We’ve seen some big education policy changes in recent years, from curricula reform and new school structures to pupil assessment methods. But however well-intentioned most of these have been, it’s good teaching – the interaction between adult and child in the classroom – that has the biggest impact on the learning of pupils, particularly those from poorer backgrounds.
It’s no accident that the highest-achieving education systems in the world invest heavily in the learning of their teachers. Educators in Singapore, for example, have an entitlement to 100 hours of professional development per year. Yet too often in England, professional development is something to fill the statutory training days, rather than an integral part of every teacher’s career. Teachers have a right to a career pathway that recognises that their professional development doesn’t stop when they qualify, but should be constantly renewed through life.
Teach less, teach better
There are some schools that get this. ‘Teach less, teach better’ is the mantra adopted by Huntington School in York, for example – they restructured their timetable to set aside two hours of professional development time every fortnight for each of their staff. Such investment is still the exception, though hopefully the newly formed Chartered College of Teaching will help to put meaningful staff development front and centre.
At the EEF, we believe that evidence should be the cornerstone of professional development. Far from adding to teachers’ workload, evidence can help save time by focusing on what works, not what doesn’t. Last year, for instance, we reviewed the evidence around different marking strategies and found that there’s very limited research to show which will have a positive effect on their pupils’ progress and which will not.
In a profession struggling to deal with unmanageable and debilitating workloads, why are we asking our teachers to spend hours and hours each week on time-consuming and unproven approaches like ‘triple-marking’? Smarter feedback strategies, guided by robust research of what teachers have found to work best, is one way of making an immediate and real difference to teachers’ workload.
Tough choices
That’s why we launched the Research Schools Network last year. An initial group of five schools – recently grown to 11 and soon to increase to 23 – will become focal points for evidence-based practice in their regions. Their task is to build affiliations with large numbers of neighbouring schools and support the use of evidence in their areas. They’ll engage with local schools and teachers in a variety of ways, including twilight sessions, seminars and conferences, to support them in improving their teaching practice.
School leaders will need to make some tough choices about their spending in the coming months. But if there’s one thing they must prioritise, it’s their staff. After all, there’s no shortcut to being a great teacher. All staff, from NQTs to academy CEOs, need time and space to develop their practice, informed by the latest research.
Sir Kevan Collins is Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Foundation
