I suspect you do not. One experienced secondary teacher commented to me: "The usual pattern for in-service is days with a variety of different themes where staff will be sitting in the assembly hall and be lectured to. These will be one-day events with the possibility of splitting into smaller groups to discuss a theme for one hour and for a minute-taker to feed back to the SMT/SLT what took place. These days are usually viewed as being imposed and the feedback as not having any major impact.
"In my experience, teachers are more positive about sessions where they have engaged with colleagues either on the same subject area topic or on a theme that actually has an impact on classroom learning and teaching. But too little time is available for teachers to work together."
Now talk to anyone at higher levels in Scottish education about the idea that isolated days (far less half-days) of in-service are useless (often worse than useless); and that this has been well known for at least 30 years. "Yes, we know that," they say - often very condescendingly.
If they know it, Cabinet Secretary, why do they allow so much public resource to be invested, in at least some schools, in something that does not work?
On the other hand, one of my many advisers on such matters was sent the following testimonial: "In-service days in our education authority are really well structured and we usually have very good sessions and presenters. I am about to team-teach with a teacher from a resource centre, following up on a course in support for learning I attended."
Scottish teachers want and deserve good professional development. Capacity-building is, in part, about ensuring that those who design and deliver that professional development are themselves au fait with good practice. As my Latin teacher used to say: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
Yours sincerely, Iain
7. Why Mr.
Russell must sit on the horns of a few dilemmas
Dear Michael,
Some months back, underwhelmed by the Serbia match, I went out, bought a TESS and mulled it over in a nearby hostelry with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. The ensuing 90 minutes were a distinct improvement on the preceding ones.
It was particularly interesting to read a profile of Professor Lindsay Paterson. He is someone of great sagacity.
So I reflected on some of the points he was making.
Are better-educated teachers better teachers on average than less-educated teachers? Yes: the worldwide evidence on that is moderately conclusive.
Is a teacher with Higher maths better than a teacher without it? Yes: anyone with Higher or A-level maths is, other things being equal, more competent at most things. The evidence is even more decisive on that.
The conclusions are a
bit frightening for politicians:
1. You could raise both
the entry standards and the exit standards for aspiring teachers.
2. That is quite easy to
do in a time when demand for new teachers is low (as has been the case for the
past five years or so), but tough to do over the next five years when demand
for teachers is rising.
3. That is unless one
raises teachers' salaries quite dramatically (the Finnish and Singapore models,
as I understand it, in two outstandingly good education systems). That would do
wonders for the supply of well-qualified aspirant teachers. But Mr. Swinney and
Mr. Salmond would take some persuading.
4. If one accepts the
Whelan and Hattie conclusions (i.e., that class sizes are, except marginally,
irrelevant to pupil achievement), one could accept an increase in school
students without proportionately increasing the teacher workforce, i.e., the
advantages of higher standards from a smaller number of highly select and
highly paid teachers are worth the price of having larger classes.
5. The only problem with
this analysis (as Hattie points out) is that it is rational, but universally
unpopular worldwide with parents, teachers, school students and the public, and
therefore with politicians.
So, Cabinet Secretary, you - and all politicians - have an intractable dilemma.
President Lyndon Baines Johnson was once advised by some academics that the right answer to some particularly knotty problem fell within a range of probabilities. To which he said "In Texas a range means a place where I keep my cattle. Just tell me the right answer."
As with the advisers of President Johnson, I am sorry I could not be more helpful on this one, Cabinet Secretary. You have a tough job.
I wish a joyful festive season to you and yours.
Yours sincerely, Iain
8. Final words
on a boost for professional development
Dear Michael,
The ideas which I have put to you in previous weeks have been derived from a wide variety of sources. But the central messages are probably best summarised in the work of the US educator Richard Elmore.
Here are some extracts from a paper by Professor Elmore. Perhaps ask yourself two questions. One, do you agree with what is being said? Two, how much of this already happens in Scottish education?
