‘UNITE FOR QUALITY EDUCATION’
NATIONAL EDUCATION CONFERENCE
5-6 JULY 2014
STOKE ROCHFORD HALL – GRANTHAM
CONTENTS
The National Education Conference 2014, which took place at Stoke Rochford Hall on 5-6 July, was attended by over 100 Union members, speakers, workshop leaders and NUT staff. They met together in whole-conference plenary sessions and workshops.
The Conference report, which follows, consists of summaries of the plenary and workshop sessions and includes links to presentations.
The conference programme, speaker and workshop leader biographies and participants’ comments are included at the end of the report.
CONFERENCE OPENING Page Number
Christine Blower, NUT General Secretary: 4
Welcome and Introduction to the NEC
PLENARY SESSIONS
Dr Carmel Gallagher, CEO General Teaching Council for
Northern Ireland: 4
Enhancing Teacher Professionalism –Towards a Framework
Of Career-Long Professional Development
Dave Peck, CEO Curriculum Foundation: 5
Developing a Quality Curriculum
Professor Tony Booth author ‘Index for Inclusion’ & Judith
Carter, Senior Adviser SEN-D, Norfolk County Council: 6
A Values-Led Approach to School Improvement
– Adding ‘Clarity and Focus’ to Ofsted
Anne Swift, Robin Head and Amanda Martin: 7
A discussion on the NUT/Compass Education Inquiry
Beth Davies, Professor Kathryn Riley and Sarah Murphy: 7
Panel Debate: The Courage to Teach – Professionalism in
Testing Times
Chris Waterman, Chair of the Supply and Teacher
Training Advisory Group (SATTAG): 8
Who Needs Teachers?
WORKSHOPS
Jo Sadler, Associate Lecturer, Centre for Post-14
Research & Innovation, Institute of Education: 10
Professional Development for Vocational Teachers
- a Research-Based Approach
Elly Barnes, LGBT Schools Advisor for Birmingham
City Council and Founder of ‘Educate and Celebrate’: 10
‘Educate and Celebrate’ - How to Make Your School
Equality & Diversity Friendly
Dr Julian Grenier, Headteacher, Sheringham Nursery
School and Children's Centre: 11
Quality and Professionalism: The Role of the Teacher in an
Increasingly Fragmented Early Years Sector
Campbell Russell, NUT Health and Safety Trainer: 12
Stress: Reflections on a Misunderstood Phenomenon
Professor Kathryn Riley, Institute of Education and
Poet Tio Molina: 12
School: A Place Where I Belong?
CLOSE OF CONFERENCE
Max Hyde, President: 13
Conference Overview and Closing Address
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME 15
PARTICIPANTS’ COMMENTS 18
PLENARY SESSION: ‘WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION TO THE NEC’
CHRISTINE BLOWER, NUT GENERAL SECRETARY
Chair: Anne Swift, NUT Vice President
Anne Swift welcomed delegates to the NEC and introduced NUT General Secretary, Christine Blower.
NUT General Secretary Christine Blower said that the theme of the conference for 2104, Unite for Quality Education was drawn from Education International (EI)’s Campaign for Quality Education. The NUT supported the campaign as part of a global movement for education. Worldwide, more school places had become available but there was now a need to focus on equality, to persuade governments to continue to make development aid for education available, and to support education with high quality teachers, buildings and resources, especially in the global south.
The General Secretary referred to the analysis of Pasi Sahlberg, a former head of the now disbanded Finnish schools’ inspection service, on the Global Education Reform Movement, or GERM. Governments worldwide, including in the UK, were closely associated with this movement, which favoured policies such as privatisation of education, standardised testing, centralised education policies and a deskilling of teachers. She said that teachers needed trust-based responsibility, not test based accountability.
In response to such trends in education policy in the UK and globally, the NUT had launched its Stand Up For Education campaign, which had led to a huge mobilisation of the NUT membership in engagement, pressure, and action where necessary. The campaign was effective and was winning allies for the NUT, she said. This included a day of joint strike action with other public sector unions on 10 July 2014 around both individual grievances and common causes such as pay and pensions.
