Heritage Schools Cpdevaluation Research

Heritage Schools CPD Evaluation 2017 Research - Report

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Heritage Schools –CPDEvaluation Research

Executive Summary

For Historic England

October 2017

1.Introduction

Qa Research (Qa) is pleased to submit this research report evaluating the impact of the CPD training provided by Historic England during the academic year 2016-17through their Heritage Schools programme.

The Heritage Schools programme is currently in its sixth year.

The overall aim of the Heritage Schools project is to encourage teachers to think about using what is local to their school, to bring their local history and heritage to life, increase a sense of local pride and use the resources ‘on the doorstep’ to help teach the ‘national story’.

Each region in the programme has a Local Heritage Education Manager (LHEM) appointed by Historic England who is working with a cluster of schools to help facilitate the use of local resources to teach national history.

CPD training is provided free of charge to schools to teachers, trainee teachers and heritage and cultural educators across eight different regions involved in the Heritage Schools programme.

This report further builds on previous annual evaluation research that Historic England hascommissioned Qa to undertake about the impact of their Heritage Schools programme.

2. Aims and objectives

The aims of the research were to provide:

• A thorough, independent and critical assessment of the Heritage Schools programme

• A clear understanding of the impacts of attending a Continuing Professional Development training course has or will have on teachers and pupils

• An understanding of the experiences of all those involved in the training, including any positives, negatives and suggested improvements or changes

• Amongst those already involved in the Heritage Schools programme, the impact this has had on them and their pupils

• To explore (qualitatively) the usage of Heritage Schools as a vehicle to deliver on the literacy and SMSC (spiritual, moral, social and cultural) curriculum within schools

1. Methodology

The report is based on findings from teacher/trainee teacher surveys completed after attending CPD courses; surveys completed by heritage/cultural partners involved in the programme and case studies of school projects.
4. Key Findings

Teachers and trainee teachers

Key findings from surveys completed by attendees (teachers, trainee teachers and heritage/cultural educators) at Heritage Schools training:

• 98% have a greater understanding of the value of using local heritage in the curriculum

• 96% have a greater understanding of how to embed local heritage into the curriculum

• 92% have a greater understanding of how local heritage connects to the national story

• 97% have an increased awareness of and to access to useful resources

• 94% have developed skills they will use in their teaching/work

Key findings from surveys of teachers on the impact of taking part in the Heritage Schools programme:

• 96% have an increased knowledge of the heritage and cultural offer in their local area

• 93% have benefitted from opportunities to share good practice

• 98% are more likely to make use of local services and resources linked to heritage

• 94% feel more confident about embedding local heritage into the curriculum/ their practice

• 79% have used heritage schools training/resources in their practice

• 89% agree that their pupils have an increased knowledge and understanding of local heritage

• 92% agree that their pupils are more connected to the place they live in

Impact on Pupils

Key findings from surveys of teachers on the impact of learning about local heritage on their pupils:

• 91% agreed learning about local heritage raised pupils’ aspirations

• 99% agreed learning about local heritage improved pupils’ sense of place

• 97% agreed learning about local heritage improved pupils’ sense of pride

• 87% agreed learning about local heritage developed pupils’ self-esteem

Heritage and Cultural Partners

Key findings from surveys completed by heritage and cultural partners on the impact of their involvement with Heritage Schools:

• 95% say they are now more connected to the needs of schools/teachers

• 91% say school teachers are more aware of their services/offer

• 72% say their service has been accessed by more or a wider range of schools

• 84% say their offer/service has developed to support the curriculum

• 75% feel more confident working with schools

• 79% are more connected to the needs of schools

• 99% would recommend participation in the programme to schools and heritage/cultural partners

5. Summary

Summary of quantitative teacher/ trainee teacher survey findings

The CPD training primarily involved those doing Initial Teacher Training and current primary school teachers. The skills they have learnt and teach their pupils may not be replicated once students move up to secondary school, given the smaller number of secondary teachers involved in the training.

For the majority of teachers the Historic England CPD training is the only history training sessions that they went on during the academic year. This training from Historic England therefore plays a vital role in developing historical skills and spreading lesson ideas within the teaching profession.

