Elly Hayward, Head of English at Pangbourne College, shares her reflections on achievable next steps to start making changes following an inspiring CPD session.

Like many of those working in schools, I’ve found getting back to face-to-face CPD with professionals and colleagues is brilliant. After recently attending NACE’s member meetup on the theme “Speaking up: developing oracy for high achievement”, I came away buzzing with ideas, keen to feedback and also plot and plan as to how to drive forwards this key skill at Pangbourne College.  

But what’s the reality of actually doing that? How easy is it in our busy school lives to act upon and embed our newfound knowledge into our school culture? When’s a good time to broach a whole-school initiative and is that necessarily the first step?

Here are my musings on the matter and perhaps, even in the process of writing how I might go about this, I may find myself one step closer to realisation in my own school context.

1) Feedback to someone… anyone! 

I used a department meeting to consolidate my thoughts from the day and to pass on some of the excitement that I felt about what I’d seen and shared. I also reflected on a lot of the good things that we are already doing in our department (always good to big up your department with what they are already doing well!). As an English Department, we usually find ourselves at the forefront of anything to do with presentations, debates, talking in public. And we do it pretty well. But what I also realised whilst feeding the information back was that I was sure that good things were happening elsewhere in the school – and that’s, perhaps, where to start.

2) Find some time. 

I can hear your teacherly guffawing from here. Time is something we have precious little of and as not only a Head of Department but a working mum and wearer of many hats, I needed to be seriously realistic about where my priorities lie and what might actually be achievable. 

Without taking the lead on a whole-school development strategy in one fell swoop, I thought smaller. Microscopic in fact. I can hear my line manager’s words ringing in my ears already: “Don’t take on too much… We all need to strike that balance between trying to do everything and doing less, well.” I would do well to heed the latter. 

It’s not a question of whether improving students’ oracy skills will raise the attainment of all students; it was clear from the evidence presented at the NACE meetup that it will. Instead, the questions need to be: Does this align with whole-school strategies and development plans? What are the school’s priorities this academic year and next? What impact will this have in my context? And coming back to my first point, what are we already doing well?

3) Find out what’s already going on that’s good. 

This is my next step and the point where I find myself now. My plan – as Chloe Bateman suggested in her presentation at the meetup (summarised in this blog post) – is to find out what’s already good in my school. I have an awareness (you’d hope so!) of what is happening oracy-wise in the English Department but I’m acutely aware that it is not just the job of the English staff to develop and promote good oracy skills. My intention is to send a survey out to teachers asking them to firstly outline what oracy is, as I’m not sure many label it as such, and give concrete examples of where they develop this skill in their subject.

4) Start with small wins.

This is something that is key to our department philosophy and my approach to many things. Sharing what is already being done to promote good oracy by finding those nuggets and celebrating them with colleagues before introducing more ideas for staff to possibly adapt into their lessons. This may take the form of delivering a session of CPD or a presentation at one of our academic meetings or INSET, or it may be as simple as sending out a short video of “Have you tried…?” ideas. Chloe shared some great advice about “enhancing our existing curriculum, rather than distracting from it.” I will certainly also be following up with some of the other ideas shared at the meetup – but one step at a time!

Even in writing down my thought process, I feel fired up again. My eye-line has risen just above the mire of lessons, marking, administration and school events to look at that bigger picture about making a long-term, significant change to the way oracy is perceived in our school and, ultimately, raising our students’ confidence and skills in communication.

Elly Hayward is Head of English at Pangbourne College. You can follow her on Twitter @PangCollEnglish

Feeling inspired? Explore NACE CPD opportunities.

Dr Ann McCarthy, NACE Research & Development Director

At NACE, research and development lies at the heart of our work. Using research findings from within and outside education, whether contemporary or historic, we have an evidence base on which to develop our understanding of cognitively challenging learning. Our publication “Making space for able learners: cognitive challenge - principles into practice” provided colleagues with practical guidance based on case studies from NACE member schools. The findings from this research, alongside the NACE Challenge Development Programme and associated resources, provide support for schools wishing to become outstanding providers. Our more recent activities have included work with schools in Wales on the new curriculum for Wales, as well as focusing on the development of early years provision, oracy, rethinking assessment and an increased understanding of metacognition and perfectionism. 

What are the NACE R&D Hubs?

