The Arthur Terry Teaching School Alliance Termly Journal for Alliance Partners ISSUE 03 May 2014
Aspire to Headship launched to senior leaders across the Teaching School Alliance
From left; Phil Taylor BCU; Pete Brindley Hawthorns Primary School; Hugh Johnson BCU; David Shipman Erasmus Darwin Academy; Dominic Davis Slade Primary School, Ian Wilson Fusion Leadership; Claire Finkel Brookvale Primary School; Diane Read The Arthur Terry School; Helen Hastilow Mere Green Primary School; Helen Murphy Heathfields Primary School; Lis Sheridan The Arthur Terry School; Neil Bowater The Arthur Terry School; Ian Smith-Childs The Coleshill School
During the Autumn Term the Aspire to Headship programme was launched to eleven aspiring school leaders across the Teaching School Alliance. The programme developed in collaboration with partners Birmingham City University and Ian Wilson of Fusion Leadership prepares participants for the role of Headteacher. The programme looks at leading an organization through three lens; education, business and academia. The participants have this term attended a two day conference where they have explored their own leadership style and reflected on how this might be perceived by the teams of people that they lead. They also attended a well received session on coaching skills. The group now look forward to inputs from Sue Robinson, Director of BELMAS and Ann Evans, Director of HTI where their views on system leadership will be explored with the group. Congratulations to Dominic Davis and Claire Finkel who have secured Headships since the start of the programme. Maybe there will be a few more successes amongst the group by the end of the programme. If you are interested in participating in the next cohort starting in the Autumn Term of 2014 please email Director of Teaching School Simon Roberts SRoberts@arthurterry.bham.sch.uk
The Arthur Terry School SCITT Ofsted “...the outstanding success of leaders and managers in rapidly establishing good training and improving outcomes” Ofsted 2014 In March the Arthur Terry School SCITT received an inspection from HMI inspectors Paul Chambers and Charles Lowry. The inspection was a success with the Leadership and Management of the SCITT graded as one and the achievement and training of trainees graded as good.
We would also like to thank the support shown by Professional and Learning Coaches in the partner schools visited Great Barr School, The Arthur Terry School, Erasmus Darwin Academy , Streetly Academy and The Coleshill School. The full report can be accessed on the Ofsted website at; http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/inspection-
This was a real endorsement of the programme which was only accredited in May 2012. Both inspectors were highly complimentary of the SCITT post-holders, the partner schools visited and all the Associate Teachers involved who demonstrated professionalism during a stressful few days. We would like to thank Course Leader Cathryn Mortimer, and route leaders Andrew Chaplin, Emma Firkin, John Tepe, Sunnil Singh and Paul Withey for their hard work during the inspection and all the work that has gone in to the last two years in the development of the SCITT. The key strengths of the secondary partnership recognised by Ofsted were: the excellent selection procedures that contribute to high employment rates for trainees the outstanding success of leaders and managers in rapidly establishing good training and improving outcomes very effective training for mentors that ensures they assess trainees accurately and are skilled at providing high-quality oral and written feedback on trainees’ teaching training that equips trainees with the skills to analyse what aspects of teaching contribute most effectively to pupils’ learning trainees’ thorough planning of well-structured lessons that focuses on developing key aspects of pupils’ learning trainees’ strong personal qualities that enable them to make a full contribution to the life of the schools they work in.
Life beyond levels A research and development project has been commissioned by the Teaching School Alliance to look at the challenge of assessment without levels.
From left; Samantha Alcock The Arthur Terry School; Corrina Haycox Ninestiles Academy; Sir Chris Stone Executive Headteacher The Arthur Terry Learning Partnership; Nick Blunt The Arthur Terry School; Fiona Church BCU; Davina Kempson Polesworth School; Melissa Gardner Bishop Walsh Catholic School
Congratulations to our graduating SCITT trainees and honorary doctorate Sir Christopher Stone On Friday 7th March our newly
orary doctorate from the university
qualified teachers that followed the
in recognition for his services to ed-
first cohort of our SCITT programme
ucation. A special day for Sir Chris-
graduated attended a ceremony at
topher and his family is just reward
Symphony Hall, Birmingham. Last
for his contribution to the educa-
years trainees were awarded their
tion of the young people across the
Post Graduate Certificates in Educa-
Learning Partnership.
