Leadership professionals in primary schools

This paper, part of the ongoing Primary Review, examines the professional status of primary school teachers and leaders, but is mostly applicable to all teachers.

Key Points:
- The concept of ‘teacher leadership’ has emerged in England, elsewhere it is more familiar; in the USA and Canada, for example, ‘teacher leadership’ is an accepted form of leadership activity where it has been demonstrated that the forms of teacher leadership and teacher collaboration have contributed towards school improvement and that leadership in Norwegian schools is almost entirely characterised by collaboration and team effort.
- Within English primary schools, however, the construct of ‘teacher leadership’ appears beset with a number of difficulties. A significant factor hampering its development is the difficulty of viewing teachers as leaders within a hierarchical school system where leadership responsibilities are clearly delineated.
- There has been surprisingly little academic interrogation of the NCSL. Work that has been undertaken has included tracing its historical development, looking at its international role, considering its organisational features plus trying to assess its likely. Whilst useful in their way such studies have had a mutual tendency to view the NCSL as a largely beneficial development.

Primary Teachers professional development

The Primary Review have published this paper which examines issues around professional development and leadership development in primary schools. The authors also set the historical context of teacher training and CPD.

Key points:
- There is an inadequate knowledge base on CPD resulting in a lack of facts about the scale of provision, who does what, costs, numbers on courses, how the considerable sums now spent on CPD are actually spent and how value-for-money is measured.
- The evidence base is very diverse and fragmented, and usually grounded in individual self-report which generally relates solely to the quality of the CPD experience. Much of the research occurs summatively, after the CPD experience, rather than formatively, and evaluation processes are not sophisticated enough to track multiple outcomes, both intended and unintended, and different levels of impact.
- Where outcomes are reported, the relationship between teacher, school and pupil benefits are not unpicked.
- Head teachers are more satisfied than teachers that CPD is relevant, they are also more likely to have engaged in a variety of CPD.
- Primary school teachers are more positive about CPD than their secondary colleagues.
- Features of worthwhile CPD across all the studies drawn upon were that it should be focused, well structured, presented by people with recent knowledge and including provision for active
learning, and that it was relevant and applicable to school/classroom settings. However, notions of what constitutes relevance differ. Negative feelings were especially associated with ‘one size fits all’ standardised CPD provision which did not take account of teachers’ existing knowledge, experience and needs.
- Research has established the effectiveness of CPD where teachers have ownership over their
professional development and scope for identifying their own CPD focus.
- Collaborative CPD interventions such as peer support, observation with feedback, the use of external expertise in school-based activity and professional dialogue have been found to be beneficial for teachers and pupils.

Children's Plan timeline

The DCSF have released a timeline of the actions intended to develop from the Children's Plan, up to 2010.

Key publications and implementation pieces to look out for:

- Play pathfinders start (Spring 2008)

- Bercow Review into children with speech, language and communication needs (Summer 2008)

- Youth Runaways action plan (Summer 2008)

- Strategy document on alternative provision (Summer 2008)

- Play strategy (Autumn 2008)

- Rose review of primary education interim report (Autumn 2008)

- Child's workforce strategy document (Autumn 2008)

- Child's workforce expert group report (Autumn 2008)

- Pilots of alternative provision start (Winter 2009)

- Rose review of primary education, final report (Spring 2009)

- HMCI review of progress on special educational needs (Summer 2009)

- New primary curriculum agreed (Autumn/Winter 2009)

Structure of Primary Education

The Primary Review released a interim report, this one examining the structure of primary education. By investigating changes to English education since the 1967 Plowden Report and comparing to international cases the authors found that:

- Most changes are a result of the 1988 Education Reform Act, which introduced competition between schools.
- Internationally there is a wide variation in the school starting age or point of starting school.
- Evidence suggests that school starting age or the school size has little impact on attainment, but overall evaluation of school structures on impact is limited.

Diversity in Primary schools

The Primary Review have recently released a useful thought-piece on diversity. The authors believe that the current constructions on diversity conceal as much as they reveal and mislead as much as guide. They advocate a new construction.

Root and Branch Review of Primary Education to start

Ed Balls has written to Jim Rose setting out the review of the primary curriculum as announced in the 10yr Children's Plan.

The letter sets the priorities for the review:

- To best personalise learning, allow for creativity and flexibility
- To introduce compulsory language learning at Key Stage 2
- To ensure students develop personal skills at school
- To integrate the early years foundation stage and key stage 1 fully
- To ensure summer born children are not disadvantaged
- To ensure a smooth transition to secondary school and integration with the new secondary curriculum

Jim is to set out his priorities by 15th Feb. and release a provisional report by the end of October 2008.