"In order to progress from reforms ... to changes in student performance, one has to assume that changes in policy and organisation will result in a different kind of teaching, which will in turn result in a different kind of learning for students, who will in turn demonstrate this learning by doing better on measures of performance. One key element missing in this formulation, however, is the knowledge required for teachers and administrators to engage in a different kind of teaching and learning. Policies, by themselves, don't impart new knowledge; they create the occasion for educators to seek new knowledge and turn that knowledge into new practice. Hence, professional development is the main link connecting policy to practice ...
"We know a good deal about the characteristics of successful professional development: it focuses on concrete classroom applications of general ideas; it exposes teachers to actual practice rather than to descriptions of practice; it involves opportunities for observation, critique, and reflection; it involves opportunities for group support and collaboration; and it involves deliberate evaluation and feedback by skilled practitioners with expertise about good teaching ...
"In District 2, professional development has a very different meaning from (the) conventional model ... Professional development is what administrative leaders do when they are doing their jobs, not a specialised function that some people in the organisation do and others don't. Instructional improvement is the main purpose of district administration, and professional development is the chief means of achieving that purpose. Anyone with line administrative responsibility in the organisation has responsibility for professional development as a central part of his or her job description ...
"A third reform of professional development in District 2 is a heavy reliance on peer networks and visits to other sites, inside and outside the district, designed to bring teachers and principals into contact with exemplary practices. Intervisitation, as it is called in the district, and peer consultations are routine parts of the district's daily life."
Cabinet Secretary, some of this goes on in Scotland. But not enough: we do not have sufficient education authority staff who are immersed in the culture of District 2. We should learn from Professor Elmore.
And so my letters to you stop, Michael. If you have enjoyed reading them even half as much as I enjoyed writing them, it has all been worthwhile.
Yours sincerely, Iain
---------------------------------------------
Open letters turn the page
I have enjoyed Iain Smith's open letters to the cabinet secretary and have found myself in agreement with many of the key messages he has given. This is particularly true of "Final words on a boost for professional development" (4 January), where he described the relevance of the work of Professor Richard Elmore of Harvard University.
He will remember, I am sure, Elmore's visit to Scotland in March 2007, which was part of the government-funded International Thought Leaders Programme and hosted by the national CPD team. During this visit, Professor Elmore spoke to a range of Scottish educators. He met the then cabinet secretary, spoke to HMI and Learning and Teaching Scotland senior officers, addressed the national CPD network group, visited two different authorities and led a one-day seminar for about 150 colleagues in Glasgow.
The legacy from this visit is still evident, not least in the very successful Learning Rounds programme, which has developed from the medical rounds model that Professor Elmore described and demonstrated in one of our secondary schools. Subsequently, the national CPD network relied significantly on the work of Elmore as it developed and grew the model of professional development, which in turn informed and shaped much of the thinking behind the Teaching Scotland's Future report.
Also, there are still a number of colleagues around who had the privilege of visiting Harvard and hearing about and experiencing Elmore's work directly. Many of them said their understanding was transformed by the visit. These educators offer a rich resource that could be helpful in the next few years as we take account of the clear need to strengthen professional development on new and different kinds of teaching and learning as "the main link connecting policy to practice" as Elmore suggests.
Iain Smith's questions to the cabinet secretary are valid and relevant, and I believe can be helpful in informing the next phase of the implementation of the TSF report.
I don't know whether the cabinet secretary has enjoyed reading them, but I have found them interesting and stimulating. Thank you.
Margaret Alcorn, national CPD coordinator from 2004-12, writes in a personal capacity
[Now, instead of “writing” to the government
minister with responsibility for education, I start “writing” to a university vice-chancellor
who has been charged with improving teacher education in Scotland. Unlike the government
minister, she did reply to me.]
9. We watch on
as you face the implementation challenge
Dear Petra,
You have been principal and vice-chancellor of Queen Margaret University for more than three years now. And recently you were asked by the Scottish government to chair the National Implementation Board for Teaching Scotland's Future, following the publication in November 2012 of the National Partnership Group report on how best to implement the Donaldson review of teacher education.