An important facet of our evidence-based practice is the NACE Research and Development (R&D) Hubs programme. The R&D Hub approach to research and development is based on teacher enquiry. This is a core tool used by teachers to make informed choices and systematic decisions supported by evidence. It enables teachers to measure the impact of their actions and as a result make purposeful changes to curriculum and pedagogy. 

Each NACE R&D Hub brings together a community of like-minded practitioners who want to develop their own classroom practice and share this with others. Each Hub develops academic thinking relating to a specific theme and asks a “Big Question” about existing practice. 

This academic year our three Hubs explored the following themes: (1) the influence of pedagogy on curriculum, (2) perfectionism and (3) cognitively challenging learning within the new Curriculum for Wales. Hub leaders provided participants with guidance on some existing research and reading resources. Participants were then encouraged to examine their own classrooms and present examples of practice which might be refined, improved or changed. They were able to articulate outcomes they wanted to achieve and potential changes which they might make to cause this to happen. Working from a classroom-based hypothesis they then developed a question in the form “If I… will pupils…?”

Through teacher enquiry we have been able to help teachers to understand the complexity surrounding the development of cognitively challenging learning environments. They have examined practice which improves cognition and cognitive skills. They have increased learners’ understanding of themselves and what is needed to learn well. Through their actions to refine provision for highly able learners they have had a positive impact on all learners. Through the Hubs, participants have developed their academic voices, which has enabled them to share their ideas more widely within their schools, in the NACE community, and with their networks of schools.

Theme 1: Pedagogy and the curriculum

In this Hub, led by Copthorne Primary School (Bradford), participants examined ways in which a focus on aspects of pedagogy impacts on a cognitively challenging curriculum. This reflects NACE’s belief that by creating cognitively challenging learning environments and refining provision for more able pupils, pedagogy will improve, and all pupils will benefit. 

Aspects of pedagogy which teachers determined could be central to their enquiry interests included:

• Higher-order questioning
• Curriculum organisation 
• Designing rich and extended talk opportunities
• Developing pupils’ enquiry skills
• Developing collaboration and language skills
• Use of manipulatives and practical resources
• Live modelling
• Developing independence

Teachers took time to reflect on their current practice and discussed features of their work which they would like to develop. They posed questions in line with the enquiry model and then refined the questions to provide a precise focus on an area for refinement and analysis. All teachers found it useful to have the time and space to think more deeply about strategies to challenge the more able. They were able to share some great examples of analysis of the impact of their interventions.

Pupil engagement increased in most cases and teachers showed that they were more confident and better equipped to challenge the more able across the curriculum. Through engagement with this hub teachers built up a wider range of teaching strategies. They have evidence to show that these strategies work to deepen understanding. Examples of impact included the use of manipulatives in maths, retrieval practice for GCSE revision, live modelling, extended talk and opportunities to develop reasoning skills. 

Theme 2: Perfectionism

This Hub’s focus on perfectionism built on the work NACE has undertaken with York St John University in this field over the past few years. The original research examined the impact of raising awareness of perfectionism and helping young people to understand more about the associated traits. While that initial research focused on key stage 4 pupils, teachers in the Hub were able to use the information and resources developed to work with a wider age range. The question here was “Can a single classroom-based lesson improve student-reported knowledge about perfectionism and a willingness to seek support if needed?” The materials used to support the teachers’ enquiry projects are available for all schools here. 

Teachers engaged in the enquiry found that some pupils already understood what was meant by perfectionism but did not necessarily appreciate the different “flavours” of perfectionism. Pupils’ response to this information was strongly positive. Some reported that it helped them to reduce stress and worry as they prepared for examinations. Others recognised some aspects of perfectionism in themselves. They learnt about the difference between being a perfectionist (which could lead to negative outcomes) and wanting to do well (as a positive trait). 

Not all aspects of the enquiries were positive, as one target group was taken out of class, which caused them to worry about missing other activities. It was widely felt that raising awareness as a part of developing health and wellbeing for all is an important step forward in schools. One Hub participant commented that it would be useful to continue to explore the impact of the perceived expectations of others (e.g. parents, teachers, peers), and ways of creating a culture which emphasises doing one’s best rather than attaining a certain outcome.  

