Rob Lightfoot has coordinated more able provision at Haybridge High School and Sixth Form for 10 years. In this blog post, he discusses the benefits of getting involved in the new NACE Research and Development Hubs initiative and the additional benefits of being a NACE member school.
 
Haybridge High School and Sixth Form first achieved the NACE Challenge Award in 2006. A continuing drive for further improvement, in which more able learners have a high profile, has enabled the school to achieve second and third accreditation in 2010 and 2015 respectively.
 
The staff at Haybridge work tirelessly so that every student can achieve to their full potential. We are delighted to have been chosen as one of the first three NACE Research and Development (R&D) Hubs, in recognition of our experience and high-quality provision in working with more able learners over a number of years.
 
As a NACE R&D Hub, we are inviting NACE member schools in our area to join and form a regional network to share expertise, research and resources around supporting learners recognised as more able. Over time, we hope to contribute to new research in the field and envisage that the hubs will share results and recommendations with the NACE community and more widely, through online and print publications, new resource creation, and via NACE’s annual CPD programme.

Launching our R&D Hub…

We are the first of the hubs to run our launch meeting, which took place on 1 May 2018. As a result of our geographical position, all schools present were from across the Midlands. There were 16 colleagues present from 15 schools, and five more who expressed an interest in being involved but were unable to attend the first meeting. We had representatives present from across all phases of education. A number of colleagues sought more information on NACE’s Challenge Framework while others wanted more specific support with the following topics:

• Support for writing at KS1 and KS2
• Support for more able disadvantaged learners
• Support for more able coordinators in schools
• Developing a growth mindset

For the last two in this list, we were able to point colleagues towards the free webinars on these topics, available to all NACE members by logging in to the members’ site. I have already used the webinar on learning mindset for staff training at Haybridge.
 
NACE is developing a new three-day course to support those leading on more able provision which is now open for bookings, with an early-bird rate available until 31 August. This, and other NACE materials, will feed into the guidance available at future hub meetings.
 
An integral part of the R&D Hubs is the opportunity to share best practice. There is so much excellent work being developed across NACE schools, much of which never gets shared. None of us have all the answers, but between us all we can get close to the perfect formula. We are confident that improving our provision for our more able learners has improved our outcomes for all.
 
One of the privileges of running a hub is that we get the opportunity, first-hand, to see what is being developed in other schools.

Getting involved in action research

Since being accepted as one of NACE’s R&D Hub schools, I have had the opportunity to take part in an action research initiative run by NACE in partnership with Professor Bill Lucas at the University of Winchester. I have developed a number of ideas over the years as to what works in mathematics and I have found it to be an invigorating experience to test one of my many hunches!

The first session of this project, led by Professor Lucas, took us through the process of conducting action research effectively. As teachers, we all had so many ideas and it was difficult to hone our thoughts down to just one research question. I eventually settled on the following:

If I give extended thinking time without direct support, will students better answer multi-layered questions by understanding it is perfectly acceptable to make errors along the way?

I suspect that students who are prepared to take risks and not worry about making errors along the way progress at an accelerated rate when compared to their peers who cannot put pen to paper until they know exactly how to work through a problem. I am concerned that I step in too early to support a student, rather than emphasising the need to start a problem using the knowledge they have already obtained.
 
The free webinar on learning mindset, available for all NACE members, has been very useful in developing my own ideas for this piece of action research.
 
I am very much looking forward to our next support session in July, and reconvening next academic year to analyse our findings.

Joining the NRICH ambassador scheme

Through our NACE membership, our mathematics department has also had the opportunity to join the NRICH ambassador scheme. This initiative is run over three termly support sessions, with the aim of developing collaboration and resilience in mathematics alongside the development of curiosity and mathematical thinking. During these sessions we:

• Receive support with resources, approaches and ideas for our own mathematics delivery and gain confidence to share and signpost with other colleagues in school;
• Consider how we can use these approaches with our wider networks;
• Have the opportunity to test and review NRICH materials in development;
• Contribute to new ideas for NRICH and NACE.