I also have spent some time reading the NPG report; and it sets you and your colleagues on the implementation board some formidable challenges. So there is plenty of work to be done. You have an international background, personally and professionally, and you will understand the specific challenges of driving change in Scottish education.
Having been heavily involved in Scottish teacher education for some 20 years, I have a keen interest in such issues. Now in my elderly years, I have developed a well-known and irritating habit of firing off letters about these matters to the great and the good of Scottish education. Last year, aided and abetted by the editor of TESS, I even had the temerity to send some open letters to the cabinet secretary. Poor Mr. Russell: he is not short of advice, much of it contradictory, of course.
The NPG report advocated "maintaining a strong focus on enhancing career-long teacher education". That is good.
The tasks in initial teacher education are interesting. But, without wanting to be too complacent, many of us think that there is a strong starting base. Scotland began to train school teachers in 1827 (the second country in the world - after the US - to do so) and many elements of the present system have been broadly secure and settled since 1906. There is also already a strong partnership between different groups involved in teacher education, e.g., between Scottish government and Scottish universities. You will know from your own experience in Oxford Brookes University that that is sadly not something which prevails in the English system.
And, as the NPG report documents, in initial teacher education progress has already been made in implementing some of the key Donaldson recommendations.
I am less sanguine about the challenges in the area of continuing professional development. In my first three years of school teaching (in the early 1970s), I was sponsored to do an MEd degree; I attended many excellent short CPD events, some in-school, some external; and I was one of the many hundreds of Scottish teachers who gave up the first two weeks of a summer vacation to do an excellent college course. Not many of the young staff in Scottish schools in 2013 could give such an upbeat description of the CPD opportunities available to them.
Petra, I shall reflect further and get back to you.
Yours sincerely, Iain
10. Let me offer
offline advice about online materials
Dear Petra,
I was re-reading the National Partnership Group's (NPG's) advice to the cabinet secretary. You, of course, are now the lead figure in Scotland in implementing these recommendations.
A computer search of the document found 44 references to "online" or "on-line". That is a little worrying. NPG, in my view, lost sight a little of what Donaldson actually said, i.e.: "Online CPD should be part of the blended tailored approach to CPD." (My emphasis.)
I make much use of online materials, not least those from Education Scotland. So it is not that I distrust online materials; very much the opposite. But:
1. Unsupported
free-standing online materials (whether documents or audio-streams or
video-streams) typically have limited impact. (Were it otherwise, MIT and
Harvard would already have transformed the educational state of the world.)
2. Online materials with
a high degree of automated interactivity are better than unsupported online
materials, but still lack the social element of peer or tutor validation.
3. Interactive online
material, when allied to peer and tutor input by electronic means, add yet
another layer of richness to the learning experience.
4. Online materials
blended in with some face-to-face contact are even more powerful in their
impact; and you don't need much face-to-face contact to have a big effect.
But does anyone in Education Scotland have the slightest understanding of these four simple points? The evidence suggests not.
- The Education Scotland
materials are for the most part non-interactive. Sometimes they have
accompanying questions and activities. But that is not interactivity.
- There is no tutor
support from Education Scotland. Even a simple online discussion forum with
some expert moderation would be a great improvement and would be very easy to
do.
- The implicit model is
mostly that of the teacher as a lone student in front of a computer screen.
How many of Scotland's 50,000 teachers are motivated to even embark on such a heroic learning journey? Not many (indeed, not any) of those I have met. Effective teacher CPD is a collegial activity: the worldwide evidence on that is striking and overwhelming.
Were Education Scotland or some other national body to organise a national forum of mentors (nominated by education authorities or schools) and were these mentors then to work at local level with communities of teachers, occasionally meeting them face-to-face but communicating with them even more regularly by electronic means, there could be much progress.
Until that is done, for your implementation board to follow the NPG advice to produce more online materials would be as useless as pouring water into the peat bogs of Scotland: few blooms would emerge.
I hope, Petra, my gentle advice does not fall on stony ground.
