#EducationFest at Wellington College - 20th-21st June 2014
So this year was my second year at the Sunday Times Festival of Education hosted by Wellington College and it was once again, an excellent CPD event. Last year I attended the event with one like-minded colleague, this year I attended with seven like-minded colleagues all of whom, found the day interesting and relevant (or at least they told me they did).
The purpose of this blog really is to sort my thoughts out. I attended so many sessions and to run through them all providing a blow by blow account is unhelpful - both to the reader and to me. Also, as David Weston (@informed_edu) pointed out, bad CPD often draws the attention of the person in lots of directions for short bursts of time whereas what is needed is a smaller focus over a greater period of time. This has lead me to think that rather than trying to take something from everyone, I shall take what I need to take for right now.
The session that most impacted my mindset was @learningspy's talk on 'The Cult of Outstanding'. David Didau made many excellent points in his talk and certainly provided me with some extra reading to do but what interested me most was the message that we are wrong. What he meant by this, or at the very least what I took from this, is that education is largely subjective. Teachers do what they think is best for their students, but what we think is best may not actually be best but just that which we like. He demonstrated this point by discussing the Ofsted framework for outstanding. What it left me with though is the sense that I am allowed to have an opinion - I may not be right, but that's okay, providing I continue to reflect and challenge myself and allow myself to be challenged, my opinion is important. So I write this blogpost pulling out what I felt was important from the day but I accept that I may be wrong and I look forward to being challenged.
The dominant theme in the CPD I am attending at the moment is that education needs to move towards a more evidenced/research based approach to improving practice. I think this is a good idea, indeed I like it. I began a masters this year and was reminded of the power of research, however one of the criticisms made by people who advocate a research based approach, is that teachers too quickly adapt ideas or 'fads' that have no evidence to support them. At the moment there is no evidence to suggest that evidence will have impact so I enthusiastically welcome this move towards more evidence-based practice, but I do so with a note of caution. I do so, not because it is the next best thing, but because I feel teachers could benefit from investing in more academic research when considering and reflecting on their own practice. However, I could be wrong. This message though, about how we can make teachers better and what evidence tells us about how we, as teachers, can improve came from three important sources. Firstly Kevan Collins of the Education Endowment Foundation pointed out that teachers are working as hard as anyone in the world but he questioned whether they were working on the right things. This made me think about whether I, as a leader, support staff to know what to work on. Secondly, Professor Robert Coe (@profcoe) discussed how we know what we should work on? Ultimately the true measure of good CPD is whether it is having an impact on student learning 6 months later - that is the true impact. So I can write this blog and feel all inspired by trip to Wellington but if nothing changes then the development was pointless. We have to ensure that teacher learning is meaningful and evaluated for real impact. We also need to consider if we are going to hold teachers accountable to a set of standards what those standards are. What teachers should do is that which is most likely to lead to benefit, and a framework needs to support those benefits. Finally in this hatrick of helpfulness was David Weston who I have heard speak before and would listen to again because he just makes sense. He talks about how schools constantly throw CPD at staff - a day on behaviour, a day on assessment and so on and tells us that this entirely goes against how people learn. It is hard to say no to a good idea but he argues that sometimes you have to, it is better to do one thing well than everything badly. He talks about 30 hours being the minimum time that a teacher needs to improve on a given area and that if you observe that teacher during this time it is quite possible that their 'performance' will dip because that is what happens when you are a novice. He asks questions about who gets the CPD - is it LT because they can be spared? Are people getting the CPD they want? And most importantly how do you know if the CPD is effective? He recommends a before, during and after measurement. He recommends far, far more than that and I strongly recommend anyone to listen to his ideas about CPD because they are excellent, and evidence-based.
