OUR CHALLENGE

Professor Graham DonaldsonThe Robert Owen CentreUniversity of Glasgow

August 2014

Summary - Big Messages

• 21st century poses new and fundamental challenges for school education

• Need to balance short-term impact with long-term growth – urgent does not always mean important

• CfE/TSF/HGIOS provide strong policy and professional context

• Invitation to have more professional engagement in educational change

• Significant implications for teachers, schools, local authorities and national government

Factors Driving Change

Increased autonomy at local and school levels

Increased accountability in public sector and demands for evidence-based policy making

Information on school quality, including international comparisons

Rising importance of education•Knowledge and the economy•International competition•Growing expectations

Demands to use public resources efficiently

Technological developments, commercial interests &

media

“...no education system can remain static. The world is changing rapidly, Technology is transforming our lives. The skills needed in the future will be very different from those needed today. Education offers each individual and nation the best chance of navigating an unknown future – coping with uncertainty, adapting to evolving conditions and learning how to learn.”

Lee Hsein Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore 2012 (Oceans of Innovation, IPPR 2012)

Trends and Forces Shaping Twenty-First Century

Education

How the demand for skills has changedEconomy-wide measures of routine and non-routine task input (US)

(Levy and Murnane)

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Beyond Leitch (Patel et al., 2009)

Low skill jobs are vanishing

Over the last six years, the UK economy has shed 400 no-qualification jobs every day

New and growing expectations?

Instrumental pressure? Education is for work?

Generational competition for resources?

Growing inequality - deprivation and educational achievement?

Education for democratic participation / citizenship?

Uncertainty and lifelong learning?

New conceptions of knowledge?

Creativity, teamworking, problem-solving?

Better learning or different learning?

Anywhere, anytime learning? Hand-held connectivity?

Social networking

Some Implications

Some Interesting Challenges

Defeating destiny – deprivation/expectation/aspiration

Raising standards – particularly in maths and science and basic

literacy and numeracy skills

Establishing a broader, more secure and enduring base of

education before qualifications

Creating space for engaging teaching and learning

Sustaining high quality and relevant education

Importance of deeper conceptual understanding

connected and coherent knowledge

authentic knowledge in context

creativity and problem solving

learning in collaboration and to collaborate

Move from what students should be learning towards what they should become? (Priestley and Biesta 2014)

21st Century schooling?

“..many of today’s schools have not caught up as they continue continue

to operate as they did to operate as they did in the earlier decades of the 20th Century.

“How can learning within and outside schools be reconfigured in environments that foster the deeper knowledge and skills so crucial in our new century?”

“To succeed in this is not only important for a successful economy, but also for effective cultural and social participation and for citizens to live fulfilling lives.”

OECD 2008

Package and push?

Direct and demand?

Manage and measure?

Promise and punish?

Hearts and heads?

Network and nourish?

Pervasive tension between immediate impact and Pervasive tension between immediate impact and long-term, sustainable growthlong-term, sustainable growth

Storming the classroom citadel

‘...there is strong evidence from a variety of sources that two decades of reform have not led to anticipated levels of educational improvement, and certainly not commensurate with levels of investment in education, but have led to widespread teacher and headteacher dissatisfaction’

Hoyle and Wallace Educational Leadership: Ambiguity, Professionals and Managerialism 2005, pp. 4-5

Impact of Reform

Schools with more autonomy over curricula and assessments tend to perform better than schools with

less autonomy when they are part of school systems with more accountability arrangements and/or

greater teacher-principal collaboration in school management.

Stratification in school systems, which is the result of policies like grade repetition and selecting students at a

young age for different “tracks” or types of schools, is negatively related to equity; and students in highly

stratified systems tend to be less motivated than those in less-stratified systems.

Beyond a certain level of expenditure per student, excellence in education requires more than money: how

resources are allocated is just as important as the amount of resources available.

Across OECD countries, students who reported that they had attended pre-primary school for more than one

year score 53 points higher in mathematics – the equivalent of more than one year of schooling – than

students who had not attended pre-primary education.

What might work? PISA 2012

OECD PISA Results in Focus 2014

Student inclusion

Curriculum, instruction and assessment

Teacher quality

Work organisation

Teacher evaluation and accountability

SUCCESS FACTORS

The past The most effective systems

Economic and Social Research CouncilEducation in a Devolved Scotland 2013

Reading score of 15 year olds PISA, 2009

BUT

PISA Reading 2009

Between Schools

WithinSchool

England 29% 71%

Wales 17% 83%

NI 51% 49%

Scotland 18% 82%

Cuban and Tyack in Hattie ‘Visible Learning ’ 2009

Teachers and change

The Reform ‘Programme’

Broad, twenty-first century education for all (four capacities / outcomes-

based general education between 3 and 15/Senior Phase)

Deep learning and higher standards

Literacy and numeracy across the curriculum

Engaging, imaginative and purposeful pedagogy

Assess what we profess – wider achievement

AND

A new paradigm of governance and change

A revitalised teaching profession

Distributive leadership

Constructive accountability

GIRFEC

One aligned agenda

21st century schools need teachers who

have high-levels of expertise – subject, pedagogy and theory

have secure values – personal and professional accountability for the wellbeing of all young people

ask hard questions of themselves and others take prime responsibility for their own development see professional learning as an integral part of

educational changeengage in well-planned and well-researched innovationare outward-looking and seek partnerships

Teaching Scotland’s Future, Donaldson 2010

“She’s been on a course”

Cascade – spray and pray

“They should try teaching here”

“When were they last in a classroom”

From CPD to Career-Long Learning

Authentic – real issues in context

Extended not one-off

External stimulus and challenge

Engaged in learning

Collegiate – necessary but not sufficient

Supportive leadership

Funding/release time/voluntary or compulsory unrelated to influence on student outcomes

Timperly et al quoted in Hattie ‘Visible Learning’ 2009

What Works Best?

Professional culture – collegiate, reinforcing and exploring

Professional commitment

Supporting structures and partnerships

GTCS Standards

PRD

Focus on impact on learning

Key Elements

Scottish Teacher Education Reform

Clear national priorities

New degrees – practicum reconceptualised

Career-long professional learning – ITE/Induction

New Standards Framework from GTCS

More relevant, collegiate and challenging professional development

Professional review and update

Masters level profession – Scottish Masters Framework

Scottish College of Educational Leadership (SCEL)

Strong partnership approach - University engagement

(Donaldson, Teaching Scotland’s Future 2010)

Do not feel imprisoned by the past or the contextActive member of extended professional community

Professional inquiry and explorationEngage with complexityMasters level thinking

GTCS Standards and Professional UpdateLeadership is not about length of service

Aspiration, reflection and optimism

A revitalised teaching community

Better experiences and outcomes for our young people

What about you?

KEY MESSAGES

• The world is changing fast

• Schools are inherently sceptical about external solutions

• The answer lies in the school and the wider learning community

• Nobody can give you that answer but outside support and challenge matters

• Be clear and honest about your challenges – no conspiracies of ignorance

• The way forward is more about exploration than implementation

• Draw strength from colleagues – isolation is the enemy of improvement

• Break new ground – real action research