Iain
------------------------------------------------
Online learning on the mind
I enjoyed the challenge of Iain Smith's open letter in TESS (15 February) and agree with almost everything he envisaged as good continuing professional development. However, our online professional learning provision is just one of a range of Education Scotland offerings.
Many of the online materials have been developed for events or conferences and we have been asked to share them. We know that many of our materials are used to support local authority events and are not designed to be used by individual teachers.
Also, his letter missed any reference to professional learning communities within Glow. We launched our professional learning communities' area on the website in January. Already, they are attracting a considerable number of users who are taking part in online collegial activity, including sharing learner resources and professional learning insights and practice; participating in web conferences; following up on the impact of professional learning; and connecting with colleagues with similar interests.
Each community has one or more volunteer supporters who work with others to develop it, and we are seeing Glow enhancing other types of professional learning, such as "flipping" the learning for face-to-face events, reflective diaries for action research projects, online coaching, strategic leaders addressing wicked issues and supporting professional recognition.
Much of this feeds into the National Professional Learning Community, which is part of the journey towards the "one-stop shop" envisaged by Donaldson.
We are looking forward to yet more educators joining, starting, supporting and mentoring in the professional learning communities; more contextual links to the communities on Glow from our website; further development of Glow's social web features, providing more collegial activity as well as endorsement based on impact on learning; and the coming together of mentors to form the mentors' forum community you so rightly identify as key to implementing Teaching Scotland's Future.
All of these initiatives are key in strengthening professional learning. We are now embarking on a series of conferences reflecting and promoting that topic, with opportunities for educational leaders to consider how to improve professional learning.
We are also launching a new career-long learning network, involving a range of partners including Scotland's universities and local authorities.
I would welcome the opportunity to discuss all of this with Mr. Smith and to hear his views on what we could do better.
Con Morris, National CPD adviser, Education Scotland.
11. In a bid to
help you, I have formed a hypothesis or two
Dear Petra
Your implementation board on teacher education has a big challenge, as you know. Let me assist you by offering the "Smith hypothesis". Like the existence of the Higgs boson, it awaits total proof: but, also like the Higgs boson hypothesis, the evidence is accumulating.
In its simplest form, it states: "The ostensible receptivity of Scottish teachers to new ideas is an inverse function of the distance of their school from the centre of population gravity in Scotland, i.e., the M8 Harthill service station."
Try new ideas in Stranraer and one is received with acclaim. Run a CPD course in Stornoway or Inverness and one is greeted with reverence. In the centre of Glasgow or on a bleak afternoon in Coatbridge or in Edinburgh, things are rather more robust and challenging. Given that I am writing for TESS, I am careful with my language. But I have been there and I have the scars to prove it.
Do not despair, though. There is a second, subsidiary hypothesis: "The gradual acceptance of a new idea is proportionate to the initial hostility with which it is greeted."
One departs from Stranraer or Stornoway or Inverness with a warm glow in one's heart. But nothing much subsequently happens. One departs from North Lanarkshire, Glasgow or Edinburgh with deep suicidal tendencies, but, six months later and with their own adaptations, they are doing these things. Indeed, they often say: "We invented this".
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure about my first hypothesis. But I am serious about the second one. There is much world-wide evidence to support it.
I think my most unpleasant career experience was being lacerated (metaphorically of course) by a group of primary heads in South Lanarkshire on a wet winter Friday afternoon in Hamilton. In retrospect, I think it was one of the most enlivening educational experiences I have ever had.
The wonderful Michael Fullan (a professor from Toronto who knows a lot about Scottish education) has good advice: let people vent; listen to them; and your initial opponents may well become your strongest supporters. Historically those in charge of managing change in Scottish education are not good at this. I heard an HMI about 20 years ago tell a national staff development committee: "It's all simple. Call the head teachers to a conference in Edinburgh, give them a keynote speech and a good lunch, then hand them a CD telling them what to do. End of story." I thought he was joking. But he was serious.
So, Petra, you know you need to generate a bit of a culture shift. Encourage debate; encourage dissent, even. Play it right and some of the most recalcitrant figures in Scottish education may become some of your best pals.