Schools need to consider the effects of pressures on pupils from their peers, their teachers and their parents and carers. How can an improved understanding of perfectionism become more widely shared within schools? How can school culture adapt to reflect this knowledge about perfectionism?

Theme 3: Cognitive challenge within the new Curriculum for Wales

Led by Bishopston Comprehensive School and Ysgol Gyfun Gwyr (Swansea), this Hub sought to develop cognitively challenging learning experiences within the new Welsh Curriculum. To do this each participant focused on a key aspect of self-regulation or metacognition within their teaching. They then examined the impact on the resilience and ambition of their pupils within their learning. This group selected a wide range of starting points in response to this question. 

One school was acutely aware of how highly context-bound resilience and metacognitive skills can be. They found that working with pupils on specific workload issues was more useful than additional revision. They also found peer support and advice could increase the effectiveness of working practices. Another participant also used peer collaboration to support some GCSE German students. This led to a greater understanding of explicit learning strategies and an improved linguistic range. Another school with older pupils tackled the issue of cognitive overload through the introduction of planning templates. The belief was that students have a negative attitude towards essay questions due to high content and cognitive overload. This affects their ability to achieve the highest marks, since they miss out key content when answering questions. During the enquiry period students’ marks improved, as did their attitudes to essay writing. They found that having “chunks” of information rather than one overwhelming larger piece of writing was easier to manage.

The use of explicit teaching and modelling by both the teacher and other pupils can impact on learning, as was evidenced above in GCSE classes. Another example of this was to introduce younger pupils to higher-order question types. When pupils understand what is possible, they can adapt their learning. In this school the intervention led to pupils setting themselves challenging questions which they sought to answer. They could reflect on the learning of others and guide them to improve responses. They took greater responsibility for their own learning and were more resilient. The quality of written responses have become more sophisticated, exhibiting a greater depth of knowledge. 

In total contrast to the teacher explaining and modelling learning, another participating school trialled the “silent way method” with Year 8 pupils. For this method to work, the teacher does not explain each step but remains silent to enable pupils to discuss and discover the learning processes themselves. This took place in a mathematics class where pupils were skilled in routine and algorithmic responses but were less resilient in solving problems. When pupils were asked to investigate and discover the steps needed to solve problems, they became more active in their learning and showed greater resilience when faced with new problems.

NACE R&D Hub participating schools 2021-22

Despite the pressures experienced by schools over the last year, we were delighted to have a diverse range of schools participating in R&D Hubs programme this year. These included: 

• Bishopston Comprehensive School 
• Brooklands Farm Primary School 
• Chelmsford County High School
• Christleton High School
• Copthorne Primary School
• Dylan Thomas School 
• Furness Academy 
• Hartland International School
• Howell's School, Llandaff 
• Hydesville Tower School
• Kentmere Academy
• Pentrehafod School
• Laugharne Primary School
• Llwynypia Primary School 
• Lutterworth High School
• Malvern St. James
• Samuel Ryder Academy
• St. Albans RC High School 
• St. Cedd’s School
• St. Thomas More Secondary School 
• Storrs High School
• The College, Merthyr Tydfill
• The Cotswold School 
• The Mulberry House School
• Ysgol Caer Elen 
• Ysgol Gyfun Gwyr
• Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Bryn Tawe
• Ysgol Llanhari

Congratulations to all of those who persevered and completed their projects. We look forward to working with many of you, alongside new participants, next year.

NACE R&D Hubs 2022-23: join us next year...

What aspect of your own practice would you like to examine? Would you like an engaged community of peers to discuss this with? If you have not yet joined a NACE R&D Hub, now is the time to consider this. We believe the experience of engaging in a teacher enquiry project is one of the most effective ways to examine and develop your own practice, while engaging with current research and sharing insights with others.

Whether or not you have engaged in teacher-enquiry projects or belonged to a Hub before we would be delighted to welcome you next year. The Hubs are open to all NACE members, and those with more experience in teacher enquiry will make all new participants welcome and support them as they use this approach to developing expertise. 

Theme 1: Oracy for high achievement. If you or a colleague are interested in developing oracy in the classroom or across the school, you will want to join NACE Associate Dr Jonathan Doherty and the team at Copthorne Primary School in Bradford to examine the use of language for high achievement. Jonathan is currently researching oracy for NACE and is well-positioned to support the team at this leading NACE school to inquire into this subject at classroom level.

