Working together with Oxford Education Deanery….…..to build professional capital

The best schools have the best teachers Attract the best entrants Keep the best entrants Accelerate teachers’ capacity for

improvement Develop their abilities to teach and

coach others

Why this idea? External

The Schools White Paper: The Importance of Teaching

Hargreaves and Fullan: Building Professional Capital

Internal Oxford Education Deanery Building a community of professional

practice

An enhanced M.Sc. In Learning and Teaching from Oxford Maximise the impact of new research on

teaching Provide the opportunity for teachers to

gain an MSc. in Learning and Teaching Motivate and retain excellent teachers Provide cross-school support to such

teachers and their school based mentors Contribute to building communities of

learners within and across OCL schools

What is the MLT? A professional development masters.

Focused on learning and teaching in schools rooted in a dialectic between research and

practice.

4 themes: Teachers and learners; Curriculum, pedagogy and assessment; Responding to pupils; Schools, equity and achievement.

Existing MLT Course structure Designed to follow M-level PGCE, so a taught

year followed by development project (Years 2 and 3) Year 2 – 5 weekends; 10K words Year 3 – 2 weekends; 20 K words

No M-level credits? Initial taught year, mirroring PGCE work(Year 1) Year 1 – 4 weekends: 2 x 5K words

http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/courses/msc-learning-teaching/final-year-project/mlt-poster-gallery/

Enhancing the MLT for schools Support from schools:

Funding Time off for study Presentations at staff meetings

A Kentish MAT sending 8 staff on the course, from 2 schools (including the director)

Insisting on school-wide topics Not forbidding teachers to discuss issues of

teaching and learning!

Enhanced OCL MLTPre-Year ( Known in OUDE as Part 1)

YEAR 1 ( Known in OUDE as Part 2)

YEAR 2 (Known as Part 3 at OUDE)

YEAR 3

The purpose of this is achievement of 60M credits.

Participants work on an issue in school/OCL in Action learning setMeet 3 X per year (once/term), with coordinator AND/OR Year 3 colleagues as coaches.

Education Deanery conference

Join MLT, working in current groups. Topics negotiated with school/OCL.

Meet 2 x per year to discuss progress / Meet with 2nd group 2 X year

Education Deanery conference

Working on their R&D dissertations. Topics negotiated with school/OCL

Meet 2 X per yearSubmission in September (Yr 3)

Education Deanery conference

Working with other professionals across OCL to increase the role of research evidence making a difference in schools: Teaching adults Implementing their

research Measuring impact of

interventions

Meeting 6 X year

Working with first group as coaches

Collaboration across the partnership

Education Deanery conference

What’s the evidence that this will work? Research criteria for effective CPD OCL/MLT model

Using specialist advisors and external experts

Teachers will be supported by research-informed university-based lecturers

Collaborative enquiry and structured peer support

OCL will provide a series of support networks, from school, to OCL links, to the MLT small groups. These will encourage professional dialogue.

Exploring why things do and don’t work

By working on thematically linked but distinctive issues, OCL/MLT teachers will be able to compare and contrast each other’s experiences.

Challenging prevailing discourses MLT provides a range of readings to enable OCL/MLT teachers to critique some existing discourses.

Learning how to learn from looking MLT provides guidance in a range of research techniques: pupil observation; teacher observation; interviewing; dialogue analysis; analysis of school data.

How it could work A 2 year masters currently costs £5,200 + (full time

Masters cost £7,500) Each of the partners makes a commitment to achieve the

benefits. OU will provide bursaries for qualifying teachers. Schools contribute £1,000 of MLT fees for each of the 2

years, plus minimum 1 day study time/year. Teachers pay the remaining fees. OCL will support the enhancement provision, of c.

£3,000/year. Currently seeking sponsors for the annual conference Potential research funding may also contribute.

For discussion Do we agree in principle with the proposal? Are we committed to financially supporting the scheme

and to what extent? How are we prepared to support teachers through the

MLT, including those without M-level credits? Oxford University have their own selection criteria for

Masters students – would OCL ( i.e. schools) have additional criteria, in order to apply for school funding?

What extra implications are there for schools in the first two years to start the scheme? E.g. Organising school-based coaches.