Teacher perspectives of cultivating learning through practitioner enquiry to transform practice

This paper reports on the first year of an innovative Postgraduate Certificate (PGCert) in Advanced Education Practice, designed to meet the specific staff and development needs of one school in the North West of England. The programme is underpinned by three strands of practice based learning: learning about practice (theory), learning in practice (application) and learning through practice (reflection) through critical reflection. This paper considers professional development situated around teaching and learning and outlines a new approach to cultivating learning, both for teachers and educational practitioners through a collaborative learning model with a Higher Education Institute (HEI). A further strand to the research considers transformative impact on practice including references to personal experience and reflections by the participants. Throughout the report it is evident that school leaders were keen to enhance the performance of staff by supporting them in Masters level study to enhance professional practice and impact on learning. Through questionnaires and interviews, an insight into personal and professional impact, challenges, evaluation, details of the progression, next steps in the small scale research study were considered

The role of the mentor in an increasingly school-led English initial teacher education policy context

Against an international policy backdrop that favours school-led initial teacher education, this paper presents the results of a study seeking to explore the role of the teacher mentor in the English context. Using an online survey (n=64) and semi-structured interviews (n=7), the study examined how mentors conceptualised their roles and related skills, and if perceptions varied depending on whether they supported mentees on school-led or university-led routes, and, or, other contextual variables. In light of preliminary findings from the survey, suggesting that views could be affected by the particular workplace in which mentors were located, the second (interview) phase of the research was theoretically underpinned by Kemmis et al.’s (2014) ‘practice architectures’ framework. Whilst overall the findings revealed that perceptions and reported practices continued to be influenced by structural factors identified in existent studies, they also suggested the emergence and impact of new cultural and situational dynamics, characterising practice architectures, at school level. The authors consider the reasons for variations in practice architectures and the implications for future mentor development

Research informed teaching reaching beyond initial teacher education, examples of success in the North West of England: Empowering teachers to reach for success

This paper considers how empowering teachers to reach for success in partnership with a Higher Education Institution (HEI) in the North West of England can affect learning in the classroom. Evidence based research is the focus of this study which focuses on working with teachers engaging in their own research beyond initial teacher education. The paper presents the views of senior managers and teacher researchers engaged in a one year professional learning programme to consider impact in the classroom. Partnerships with mentors and partnership schools enable us to consider the key implications for the professional development of teachers and call upon the evidence through both reflections and evidence of classroom practice. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how collaboration has encouraged professional practice to support classroom based teaching and teacher efficacy and effective practice. Three areas are considered, firstly the nature and views of educational research, secondly the challenges of undertaking research and finally the impact of practitioner research