KEYNOTE ADDRESS: ‘ENHANCING TEACHER PROFESSIONALISM - TOWARDS A FRAMEWORK OF CAREER-LONG PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT’
DR CARMEL GALLAGHER, CEO GENERAL TEACHING COUNCIL FOR NORTHERN IRELAND
Chair: Anne Swift, NUT Vice President
Dr Carmel Gallagher said that she believed that Northern Ireland provided a better atmosphere for teachers than did England. Northern Ireland had introduced a ‘radical’ National Curriculum, having realised from the mid-1990s onwards that it needed a separate solution to England. English education had become focused on a curriculum promoting ‘British values’ whereas in Northern Ireland British and Irish values could often be in conflict, as demonstrated by segregated school structures. The fact that the ‘marching season’ would soon be taking place was evidence that such conflicts still existed.
She said Northern Ireland had always sought to draw on the best of the British education system while seeking to avoid or ameliorate its worst features.
Carmel Gallagher said there was a need to embed a professional development framework structurally and professionally, based on research and development, to unite teachers as autonomous, self-regulating professionals. She noted that England was now alone within Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in not having a teaching council. The GTC for Northern Ireland had five core functions:
· professional registration
· professional regulation
· professional research and advice
· professional development
· professional voice
In doing so it worked with the Education Minister in Northern Ireland, and with teachers’ unions. This enabled the voice of the profession to be heard on important matters, such as assessment, inspection, education research, school leadership, and teacher professionalism. The aim was to embed a framework of continuing professional development to produce a career ladder aligning professional competences with career progression.
Dr Carmel Gallagher’s PowerPoint presentation is available at the following address: www.teachers.org.uk/nec
PLENARY SESSION: ‘DEVELOPING A QUALITY CURRICULUM’
DAVE PECK, CEO CURRICULUM FOUNDATION
Chair: Amanda Martin, Vice-Chair, Education and Equalities Committee
Dave Peck outlined how teachers could effectively and creatively implement the new national curriculum in ways that engaged students in their learning. He expressed the belief that a quality curriculum is at the heart of quality education and acknowledged the apprehension and doubt felt by many teachers towards the curriculum changes and the impact of these on schools. Dave Peck stated that the purpose of the session was to reassure teachers and give them the confidence to explore different methods of tailoring the curriculum to their school’s needs.
Dave Peck’s presentation covered three main areas: the context of the new National Curriculum, the meaning of a quality curriculum, and ways to develop one. He began by discussing the changes to the curriculum and the forces driving these changes. He then moved on to the importance of asking the right questions about teaching. He suggested that teachers should reflect on the current effectiveness of learning at their schools and how much they need to change to improve it.
The presentation then focused on the impact of positive/negative learning experiences at school. Dave Peck asked delegates to reflect on their own experiences at school and think about what impressions they were left with as a result of both effective and ineffective teaching.
He then posed the question: What do we want learners to leave with, what skills and attributes do we want to instil in them? He encouraged delegates to have an agreed statement of quality learning at their schools and focus on shaping the curriculum to support these aims and values.
Finally, Dave Peck gave examples of different ways the curriculum could be adapted and he encouraged delegates to be brave and innovative when implementing the curriculum in their classrooms.
A copy of Dave Peck’s PowerPoint presentation is available at the following address: www.teachers.org.uk/nec
PLENARY SESSION: ‘A VALUES-LED APPROACH TO SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT’
PROFESSOR TONY BOOTH, AUTHOR ‘INDEX FOR INCLUSION’ AND JUDITH CARTER, SENIOR ADVISER SEN-D, NORFOLK COUNTY COUNCIL
Chair: Robin Head, Vice Chair, Education and Equalities Committee
Professor Tony Booth began this session by exploring the limitations of the current approach to school improvement, in particular the Ofsted regime. School improvement should be “values-explicit”, he said and the ‘Index for Inclusion’ set out one way of putting values into action.
Tony Booth outlined some inconsistencies in recent Ofsted reports and asked the question: “What would constitute a satisfactory Ofsted report?” He suggested that such a report would at least be free of contradiction, would be numerate, literate, rational, inquisitive, tentative, supportive and dialogic. Unfortunately, Ofsted reports rarely had any of these characteristics. Most importantly, they were rarely either supportive or dialogic, meaning that they did not seek to open up a discussion with school leaders and teachers about how to improve.
Mainstream approaches to school improvement were largely focussed on a set of ideas brought from management consultancy. These approaches, including the use of the
SMART acronym, did not make sense in an educational context and, significantly, rarely mentioned children.
Tony Booth argued that a values-led approach was more inclusive and child-centred; thinking about values meant thinking about the deep-seated sense of direction that informs one’s ideas. A series of slides was used to illustrate the similar ways in which different school communities thought about their school and the values that they wished to see embodied within it.
The ‘Index for inclusion’ used a system of questions which head teachers, teachers and governors could use to think about practices within the school.