Iain
12. Surface learning techniques should not be brushed off
Dear Petra,
Debates about the relative values of detailed subject knowledge and more
generic skills bedevil teacher education. And the more we get engaged in the
explosion of knowledge, the more acute becomes the debate.
I was a 10-year-old pupil in P6 in 1958 in Sandwickhill School in the
Isle of Lewis. We had an HM inspection.
1. In those days, inspectors often took over the class (a residue of the
inspectorial "payment by results" stuff of the 1870s and 1880s. HMIs,
then as now, took some time to adapt to change).
2. We were good (most of us) because we had a newly-trained and
first-class teacher, Miss MacDougall.
3. Mr. Mays, HMCI, got entirely correct answers from us. Then he said
(pre-decimal days of course): "Now, tell me - how many seven-and-a-half
pennies are there in one million pounds?" We were momentarily stunned. But
Mr. Mays was a good enough teacher that, having set us this stunning question,
he was prepared to be patient in getting an answer. After 10 seconds, one pupil
got it right.
4. To this day, I remember, I think, her subsequent account of her
reasoning. John Laurie-like, she said to herself: "Do not panic - at least
not yet: Miss MacDougall has taught you some study skills." Secondly, she
said: "I bet you the one million is a distracter". Thirdly, she said:
"Anything with a 1/2 fraction is awkward. Make it easier by doubling".
So she got to one shilling and three pennies. Fourthly, she said: "Double
again" and got to two shillings and sixpence, a half-crown. Dead easy:
every kid in the 50s, certainly those taught by Miss MacDougall, knew there
were eight half-crowns in a pound. Fifthly, she said: "Now retrace your
steps, multiply the 8 by 2 and then by another 2. That is 32".
"Sir, there are 32 million in a million pounds".
Surface learning or deep learning? Subject knowledge or generic skills?
Hard to know. On 15 February 1971, Prime Minister Edward Heath made much of
such detailed knowledge obsolete by introducing decimal currency. But some of
it remains relevant to this day, e.g., how to manipulate computations that
involve awkward fractions.
As one of the most distinguished of my ex-colleagues tells me,
Curriculum for Excellence should not mean we discard memorisation or surface
learning techniques. They have their place as the building blocks for deeper
learning.
As Scottish teachers of the 21st century grapple with these issues, they
at least have a more secure evidential basis on which to build their teaching
strategies than did my 20th-century teachers. We know that learning needs
attention to both surface and deep stuff.
Yours sincerely, Iain
13. Karachi conference was a lesson in communication - Letter from Lahore
Dear Graham,
As an adviser to Petra Wend's implementation group for your review of teacher education, you grapple with improving the career-long learning of Scottish teachers.
You have an interest in international perspectives. I am working for an education system in Pakistan, which has approximately the same number of pupils as Edinburgh. But there are some differences: it is a private system; its 180 schools are spread over a land mass greater than the UK; and there are culturally nuanced distinctions - one father with four wives had 25 children attending our Quetta campus. Not many Edinburgh schools, I understand, have 25 siblings in attendance.
Recently, I flew to an in-house conference in Karachi, a distance similar to that between Inverness and London. A large hotel meeting room was laid out for 200 people - mostly heads and regional staff - but there were also about 60 parents and a number of A-level students. Two students opened the day with a recitation from the Koran and an inspirational reading, and a third one did some of the compering.
The national anthem and the school song featured before we got down to business: a little different from what we see at a Tapestry conference. The regional director of education gave a five-minute address, stressing that they have full-time school counsellors in all A-level schools.
The central support function of their school system has so far concentrated on academic and careers advice, but is now fostering personal counselling (bit.ly/14y5Fg6). So we had a keynote speaker, formerly of the University of Karachi - 30 minutes on the historic treatment of mental illness in Pakistan (not a happy story). She then invoked the World Health Organisation on holistic notions of health (as modern health education in Scotland does) and focused on techniques to maximise positive self-awareness. There were four hours still to go, but the rest of the day was highly interactive. Sadly, as you and I know, that is largely unknown at such events in Scotland.