Okay, so that's the CPD bit for now which I will hopefully return to in a moment. The other sessions I went to had a more learning and teaching focus and the area which I am particularly interested in at the moment is the Growth Mindset movement. I went to a frankly, excellent talk by David Starbuck (@Davidestarbuck) on mindset and the potential that every student has. I came into teaching believing that there is no barrier that cannot be overcome and over the last ten years have become a bit beaten in this area, starting to believe that maybe some obstacles are too big. Starbuck, in his talk on 'Growing a Love of Learning', reminded us of the brain science research that tells us that this is not the case and that the possibilities and potential of every child is quite amazing. He says that there is almost an underlying assumption that you can tell the 'thick kids' from the 'bright kids' and this is wrong - it is a bad habit fashioned over time and it needs to be questioned. He talks about the importance of developing creativity in children, which does mean making a poster in RE, but rather encouraging students to challenge the left and right side brain divide, by being logically creative and creatively logical - we need to give students the opportunity to guide their learning and help them to see their potential, we need to help them to engage with learning and love learning. I like this, I liked it a lot but I have also seen examples of where this has been done badly in schools and therefore there has to be balance or control attached to this kind of approach. Which leads me neatly on to Dylan Wiliam who talked about principled curriculum design. I am not in charge of the curriculum but what he discussed made a lot of sense to me and I apologise for only drawing out the insights that link to my current thinking. He talked about the fact that a curriculum will never be perfect in everyone's eyes but that when you decide to compromise, providing you know the rationale behind your compromise, you will broadly get it right. He then went on to discuss 7 principles and the one that resonated most with me was 'rigour'. He discussed the idea that disciplinary habits of mind are important, specific, powerful ways of thinking about the world. These habits are only developed through meaningful, sustained engagement with a discipline. Being a historian is different is different to being a mathematician is different to being a scientist is different to being a linguist is different to being a philosopher. Having the opportunity to study different disciplines allows us to train our minds to think in certain ways, to write, to read and to speak in the mindset of a given discipline. He argued that what students need is a focused curriculum with a smaller number of big ideas that are delivered deeply and properly by people who are passionate about their disciplines and develop these habits. Once a child has truly experienced all that a subject has to offer if they then believe that the subject is not for them, then they are ready to discontinue their study of it. I believe that there is some overlap between these ideas of what students should learn (Wiliam) and how we might be able to help them learn and develop these disciplinary habits (Starbuck).
I enjoyed my two days at Wellington immensely. I enjoyed hearing Gove speak (although he was terribly late) because (and again I am sure I am wrong) I don't hate him. Like most people I like some of his ideas, I dislike others and I think there are often issues with implementation, but I don't dislike him and he came across well in the first portion of the session. I was less impressed by some of the teachers who, rather than asking questions that would challenge him, chose to be personal and, in some cases, bordered on being unprofessional. I loved hearing Dawkins speak, it was very cool to see, hear and meet someone who I have taught about for years. I also enjoyed the panel discussions and the beautiful location. I enjoyed the spirited discussions both on twitter and with my colleagues, and the opportunity to hear people who inspire me discuss their ideas. I am, however, going to take David Weston's advice and focus on one or two things and try to do them well. My two takeaways will be mindset both for teachers (in terms of professional development) and children in my own classroom - even if it is just through the language I use and the labels I remove, and further investigation into evidence based CPD and developing teachers in the right way.
Overall a fabulous weekend, hopefully see you next year!!
The purpose of this blog really is to sort my thoughts out. I attended so many sessions and to run through them all providing a blow by blow account is unhelpful - both to the reader and to me. Also, as David Weston (@informed_edu) pointed out, bad CPD often draws the attention of the person in lots of directions for short bursts of time whereas what is needed is a smaller focus over a greater period of time. This has lead me to think that rather than trying to take something from everyone, I shall take what I need to take for right now.
The session that most impacted my mindset was @learningspy's talk on 'The Cult of Outstanding'. David Didau made many excellent points in his talk and certainly provided me with some extra reading to do but what interested me most was the message that we are wrong. What he meant by this, or at the very least what I took from this, is that education is largely subjective. Teachers do what they think is best for their students, but what we think is best may not actually be best but just that which we like. He demonstrated this point by discussing the Ofsted framework for outstanding. What it left me with though is the sense that I am allowed to have an opinion - I may not be right, but that's okay, providing I continue to reflect and challenge myself and allow myself to be challenged, my opinion is important. So I write this blogpost pulling out what I felt was important from the day but I accept that I may be wrong and I look forward to being challenged.
