From Good

1
From Good to Outstandingit is not possible
to improve outcomes for pupils simply by
teaching the curriculum harder and longer
teachers have to strengthen pupils pleasure in
learning and their self-esteem.James and
Pollard, 2010.
2
Course attendance was the main vehicle for
professional development in most of the schools
and using consultants to provide in-school
programmes of support to tackle a specific need.
HMI 2002.
Continuing Professional Development
the cascade approach was fraught with
problems and was perceived by staff as having
minimal direct impact on classroom practice.
McNamara, Webb and Brundrett, 2010
3
Most teachers were very willing to plan
professional development activities. In the main,
however, such planning tended to be short term,
focusing on the courses to be attended or other
development opportunities to be undertaken. It
was rarely perceived as part of a longer-term
sequence or cycle of activities which would lead
from enhancing the skills or knowledge of the
teacher to enabling pupils to achieve higher
levels of performance.Ofsted 2002
4
Good professional development within the school
was a key factor in helping teachers to encourage
and assess creative approaches to learning and
improve their subject knowledge. Externally
produced resources and short training courses had
limited impact without local training and
continuing in-school support.Ofsted 2010
it seems clear that we can be much more
deliberate in organising schools in ways that
enhance teacher learning and the learning of
other adults. Sergiovanni (2001)
5
James and Pollard (2010) noted that throughout
the wide ranging issues it explored, there was
one key area of agreementMost projects
produced strong evidence that a key to improved
learning and achievement by pupils is the
learning of teachers. A collaborative
professional environment promoting teacher
learning is also supported by the research of
the Teaching and Learning Research Programme
(TLRP). How adults learn, and how they develop
a reflective learning culture, and how the school
becomes a learning organisation are essential
if the totality of learning is to be the central
feature of the school.Davies, 2006
The Professional Environment
6

• What tools are available to this professional
  environment?
• Dudley explored the lesson study model through
  the TLRP.
• The Cambridge Primary Review describes the key
  outcomes
• Research Lesson Study engages teachers at all
  levels of experience and sustains their interest
  over time
• It involves pupils directly in the analysis of
  teaching
• Leads to innovation in lesson design and
  improvements in pupil achievements.
• James and Pollard, 2010
• Learning earns the centre stage position because
  it is a powerful way for the school to adapt, to
  stay ahead, and to invent new solutions.
• (Sergiovanni, 2001).

7
The Learning How To Learn project makes these
practices explicit Sustainability depends on
professional development that encourages teachers
to re-evaluate their fundamental beliefs about
learning, the way they structure tasks, the
nature of their classroom roles and their
relationships with pupils. James and Pollard, 2010

• Long term sustainability depends on an
  environment that not only promotes reflection and
  collaborative learning and that also builds the
  capacity of its leaders at all levels.
• Fullan 2005

8
Leadership of Learning

• Effective shared leadership will be vital
• to the continuing progress of the school
• leaders at all levels who proactively and
  naturally
• bring about deeper reform
• and help other leaders working on the same issues
  
• Fullan, 2005
• These leaders will need to be given opportunities
  to achieve if the school is to develop into a
  successful primary school fit for the 21st
  century
• one that is educationally effective in the short
  term but has a clear framework to translate
  vision into excellent educational provision in
  the medium to long term.
• Davies, 2006

9

• Teachers need to question their accepted ways of
  working
• focussing on a specific issue for school enquiry
• James and Pollard, 2010
• The SPRinG project
• (Social Pedagogic Research into Group work)
  implores
• Group work skills need to be approached
  developmentally practical relational
  strategies, based on principles, provides a
  successful approach to raising standards and
  improving behaviour.
• James and Pollard, 2010

10

• Our children are highly task focussed. If we are
  to truly release their potential, we need to
  provide them with the opportunities to develop
  their independence through group collaboration.
• They will be leaders of their own learning, just
  as we will be, and we will really be able to
  afford the claim of leadership at all levels.

11
The New Build.School buildings should inspire
learning. They should nurture every pupil and
member of staff. Ministerial introduction to the
BSF consultation, DfES 2003

• The Steer committee report (2005) reported that
  building layout had an identifiable affect on
  childrens behaviour.
• It implored schools to develop communal areas as
  civilised and well-ordered places that offer
  opportunities for positive social interactions
  between children and adults.
• Lundquist, Holmberg and Landstrom (2000)
  recognised the impact of noise on childrens
  levels of annoyance in particular.
• It is important for schools to recognise that
  young children are far more susceptible to poor
  acoustic conditions than adults (Elliott 2002)
• Children may have different psychological
  responses to a wide range of environmental
  factors from adults (Corsi, Torres, Sanders and
  Kinney, 2002).
• School facilities affect learning. Spatial
  configurations, noise, heat, cold, light, and air
  quality obviously bear on students and teachers
  ability to perform,
• M Schneider, 2002.