That led to a panel of experts. We had 30 minutes of views and questions from the audience. The three, three-hour workshops were headed by Dr Asir Ajmal, a graduate of Columbia University and clinical psychologist who was very client-centered; Anika Naeem, a Canadian Pakistani with a degree in counselling, who discussed behavioural control in classrooms; and Rubina Feroz, another clinical psychologist, who spoke about parental skills. There was lively debate among the parents and when they departed, there was an hour's structured discussion among the staff and students.
Commuting to Holyrood conferences is less time consuming, but sadly often less rewarding. Graham, there are two challenges for us in Scotland: 1) to involve more stakeholders, students and parents in our teacher conferences, and 2) to cut the keynotes and develop the dialogue.
Yours, Iain
14. Now is the time to delegate and empower teachers - Letter from Lahore
Dear Graham,
In the middle of one night in Lahore I got an email alert that By Diverse Means: Improving Scottish Education (Commission on School Reform) was being published that day and that I had a pre-publication copy. I quickly saw that it cited some 600 words of my evidence, all of it as extracts from Richard Elmore, on the theme of school administrators needing to focus on the management of teaching and learning above all else. As you and I have said to each other in the past, the more airing Elmore's work gets in Scotland, the better.
Scottish education can look decentralised, but in reality it is highly centralised. (It has been so since 1872; indeed, that was one - then commendable - object of the 1872 legislation). You and I have often debated these points, Graham. I admit that scarce an educational shot in anger has ever been fired by the Scottish educational establishment: but then they have never had the need to. For the construction that the typical Scottish head puts on the word "guidelines" leads one to doubt their command of the English language.
The report publicly shoots the "Delegated management of resources" fox. That's good. Scottish DMR operates like a parent who gives a child pocket money and then drags the poor wean past the sweetshop, past the toyshop and into an "improving" bookshop for an enforced purchase. The report itself makes wry and eloquent comments on the "parent-child" language used in the submission to it from local government.
The English education system takes delegation more seriously. That is partly about competition and choice. But it is not only about that. Look at London Challenge for an adventurous approach to school improvement that could work in Scotland but has never been tried; and which has had marked and well-researched effects on attainment in London schools.
From my perspective here in Pakistan, Scottish education is in a good state. Most Scottish children go to school most of the time; most Scottish teachers spend some time teaching; most Scottish schools contain students rather than the laird's grain. Things unknown, sadly, in much of Pakistan.
But in Scotland an often dull bureaucracy presides over an often sullen set of teaching serfs.
We should empower teachers and head teachers. And that, Graham, has a big implication for the ongoing development of the teaching force, both heads and teachers. One of the remarkable things that the Soros Foundation established in Eastern Europe and Central Asia is the amount of support initially needed by schools when they are liberated.
Yours, Iain
15. Letter from Lahore - A master's qualification for teachers will prove
tricky
Dear Graham,
As you know, your Donaldson report on teacher education was interesting on the issue of getting more Scottish teachers to acquire master's-level credits. It is a complex matter.
In Pakistan I have worked with a wonderful chief executive officer of The City School (TCS): she had and has Donaldson-like views. Or, to be fair to her, you have Dr Farzana-like views.
Farzana Firoz has had at least 20 years of trying to advance her teaching staff to master's-level qualifications. In a private school market place, she does this for a very hard-headed reason, i.e., competitive advantage. She worked out that one needed a flexible system of a) recognition of work-based learning; b) credit transfer from one university to another; and c) accrediting stuff delivered by non-universities, i.e., by her own in-house Department of Professional Development. That was advanced thinking: at the time, some of your then HMI colleagues thought such ideas were a freakish form of rocket science.
She found that at least three UK universities were willing to do some of that. Unsurprisingly, she would ideally have preferred Cambridge, the university that runs the TCS O-level and A-level system.
One evening in Pakistan, when she was being benevolent to me and in great good humour, she said: "Iain, I was one night at high table with the vice-chancellor of Cambridge. I explained to him the progressive things that some UK universities are prepared to do. And said to him, 'When will the University of Cambridge be prepared to do such things?' She then added: "The V-C of the University of Cambridge said to me, 'Never, I hope.'"