The dominant theme in the CPD I am attending at the moment is that education needs to move towards a more evidenced/research based approach to improving practice. I think this is a good idea, indeed I like it. I began a masters this year and was reminded of the power of research, however one of the criticisms made by people who advocate a research based approach, is that teachers too quickly adapt ideas or 'fads' that have no evidence to support them. At the moment there is no evidence to suggest that evidence will have impact so I enthusiastically welcome this move towards more evidence-based practice, but I do so with a note of caution. I do so, not because it is the next best thing, but because I feel teachers could benefit from investing in more academic research when considering and reflecting on their own practice. However, I could be wrong. This message though, about how we can make teachers better and what evidence tells us about how we, as teachers, can improve came from three important sources. Firstly Kevan Collins of the Education Endowment Foundation pointed out that teachers are working as hard as anyone in the world but he questioned whether they were working on the right things. This made me think about whether I, as a leader, support staff to know what to work on. Secondly, Professor Robert Coe (@profcoe) discussed how we know what we should work on? Ultimately the true measure of good CPD is whether it is having an impact on student learning 6 months later - that is the true impact. So I can write this blog and feel all inspired by trip to Wellington but if nothing changes then the development was pointless. We have to ensure that teacher learning is meaningful and evaluated for real impact. We also need to consider if we are going to hold teachers accountable to a set of standards what those standards are. What teachers should do is that which is most likely to lead to benefit, and a framework needs to support those benefits. Finally in this hatrick of helpfulness was David Weston who I have heard speak before and would listen to again because he just makes sense. He talks about how schools constantly throw CPD at staff - a day on behaviour, a day on assessment and so on and tells us that this entirely goes against how people learn. It is hard to say no to a good idea but he argues that sometimes you have to, it is better to do one thing well than everything badly. He talks about 30 hours being the minimum time that a teacher needs to improve on a given area and that if you observe that teacher during this time it is quite possible that their 'performance' will dip because that is what happens when you are a novice. He asks questions about who gets the CPD - is it LT because they can be spared? Are people getting the CPD they want? And most importantly how do you know if the CPD is effective? He recommends a before, during and after measurement. He recommends far, far more than that and I strongly recommend anyone to listen to his ideas about CPD because they are excellent, and evidence-based.
Okay, so that's the CPD bit for now which I will hopefully return to in a moment. The other sessions I went to had a more learning and teaching focus and the area which I am particularly interested in at the moment is the Growth Mindset movement. I went to a frankly, excellent talk by David Starbuck (@Davidestarbuck) on mindset and the potential that every student has. I came into teaching believing that there is no barrier that cannot be overcome and over the last ten years have become a bit beaten in this area, starting to believe that maybe some obstacles are too big. Starbuck, in his talk on 'Growing a Love of Learning', reminded us of the brain science research that tells us that this is not the case and that the possibilities and potential of every child is quite amazing. He says that there is almost an underlying assumption that you can tell the 'thick kids' from the 'bright kids' and this is wrong - it is a bad habit fashioned over time and it needs to be questioned. He talks about the importance of developing creativity in children, which does mean making a poster in RE, but rather encouraging students to challenge the left and right side brain divide, by being logically creative and creatively logical - we need to give students the opportunity to guide their learning and help them to see their potential, we need to help them to engage with learning and love learning. I like this, I liked it a lot but I have also seen examples of where this has been done badly in schools and therefore there has to be balance or control attached to this kind of approach. Which leads me neatly on to Dylan Wiliam who talked about principled curriculum design. I am not in charge of the curriculum but what he discussed made a lot of sense to me and I apologise for only drawing out the insights that link to my current thinking. He talked about the fact that a curriculum will never be perfect in everyone's eyes but that when you decide to compromise, providing you know the rationale behind your compromise, you will broadly get it right. He then went on to discuss 7 principles and the one that resonated most with me was 'rigour'. He discussed the idea that disciplinary habits of mind are important, specific, powerful ways of thinking about the world. These habits are only developed through meaningful, sustained engagement with a discipline. Being a historian is different is different to being a mathematician is different to being a scientist is different to being a linguist is different to being a philosopher. Having the opportunity to study different disciplines allows us to train our minds to think in certain ways, to write, to read and to speak in the mindset of a given discipline. He argued that what students need is a focused curriculum with a smaller number of big ideas that are delivered deeply and properly by people who are passionate about their disciplines and develop these habits. Once a child has truly experienced all that a subject has to offer if they then believe that the subject is not for them, then they are ready to discontinue their study of it. I believe that there is some overlap between these ideas of what students should learn (Wiliam) and how we might be able to help them learn and develop these disciplinary habits (Starbuck).
I enjoyed my two days at Wellington immensely. I enjoyed hearing Gove speak (although he was terribly late) because (and again I am sure I am wrong) I don't hate him. Like most people I like some of his ideas, I dislike others and I think there are often issues with implementation, but I don't dislike him and he came across well in the first portion of the session. I was less impressed by some of the teachers who, rather than asking questions that would challenge him, chose to be personal and, in some cases, bordered on being unprofessional. I loved hearing Dawkins speak, it was very cool to see, hear and meet someone who I have taught about for years. I also enjoyed the panel discussions and the beautiful location. I enjoyed the spirited discussions both on twitter and with my colleagues, and the opportunity to hear people who inspire me discuss their ideas. I am, however, going to take David Weston's advice and focus on one or two things and try to do them well. My two takeaways will be mindset both for teachers (in terms of professional development) and children in my own classroom - even if it is just through the language I use and the labels I remove, and further investigation into evidence based CPD and developing teachers in the right way.
Overall a fabulous weekend, hopefully see you next year!!
Comments
Post a Comment