12

• The Commission for Architecture and the Built
  Environment (CABE 2010) outlined the
  implications
• School buildings will have to become more
  accessible and adaptable for the change in
  learning patterns and the implications of
  increased ICT use.
• Futurelab ask two pertinent questions
• What if we design spaces for learning
  competences as well as content?
• What if most learning was collaborative?
• Tim Rudd et al (2006).
• If we are to put collaborative learning at the
  heart of the process, we need to consider how
  spaces can interact to promote collaborative
  learning for both teachers and children.

13

• The governments guidance for the Building
  Schools for the Future programme advocates the
• need to plan for professional development to
  ensure they can contribute effectively to, and
  get the most from, the programme.
• DCSF (2009).
• Current research does not address the way in
  which primary school spaces are interconnected
  and influence one another, how they are used
  pedagogically, or how they are managed and
  maintained. This has meant that a particular
  learning space has tended to be examined in
  isolation rather than in the context of the
  learning environment.
• Wall, Dockrell and Peacey, 2010

14
Where do we go now?

• The Plowden Report (CACE 1967) led the call for a
  pupil-centred classroom pedagogy. It expounded an
  approach encouraging group work that it would
  allow teachers to focus on particular children at
  any one time whilst others would be occupied on
  independent collaborative group tasks.
• The issue for the school is about how learning is
  encouraged in these group settings.
• Blatchford et al (2010) make it clear that
  research results show that with-in class
  grouping, rather than class level organisational
  grouping initiatives, may have greater potential
  to raise standards.
• It is more important to prepare pupils to work
  effectively together, through a long term
  commitment to developing relational and other
  social pedagogic practices so pupils respond
  with improved attainment, classroom behaviours
  and pro-learning attitudes.
• Blatchford et al, 2010.

15

• There is a reasonable consensus that specific
  forms of interaction need to be taught to elicit
  productive collaborative learning (Barnes and
  Todd 1977, Chinn and Anderson 1998).
• The Learning How to Learn Project offers strong
  evidence that childrens learning depends upon
  teacher learning, so developing the professional
  environment and using these skills as teachers
  (indeed as any adults involved in the learning of
  the children) is crucial.
• There is strong evidence to suggest that children
  in this kind of dialogue continue to reflect on
  the subject matter long after finishing the work
  (Howe et al, 2005)
• The needs of the professional environment and the
  development of a culture of leadership blend
  seamlessly with the development of collaborative
  learning with and amongst the children.

16

• The SPRinG project would seem therefore to offer
  insights for the school
• Group-work skills have to be developed.
• We cannot just put children into groups and
  expect them to work well together, particularly
  when adults can also find it difficult to work
  with others.
• Develop strategies with teachers likely to lead
  to high-quality, thoughtful group work.
• These strategies need to allow teachers the
  freedom to adapt grouping practices for different
  purposes and learning tasks.
• Adults need to support and guide groups, and
  monitor their progress, in ways that encourage
  independence rather than directly teaching
  pupils.
• It is positive in its message that given space
  and time to develop pupils group working skills,
  teachers can bring about a transformation in the
  teaching and learning environment.
• It encourages the link to the built environment
  to be successful, group work must be integrated
  into overall classroom organisation and
  management.

17
Summary

• if we are not careful, classrooms may be places
  where teachers, rather than children, do most of
  the talking where instead of thinking through
  a problem children devote their energies to
  trying to spot a correct answer, where supposed
  equality of discussion is subverted by a kind
  of talk which remains stubbornly unlike the kind
  of talk that takes place everywhere else.
  Alexander
• The Primary Capital Programme is focussed on
  transforming learning so there is a clear need to
  consider adopting more adventurous styles and
  flexible teaching and implementing more
  effective collaborative learning between pupils.
  Blatchford et all.

18

• Amongst the ten principles for effective
  learning, the Teaching and Learning Research
  Project includes
• The overriding impact on pupil learning depends
  on teacher learning
• the benefits of improving the quality of group
  work and pupils ability to cooperate and
  collaborate
• the significance of informal learning
• where senior management support innovation it
  becomes sustainable.
• Pollard, Professionalism and pedagogy A
  contemporary opportunity

19

• Alexander states that If classroom talk is to
  make a meaningful contribution to childrens
  learning and understanding it must move beyond
  acting out cognitively restricting rituals.
• Can a change to the built environment be the
  catalyst for a deeper change in the professional
  environment and encourage a culture of leadership
  in the school? Given thorough preparation, most
  emphatically, yes it can.