Theme 2: Rethinking assessment. If you have been thinking about the ways you currently use assessment, its position within teaching and learning, its effectiveness and value, you may want to join the Hub looking at rethinking assessment. This Hub is supported by NACE’s central team and led by Dr Ann McCarthy, who is examining the ways in which we can make better use of assessment to develop cognition, cognitive skills and learners’ metacognition. In this Hub participants will have an opportunity to examine assessment as learning and its place in cognitively challenging learning environments. 

Theme 3: Cognitive challenge within the new Curriculum for Wales. The third Hub will be led by Alison Sykes and her team at Bishopston Comprehensive School. This provides an opportunity for those working in the Hub this year to continue their enquiries in this field, while also welcoming other schools wishing to examine cognitive challenge within the new Curriculum for Wales.

All three Hubs will open with an online launch event at 3.30-4.45pm on Tuesday 27 September 2022.

If you or a colleague would like to join a Hub or learn more about the programme, please visit the NACE R&D Hubs webpage for more information, and register here for the online launch event.  

NACE CEO Rob Lightfoot shares key takeaways from this year’s conference, which took place online on 25 November 2021.

It was fantastic to welcome so many school leaders and practitioners to our 2021 conference – including representatives from across England, Wales and much further afield. The conference theme “Creating cognitively challenging schools” was designed to build on NACE’s research into cognitive challenge over the past few years – exploring what this looks like both in classroom practice and at the level of whole-school leadership and improvement.

The day’s keynote sessions explored the key principles of cognitive challenge and why we believe this should be a key focus for schools, as well as focusing on the importance of creating a language-rich learning environment – exploring the transformational impact this can have for all learners. 

Alongside these plenary sessions, delegates participated in workshops focusing on how to put these principles into practice at the leadership and classroom levels, with strands for primary and secondary colleagues respectively. 

There were many inspiring moments and invaluable exchanges during the day, with some key themes, common challenges and shared aspirations emerging. Here are 10 key takeaways to reflect on:

At the leadership level…

1. Responsibility for more able provision and cognitive challenge should be shared by all. The idea that it’s all up to the more able lead needs to change. The importance of developing cognitive challenge for the more able – and for all learners – should be shared, owned and understood by all as a non-negotiable.

2. Challenge should not be seen as an add-on, but integrated fully into all lessons. Placing the needs of more able learners at the centre of curriculum design and pedagogy will deepen the learning for all. Middle leaders are crucial to this process and, for larger schools, there should be an advocate for more able learners within every department. There is scope for Heads of Department to be more involved in the organisation of learning to support cognitive challenge.

3. Articulating and sharing the vision is key. The “why” of more able provision and cognitive challenge needs to be understood and owned by everyone in the school – and this will support the points made above and below.

4. High-quality ongoing professional development is crucial to supporting these goals, whether this is for existing staff to improve their teaching in line with the vision of the school or the training of new staff. Staff should not, however, be a slave to the chosen instructional model for a particular school. They should be encouraged to take risks too.

5. Enrichment has a role to play – but should not be the sole focus. Enrichment opportunities are important so learners can develop their skills in a variety of different ways, but having challenge at the heart of every lesson should avoid the need for academic interventions at a later date. Utilising every second of every lesson is key.

And in the classroom…

1. Finding the right balance between direct instruction, facilitating learning and activating learning is important but not easy. Delegates in the practitioner strands felt that the balance was not always right. Understanding the role of each approach within the context of cognitive challenge could help here, as could the use of flexible approaches such as “cutaway”.

2. At primary level, it was generally felt there was a tendency towards a greater level of direct instruction in the core subjects. There were more opportunities, within foundation subjects, to explore the other types of learning. This is due to the large amount of coverage in the core, but a balance needs to be achieved. “How can I show my learning in a variety of ways?”

3. At secondary level, the same applied to KS4 for more direct instruction and KS3 for a more varied style of learning. Again, the pressure over content appeared to be the reason for this –  but our more able students need to be reflective and evaluative learners if they are to reach their full potential. “When do we stop direct instruction and let go?”

4. The “why” needs to be explained to other stakeholders too – particularly parents and carers. We can then all work to a shared vision.

5. Again, the need for high-quality CPD was raised as being crucial for ensuring cognitive challenge is at the heart of every lesson. The strategy for more able provision needs to be embedded at a whole-school level.