Rob Lightfoot has worked as a teacher of mathematics for 25 years, teaching students across Key Stages 3, 4 and 5. He joined Haybridge High School and Sixth Form in January 2001 as Head of Mathematics. He has worked as part of the school’s senior leadership team for 16 years and has led on curriculum and teaching and learning. Rob has coordinated more able provision at Haybridge since 2009 and has also worked nationally as a lead practitioner with the Specialist Schools Trust on curriculum design.
 
To find out more about any of the initiatives mentioned in this blog post, or to join your nearest NACE R&D Hub, get in touch.

Over the past few years, the idea that teaching should be an evidence-informed profession has become increasingly widespread, and supporting teachers to be more evidence-informed and research-engaged is at the heart of the work of the Chartered College of Teaching.

Of course, engaging with research and evidence can mean many things – from reading original research, to engaging with evidence brokers, to carrying out small-scale enquiry in schools. It is perhaps the last of these which attracts most debate; the notion of teachers as researchers is not without difficulties. From the inevitable problem of workload and expectation, via ethical issues, to the question of whether teachers have the skills to effectively carry out and evaluate research. Given all these challenges, is it a worthwhile investment for teachers to carry out their own research projects?

It is, perhaps, a question of degrees. At the simplest level, “research” as a process of “identifying an idea that seems likely to work, trying it in the classroom, and evaluating whether it did work” seems simply to articulate the cycle that many teachers go through on a daily, if not hourly, basis. Increased rigour in this cycle could involve engagement with research and evidence to select the approaches trialled; a strengthened approach to identifying, baselining and evaluating goals; and a more structured expectation of sharing findings to inform colleagues’ practice. For some teachers, of course, participation in a supported practitioner research project – whether through a master’s programme or some form of professional learning community approach – will also appeal.

Whatever the scale of the research carried out, if we reflect on what we know about what makes effective professional development, it is easy to see how engaging in a cycle of research or enquiry can support professional learning. Models such as “lesson study” or engagement in a research learning community provide a collaborative, practice-based approach that is by necessity sustained over a period of time.

While there may yet be limited evidence of impact on student outcomes, there is evidence that engaging with and in research can lead to an increase in teachers’ levels of self-reflection and discussion about their practice, and a renewed sense of themselves as professional learners. With that in mind, for many schools and individuals, involvement in practitioner research – with appropriate time and support – has the potential to form an effective part of teachers’ professional development.

To audit your school’s current level of evidence-engagement, download this free resource from the Chartered College of Teaching: Evidence-Informed Teaching: Self-Assessment Tool for Schools

References and further reading:

• Brown, C. & Greany, T. (2017). ‘The Evidence-Informed School System in England: Where Should School Leaders Be Focusing Their Efforts?’, Leadership and Policy in Schools.
• Education Endowment Foundation (2017). Research Learning Communities Evaluation.
• DeLuca, C., Bolden, B., Chan, J. (2017) ‘Systemic professional learning through collaborative inquiry: Examining teachers' perspectives’, Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 67
• Higgins, S., Cordingley, P., Greany, T., & Coe, R. (2015). ‘Developing Great Teaching’. Teacher Development Trust.
• Rose, J., Thomas, S., Zhang, L., Edwards, A., Augero, A., Roney, P. (2017). Research Learning Communities Evaluation. Education Endowment Foundation.
• Stoll, L., Greany, T., Coldwell, M., Higgins, S., Brown, C., Maxwell, B., Stiell, B., Willis, B. and Burns, H. (2018). Evidence-informed teaching: self-assessment tool for teachers. Chartered College of Teaching.
• Stoll, L. and Temperley, J. (2015). Narrowing the Gap with Spirals of Enquiry. Whole Education.
• Timperley, H.S., Wilson, A., Barrar, H. & Fung, I. (2007). Teacher Professional Learning and Development: Best Evidence Synthesis Iteration. New Zealand Ministry of Education.

A former English teacher, Cat's roles have since focused on supporting teacher development both online and through face-to-face activities, with a particular focus on development through collaboration and through engagement with research and evidence. She has worked as a teacher and advisor in the state and independent sector, as well as in corporate learning and development. Cat leads on the Chartered College of Teaching's work around teacher CPD, including the Chartered Teacher programme, and their research activities and publications, including termly peer reviewed journal, Impact. In addition, Cat is studying for her doctorate at the UCL Institute of Education, looking at school leadership development.