The Changing Landscape of Teacher Development

The ways that schools have changed in England since 2010 are pretty obvious to see. Ideas like ‘academies’, initially proposed by New Labour for ‘failing’ schools, have become (more or less) normalised as the preferred future for all schools and the marginalisation of local education authorities has been accomplished in many parts of the country, especially in terms of secondary education. Purely from the perspective of policy analysis, the Coalition and then the Conservatives have been very successful in changing how we think about schools and the school system and if it hadn’t been for a ‘little local difficulty’ like the result of the EU referendum and a failed general election, it is likely that their white paper ‘Educational Excellence Everywhere’ would have allowed them to achieve even more.

What is less obvious for people to see – especially those without ‘niche’ interests in teacher education and development – are the changes to the ways in which we prepare and the develop the teaching workforce, initially and then in a classroom. It is not only the well-known School Direct initiative that has been significant; indeed, perhaps what makes School Direct interesting is that, despite the political noise at the time, universities are/were still very heavily involved in School Direct, very often behind a curtain, still pulling many of the levers, rather like a cut-price Wizard of Oz. Or Chucky doll, depending on your point of view.

School Direct – who is that behind the curtain?

What is interesting about the changes to the ways we prepare and then develop teachers in the classroom is that a new eco-system has been emerging to replace the local education authorities, on the one hand, and in some sort of readiness to replace existing university provision on the other. I don’t want to over-emphasise the last part as I think those that might have aspired to replace the universities have realised just how hard it is to do that. But when you deliberately change the eco-system the way that Coalition and Conservative governments have, new entities (organisms?!) emerge to take advantage of conditions in the new environment.

For the last year, a research team across King’s College London and, for the first phase now completed, the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, having been studying the new eco-system. Our first paper is about to be published from phase 1. We are now in phase 2 and focusing on the changing landscape for in-service/continuing professional learning.

‘Landscape’ is an appropriate analogy in a few respects: first of all, it suggests that even though the surface features may look very similar, the sub-structure can be profoundly different. Second, the surface features often have interesting relationships to the sedimented layers below. The new grassy hillocks of teacher development are nonetheless laid over geological structure that can lead to some surprising and unintended new features. Another interesting aspect of the landscape analogy is the mix of old and new features, some retained and conserved through protective regulation; others approved by a parallel, more or less systematic planning process. What you end up with in a landscape is never what you initially envisaged. But it is proving interesting finding out how new kinds of developments emerge, are either cultivated or starved of resources and, ultimately, where the energy is coming from.

A Centre for Innovation in Teacher Education and Development – CITED

But there come times – perhaps this is one of them

Following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in June this year, King’s College London and Teachers College, Columbia University are steaming ahead with the development of a new joint Centre for Innovation in Teacher Education and Development – CITED. You can read about the institutional commitment to the aims – and the values – underlying this new initiative here (in terms of Teachers College) and here (in terms of King’s College). What is clear is that the Presidential leadership of both institutions recognises and understands the necessary contribution that research-led, outward-looking universities like TC and King’s can make to the preparation, support and development of the school-teaching profession. And why it is so important right now, at this time, as TC President Susan Fuhrman has put it, when ‘the highly divisive political and social climates in both the U.S. and U.K. make clear that our education systems must do more to keep the path to social justice clear and accessible.’

Our new Centre (or Center, depending on where the keyboard is situated) will support positive change in the way that universities contribute to teacher education and development whilst also studying these processes and providing educational and professional development opportunities for those who do this important and often under-estimated work. Underlying the entire CITED project will be a commitment to working towards educational and social justice in ways that recognise structural, societal inequalities whilst at the same time seeking ways to transform the opportunities and outcomes for all students within the education system. A broader commitment to civic education, the promotion of public dialogue and (President Fuhrman again) ‘an unshakeable commitment to confront prejudice and discrimination’ underpins all our plans.

Co-directed by TC Professor Mariana Souto-Manning and myself, CITED will be launched in the Spring next year and our programme will begin in earnest in September 2018. We will be working on-line as well as face-to-face in London and in New York and, eventually, our plans reach right up to the doctoral level. We are planning for bursaries and scholarships to support students and colleagues who need them. Much more information will be available in the next couple of months. Watch this space – and other ones too!