Somewhere in here there is a cautionary lesson for you and for Petra (Wend), as you head down the hard implementation road. Different universities will have different views.
A Scottish master's
qualification for teachers would indeed be a good idea.
1) It should be largely
non-prescriptive. Prescribe a core and starter module that is about
self-assessment, reflection and forward planning.
2) Prescribe nothing
else - other than that all modules should be about improving teaching and
learning.
3) Use 20-credit
building blocks.
4) Abolish the Scottish
Qualification for Headship in anything like its present form.
5) Do not listen to all
the various special interest groups in Scottish education who will try to
insist on more prescription.
6) And, crucially, think
about how this might be funded.
Keep it all simple. But do get to the bottom of the funding issues involved, which actually are quite complex.
And also grapple with a conundrum: master's-level credit is fundamentally an individual attribution; but effective continuing professional development is fundamentally collective. The chartered teacher scheme got that wrong - although it got quite a lot right. That is a hard one, Graham. Trust me. Yours, Iain
16. Letter from Lahore - Do we have good teacher
development plans in store?
Dear Graham,
As you will know, working in an overseas education system often makes one think about one's own. So it is with me, here in Pakistan.
Almost all 5- to 16-year-olds in Scotland go to school and, on any one day, some 19 out of every 20 are actually at school. In Pakistan, a recent survey suggests that only three-quarters of Pakistani 5- to 16-year-olds ever go to school. And three-quarters of those drop out of school completely before the age of 14. Half of the government primary schools have no toilet.
Some of Pakistan's teachers are privileged: they belong to "ghost" schools. A ghost school may, or may not, have a school building (if so, it is often used as a granary store). It certainly has no students: its main function is to have a payroll of real but non-working teachers. Even the McCrone settlement did not envisage such conditions of service: pay but no duties.
The diversity in schools is astonishing. At one end are these non-existent schools; at the other end Karachi Grammar School (alumna: Benazir Bhutto) and Aitchison College (alumnus: Imran Khan) are world class.
If the latter are the Harrods of Pakistan schools, mine can best be described as resembling John Lewis. Literally
And now the challenge for Scotland, and for you and Petra. I work with a team of 16 curriculum developers (focusing on curriculum and assessment development). My colleague Dr Javed has about nine professional development experts. And we have more such people out in our four regional offices. Between us, Dr Javed and I work in complementary ways on teacher development. When, if ever, did Glasgow or Edinburgh (roughly the size of Beaconhouse and TCS) have such teams?
Like Glasgow High, we do not exist to make money; but, like Glasgow High, we have to make money to survive. Yet our CEO does not stint on investing in teacher development. It is not bricks and mortar or staff-student ratios that are her top priorities. She focuses on improving learning and teaching - and to her, teacher development is key.
I think she must be a reader of our favourite author Richard Elmore - and his insistence on managers focusing on professional development. You and Petra could do worse than dish out his work across Scotland.
Yours, Iain
17. Letter from Lahore - Watch, listen and learn as teachers become masters
Dear Graham,
I am in Islamabad at the moment, attending a meeting of The City School's academic advisory board. It is an interesting board: our director of education, three regionally based deputy directors, our head of inspection, head of professional development, head of curriculum and four external consultants.
Last night, we were driven to a high-class restaurant to have dinner. There was Rose, the director of education, and Shireen, one of the deputy directors. I first met them more than 15 years ago when they were young and aspiring head teachers. Their organisation had then just implemented a policy whereby as much professional development for teachers as possible should lead to master's degree modules. Now there is an interesting idea, Graham.
So Rose and Shireen set down that path, doing some very school- and classroom-focused work, supplemented with an academic backdrop delivered by the University of Strathclyde. Some of their colleagues were happy to sign off with a few modules, some stopping with a certificate or a diploma award. But Rose and Shireen went for the full bhuna, so to speak, and became MSc graduates of Strathclyde.