The CPD courses have clearly given teachers the skills, access to resources, understanding and confidence to use local history in engaging ways when teaching,and theknowledge of how local heritage connects to the national story.

There is strong agreement amongst teachers that their pupils learning about local history will have positive impacts on their aspirations, self-esteem, sense of place and sense of pride in where they live; these positive outcomes were further reiterated and reinforced during the qualitative case study interviews.

Providing teachers with the knowledge and ideas of how they can effectively use local heritage to teach history, along with giving them practical support and signposting to resources, has resulted in them turning the training theory in to classroom action. The ultimate result being that teachers perceive that the majority of pupils are more connected to the places that they live in.

Summary of heritage/cultural partner surveys

Partners clearly perceive the benefits of the Heritage Schools programme for educational, heritage and cultural organisations, as well as schools.

• 99% would recommend participation in the Heritage Schools programme to schools not currently involved (with none saying ‘no’ and 1% ‘don’t know’)
• 99% would recommend involvement with the Heritage Schools programme to other education, heritage or cultural organisations (with 1% ‘don’t know’)

With 97% saying they would like to continue to work in partnership with the Heritage Schools programme (and 3% saying ‘don’t know’) indicates a very high level of satisfaction.

In a final open ended question, asking for any suggested changes or improvements to improve the impact and effectively of the project, 82% either gave no answer or a general positive comment on the programme or their Heritage School contact.

Summary of qualitative case study findings

Local heritage studies have provided a useful vehicle to teach history, resulting even at primary school in the use of some very advanced evidence and source based work. Using local history topics has also been a vehicle to deliver other aspects of the curriculum, primarily literacy but also art, geography, design & technology, drama and even mathematics.

Within Primary schools, projects have been undertaken with pupils from reception up to Year 6, with many schools in their second year of being a Heritage School undertaking large scale whole school topic weeks, following the success of using local history in the previous year with a single year group.

The enthusiasm of teachers was evident, they and their pupils have enjoyed studying local history and the variety of learning opportunities this opened up, with the outputs being of a considerably higher quality than they expected.

Given the quality of the outputs, schools have often wanted to ‘show off’ this work with large wall displays, exhibitions (inside and outside school), assemblies and open days.

Once teachers are enthused they have found a variety of ways to cover other subjects within their local history study and have developed ambitious plans for the works they will cover within their heritage topics. With the pupils’ enthusiasm, Heritage Schools projects have a positive tendency to spiral and grow into something even bigger than initially intended. For many schools their Heritage Schools work has been the academic highlight of the year.

Studying real people and places that pupils have a connection to, compared to more ‘abstract’ or ‘distant’ history has had a positive impact on pupils’ engagement with the topic and their subsequent written work. Teachers frequently commented on and provided examples to show both the quality and quantity of their pupils’ written work related to their Heritage Schools topic.

Producing some form of literacy output is a natural by-product of most subjects taught in schools.

However, many schools have effectively used their heritage schools work to introduce or practice certain elements of the literacy curriculum which they often find harder to cover (e.g. writing for a purpose, writing in the first person, writing dialogue, researching and producing biographies, factual writing to design trails and guidebooks, writing official letters), as well as broader communication and presentation skills.

Literacy work has often gone beyond different forms of writing to practicing speaking, listening and questioning skills (often with visitors from outside), developing communication skills (for example guiding visitors around school exhibitions), having discussions, forming and expressing opinions and plenty of drama and performance work. Heritage Schools projects readily lend themselves to a range of engaging and creative outputs.

Literacy has been covered in a variety of ways, although some teachers would still benefit from examples and ideas how their Heritage Schools project can be used as a useful vehicle to do more than just extended writing.

SMSC tends to fall out naturally in the discussions which the heritage projects have inspired, or from the general impacts studying their local area has had on the pupils’ sense of pride and belonging. None of the schools in the case studies have explicitly aimed to cover elements of the SMSC agenda when doing their Heritage Schools topic, but nor do they explicitly cover SMSC in other subjects apart from PSHE.