Judith Carter outlined how the Index was being used in practice in a network of Norfolk schools. Examples of questions that had been employed usefully in schools included; “Are governors’ meetings enjoyable”?; “Do staff consider under what circumstances homework contributes to, or detracts from, learning?; and “Are teaching assistants attached to a classroom or curriculum area rather than to particular children?”
Judith Carter outlined the inclusive principles for teaching and learning which underpinned the Index. Within the index, these principles gave rise to a series of inclusion indicators, grouped into three dimensions: “Dimension A: Creating inclusive cultures”; Dimension B: Producing inclusive policies”; and “Dimension C: Evolving inclusive practices”.
A copy of Professor Tony Booth and Judith Carter’s presentation is available at the following address: www.teachers.org.uk/nec
‘A DISCUSSION ON THE NUT/COMPASS EDUCATION INQUIRY’
LED BY ANNE SWIFT, ROBIN HEAD AND AMANDA MARTIN
Chair: Rosamund McNeil, Head of Education and Equalities Department
Anne Swift set out the background to the NUT/Compass Education Inquiry and gave an overview of its work to date. She stated that it would aim to influence education policy to produce a more equitable education system. The Inquiry report would be available for use by all interest groups, including politicians, parents and teachers. A summary of the outline Inquiry report Education for the 21st Century: A vision of a democratic system in England, was circulated for information and is available at the following link www.teachers.org.uk/nec
Amanda Martin invited delegates to contribute to the Inquiry by responding to the following questions:
· What issues are the most frequent cause of problems and pressures in schools?
· How do accountability pressures impact on the education experience of pupils?
· What sort of solutions should the Union pursue with the Government and political parties to help teachers and children?
The responses were collected on post-it notes and would be used to identify the implications of schools’ internal accountability measures on teachers’ workload and on education.
Robin Head closed the session by thanking delegates for their contributions. He stated that the coming year would be timely in terms of engaging political parties in advance of the General Election taking place on 7 May 2015. The Inquiry report would hopefully show how the education system could be improved and would contribute to the development of a better system.
PANEL DISCUSSION: ‘THE COURAGE TO TEACH – PROFESSIONALISM IN TESTING TIMES’
PANELLISTS:
· BETH DAVIES, EX-PRESIDENT, ‘LESSONS FROM FINLAND – TRUSTING TEACHERS’
· PROFESSOR KATHRYN RILEY, LONDON CENTRE FOR LEADERSHIP IN LEARNING, INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION, ‘EVERYONE IS A LEADER – LETTING TEACHERS TEACH’
· SARAH MURPHY, SECONDARY SCIENCE TEACHER, ‘VIEW FROM THE CHALK FACE’
Chair: Philipa Harvey, NUT Senior Vice President
Beth Davies spoke about the NUT Executive’s delegation to Finland in March 2014. The delegation’s report on its findings on the Finnish education system and its recommendations for how Britain could learn from these findings was available on the NUT website. She said that in Finland, education was collaborative rather than competitive and was based on professional autonomy rather than bureaucratic accountability. Teaching was seen as a team activity. The country also enjoyed excellent maternity and childcare provision.
Prof Kathryn Riley said that schools could deeply influence a child’s sense of belonging or exclusion, and whether they felt valued or not. She said that children faced an uncertain and fluid future, but also a world of possibilities. Teachers needed the courage to teach in an environment which looked to the possibilities of the future.
Sarah Murphy said that teachers could be courageous, but were also prone to nervousness, uncertainty and anxiety. The job could be extremely rewarding, but also stressful. She feared for a future of performance pay, worsened pension provision, and a de-professionalised, privatised teacher workforce. She noted that the highest-performing education systems internationally have well-paid teachers with high social status. She called for a Secretary of State who could inspire, value and motivate teachers.
In the discussion that followed the following points were made:
· Societies were judged by how they treated their most vulnerable, for example pupils with SEN. The aspiration should be for an education service which was inclusive.
· There was an unhelpful tendency in Britain to discuss education using a ‘language of deficit’, which perceived problems rather than opportunities. An example was concerns about the number of children with English as an additional language in London schools, rather than celebrating the diversity of language in London and the opportunities that could present.
· There was a need to move away from standardised testing to assessment for teaching and learning. It was noted that this was the case within the successful Finnish education model.
· Where children weren’t succeeding in schools, this needed to be addressed, for example by exploring whether a child felt excluded or was unhappy, why that was, and how to work with the child to address those issues.