Values for New Zealand School Leadership - Literature Review for the Te Ariki Trust.

Value #4: Evidence based professional practice Definition The Trust’s definition of evidence-based professional development makes reference to the need for multiple modes of data gathering spread across all school activities. Such data form the basis of collaboration across and within schools. Collaboration offers an opportunity for a collective evaluation of impact on students and their learning when teachers come together to plan and discuss next steps in teaching and learning. Knowing about one’s students’ achievement using robust data sources to inform future teaching and learning steps resonates with Eraut’s (1994) tenets for professionals (referred to in the introduction to Value #1). Namely that those who adhere to a moral commitment to work in the interests of students will need to collect and analyse evidence to show themselves and others in their schools and education system that they are raising student achievement in their work as teachers. Interrogation of data will not just occur in response to system accountability and compliance but become a personal motivator to prove to oneself that teaching aligns with student needs.

The articles which support the Trust’s fourth value of evidence-based professional practice continue to reinforce the benefits of co-constructing meaning from nominated issues of practice through planned research processes, cluster inquiries and research groups. The selection shows specific attention to how teachers can be supported to interpret and respond to data and how external facilitators and school leaders can assist teachers to make evidence-based judgments and decisions.

Article #1: Parr, J.M., & Timperley, H.S. (2015). Exemplifying a continuum of collaborative engagement: raising literacy achievement of at-risk students in New Zealand In the first article of the selection, Parr and Timperley report three different ways researchers can work with stakeholders in national projects targeted at raising student achievement. One is a traditional approach using evaluative research at the completion of a project. A second approach is research from the inside serving a formative function to impact on achievement. The remaining and third approach is when a cluster of schools forms a collaboration in which schools co-construct activities to investigate and evaluate their progress but with the assistance of an external team. It is likely that this third approach will have the most relevance for those contemplating or reviewing work within a cluster or community of learners. The study draws upon the experiences of Timperley and her team 40