A team of three Specialist Leaders of Education will be appointed to look at literature and best practice across the Teaching School Alliance of what the possible alternatives to levels could be. These options will then be presented to a group of Headteachers and their findings disseminated across the wider alliance. This research is timely as ASCL recently polled School Leaders on the challenges facing them and this was identified as a concern due to the unknown direction of travel.
tion through partner Birmingham City University. Friends and family joined them to celebrate their achievement and recognize the hard work and commitment demonstrated during their training year. To make the day even more special Executive Headteacher of The Arthur Terry Learning Partnership, Sir Christopher Stone received an hon-
Leading Change Programme Cohort 2 of the Leading Change programme is scheduled to start this term. The year long programme aimed at Middle Leaders focuses on the leadership qualities needed to implement change within a team. The programme blends theoretical input with practical application with participants involved in mock interviews and lesson observation feedback. If you are interested in participating on the programme please email Jo-Ann Murphy, Teaching School Assistant JMurphy@arthurterry.bham.sch.uk
The Shanghai Experience by Shane Walsh Shane Walsh FRSA is a Specialist Leader of Education designated by The Arthur Terry National Teaching School in April 2012 with specialisms in mathematics teaching. He is a lecturer in Mathematics Education at Birmingham City University and a Mathematics Subject Tutor for TeachFirst. Earlier on this academic year Shane and fellow SLE Karen Robinson visited Shanghai to explore how mathematics is taught and reflect on how the lesson learnt could be implemented in schools in the UK. Having been selected as part of a delegation of 25 secondary specialists to visit Shanghai in January 2014, I spent time looking at mathematics teaching there in light of the province’s PISA success. There was a very definite similarity between a grammar school in 1970’s Britain and a modern day Shanghai Primary, Middle and High School. In all classrooms visited, the teacher’s desk was on a raised platform, the desks were in rows, the teacher talked and the students listened respectfully, responding as a group to questions posed by the teacher. In lessons students appeared happy and teachers are clearly skilled in exposition, with thoroughly prepared scripts and well-chosen examples. During exposition students were quiet, face the front and all appeared attentive throughout 40 – 45 minute lectures. Of the lessons we saw teaching was not as such a shared learning experience but rather the transmission of knowledge from the teacher to the students; teaching was more about the passing on of knowledge than enabling understanding. The dominant role of the teacher, the ‘one size fits all’ lesson with a lack of additional materials to support and to stretch and the role of students as ‘recipients of information’ made it difficult to gauge the level of students’ understanding. The trip to Shanghai afforded us the opportunity, in the guise of appreciative inquiry, to really look at an education system other than our own. As the UK and Shanghai systems have so many similarities, we really focused on the differences in the similarities. It is not possible to disassociate the style of teaching from the Chinese culture, the role of the parents and the expectations of children. Therefore, it would not make sense to focus, as such, on classroom practice as it simply would, in our opinion, be retrogressive to adopt many practices observed in Shanghai classrooms. Of particular interest to us both however, was the professional development that seems to permeate primary, middle and high schools in Shanghai. In contrast to the front-loaded teacher training system in the UK whereby trainees are ‘taught’ how to teach in their PGCE year and are expected to put this in to action during their NQT year, and subsequent years, in Shanghai it is very much more an in-service training / professional learning model. Although teachers study pedagogy modules at university, significant emphasis and time is placed on in-service training in schools. In the first year alone a beginning teacher will observe at least 100 hours of teaching and will be observed 20 times. In the first 5 years of a Shanghai teacher’s career, they will have undertaken 360 hours professional development. This may take the form of planning and observing demonstration lessons (either in real time or on video), joint planning, joint delivery, resource development and in-school research. It is only after the end of their fifth year of teaching that a teacher is no longer regarded as a novice teacher and can apply, based on observations, assessments and evaluations of research projects, to progress on to senior ranks. The expectation exists that a teacher will improve year on year, thus the implication is that teachers must continue to learn and grow for at least five years before they are accepted as a Senior Teacher. As part of normal practice teaching research groups (grouped by topic, age or phase) spend in the region of 1 ½ and 2 hours a week together sharing knowledge, ideas and approaches to teaching and also plan together. These research groups echo the principle that pervades the Shanghai education system; experienced teachers work with, and support, less experienced teachers. The master – apprentice model is held in great esteem. If similar emphasis was placed on professional development in UK schools we are convinced that the quality of teaching and learning would develop significantly and therefore would result in huge gains in both GCSE attainment and in international comparisons such as PISA and TIMMSS. Simply providing CPD in which all teachers sit together in a hall, regardless of subject specialism, experience and role is simply not effective in profoundly developing teachers practice, however schools, and teachers, are too busy to stand back and question the status quo. It is, therefore, the role of system leaders to do this; namely, to initiate and encourage teachers and mathematics departments to work in a much more productive, sustainable and learning-centred manner. Teachers need support, encouragement and pressure to be encouraged to push the boundaries of their practice; we see this as the role of the SLE.
The Arthur Terry Teaching School Alliance
Simon Roberts Director of Teaching School The Arthur Terry School 0121 323 1136 SRoberts@arthurterry.bham.sch.uk www.atnts.com