Over 10 years, about 30 or 40 acquired master's degrees (roughly similar, scaled up, to 500 in Scotland); and some 100 acquired a postgraduate diploma.
Now did it make a difference? They are leaders who focus on learning and teaching. They have a high commitment to staff development. In 2010, we ran a leadership course for 10 days. Out of four trainers, two of us were external, one was a deputy director and one was Rose. I have seen Scottish directors of educational services giving keynotes, even workshops, at teacher development courses, but not that.
The downside (from The City School's perspective) is enhanced geographical and job mobility. Just as some Scottish MEds have ended up using their degree to become professors or directors of educational services in England, so this school has experienced the same.
There is, of course, the issue of funding: the school pays fees and expenses upfront, and then recovers them from the employee over a period of years - the converse of the model used with aspiring chartered teachers. Interesting and complex issues for you and Petra!
I asked Rose to write a few words about all of this. Here is what she wrote: "Ever since that first day (when I stepped into the training venue so full of myself and thinking, 'What can they teach me more?'), I am humbled with all the learning that has come my way into being an adaptive leader. And I am still young, Iain - at least very young to learning."
And that, after some 17 letters to various unfortunate recipients, seems a good note on which to sign off.
Yours, Iain
Our board is not playing games - we want to help [Extracts only]
Members of the National Implementation Board are working to represent
teachers' best interests
It has been a busy six months since the National Implementation Board (NIB) was established. Our remit is to deliver the recommendations of the National Partnership Group, which in turn was set up to turn the vision set out by Graham Donaldson in his report, Teaching Scotland's Future, into concrete proposals. To describe that as an ambitious agenda is an understatement - but it is nevertheless one we believe we can and must deliver.
It should come as no surprise when I say that the various partners bring to the table their own perspectives; discussions are often robust but all the better for being so. What is not in dispute is our common purpose - to improve the quality of teacher education, from the start to the finish of a teacher's career, and of school leadership. Unless we do this, as Donaldson has often warned, the potential of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), so vital to Scotland's future well-being, will not be realised fully.
Having been educated in the German school system, I can justifiably claim to act as a critical friend of the Scottish education system, coming to it only relatively recently. My own passion is modern languages - I taught German and Italian earlier in my career at Middlesex University as well as lecturing on a PGCE in modern foreign languages - but Graham's observation, in the introduction to his report, that "the foundations of successful education lie in the quality of teachers and their leadership" resonates strongly with me.
STEC members, meanwhile, are working to develop a shared framework for the accreditation of master's-level learning. This is new territory for HE institutions - competitor organisations who are nevertheless collaborating in the accreditation of each other's modules to make an enhanced level of study more accessible to teachers in Scotland. Teachers should be starting to work with their local authorities and chosen universities to have existing learning programmes accredited. I want to emphasise to teachers that master's-level study does not necessarily mean a period of academic study at university. We want to encourage accredited, high-quality, school-based learning that supports teachers to have the confidence and knowledge to conduct more effective practitioner enquiry.
Over the years there has been much talk about creating a college of educational leadership - but not enough action. The NIB has been tasked with finally delivering on that promise, and in September a report scoping potential models for such a college will be published. By January 2014, the NIB will have in its possession an evaluation of the current routes to headship and the means to map out clearer leadership pathways in the future.
I'd like to conclude by publicly acknowledging the open letters published in TESS in recent months by former Strathclyde dean of education Iain Smith to myself and Donaldson, warning us of potential pitfalls and encouraging us in our endeavours in equal measure. I could have opened this article in similar vein by writing "Dear Iain" in reply to his "Dear Petra" missives, but that might have struck a less inclusive note. For I want to ensure that the NIB wins the hearts and minds of all teachers in Scotland - not just a few.
Professor Petra Wend is principal and vice-chancellor of Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, and chair of the National Implementation Board.
A postscript
Did this make any difference to Scottish education? No.
However it was great fun to write this. It took me perhaps 30 or 40 hours on average to write each 450 word episode.
But it was worth it: because it made me think.
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