Read more:

• Why focus on more able learners?
• Common myths and misconceptions about more able learners
• Developing a whole-school approach to more able: roles and responsibilities
• 3 key ingredients for cognitive challenge
• Making Space for Able Learners – overview of NACE’s research on cognitive challenge, with the option to purchase copies of the “Making Space” publication for your school
  

Conference recordings now available to purchase for your school

If you missed the conference, or participated and would like to revisit some of the sessions or share them with colleagues, we’re offering the opportunity to purchase recordings of the conference keynotes and workshops, including:

• Keynote 1: Creating a culture of cognitive challenge
• Keynote 2: Creating a language-rich climate for learning
• Workshops Strand A: Primary leadership - led by NACE Challenge and Curriculum Development Director Christabel Shepherd
• Workshops Strand B: Secondary leadership - led by NACE CEO Rob Lightfoot
• Workshops Strand C: Primary practice - led by NACE Curriculum Development Director Dr Keith Watson
• Workshops Strand D: Secondary practice - led by NACE Associate and Challenge Award Assessor Rob Buck
• Closing comments: summary from each workshop strand

Cost for the full package: £199 (NACE members) / £249 (non-members)

Please note: recordings are of the main presentations only; breakout conversations and group discussions are not included. Handouts of the slides from each session are also provided.

Purchase the conference recordings for your school

To learn more about any of the themes mentioned above, or for information about how NACE could support your school, please contact communications@nace.co.uk

Professor Rachel Lofthouse, Professor of Teacher Education and Director of CollectivED The Centre for Mentoring, Coaching and Professional Learning at Leeds Beckett University, explores the importance of mentoring in schools and poses some questions to help educators develop effective practices for sustained personalised professional learning.

Reflect back: what mentoring have you received or given?

When were you last mentored over a sustained period? Who gave you their time and attention? How was your professional practice shaped through focusing on details and contexts particular to you? Which aspects of being mentored do you remember with appreciation? Were there any causes of frustration?

Many teachers have only been formally mentored as a student or trainee teacher and as an NQT. It was essential then because mentoring enabled workplace learning. At this career stage, schools are workplaces that are strangely familiar from the trainee’s time as a pupil, but that soon throw up unfamiliar challenges as they became teachers. 

Stephen Billett (2011) draws our attention to the three key goals of workplace learning: knowing that the worker wants to be in that role, acquiring the initial skills needed in that role and developing relevant competencies for future workplace learning. In the case of student teachers, this would suggest that we need to firstly ensure that teaching is the student teacher’s desired goal; assuming that it is, we then need to help them to identify prospective specific career interests. We should also offer the support that student teachers need to help them to gain key occupational capacities; in other words, learning the skills needed to do the job as they enter the profession. Finally, workplace learning for student teachers should allow them as a new entrant into the profession to develop occupational competencies that they will need for future professional learning, ensuring that they have the skills needed to keep developing to meet future challenges.  

Be in the present: how does or could mentoring help you now?

What are you currently grappling with that you feel is just outside of your skillset? What gaps are you aware of in your knowledge base and how do you plan to remedy this? Who are you currently talking to and working with closely? Does this relationship have qualities of mentoring? Do you tend to take either a mentee or mentor stance? 

The training and induction period for teachers is relatively short and even with the new Early Career Framework (ECF), mentoring is still prioritised at the start of a teacher’s career. But if we recognise mentoring as a scaffolding practice for workplace learning, and if we remember that every year teachers face new challenges and take up new opportunities, then it is worth reflecting on the positive difference that mentoring in schools might make to teachers throughout their career.  

Through my research I have developed a model of professional learning (Lofthouse, 2018) which positions mentoring as one form of professional development practice. The model proposes that mentoring in schools can have most impact when the mentoring participants work with a sense of solidarity towards shared goals, take full account of the authentic realities of the school context, and are encouraged to be creative in developing approaches to practice. 

Think ahead: how could mentoring be developed in your school?

Would there be value in developing mentoring approaches that extend beyond current provision in your school? How might mentoring be enhanced to allow for sustained personalised professional learning? What capacity for growth might be generated through greater mentoring engagement? 

While all teachers and school leaders are rightly keen to address issues of workload, there are some important questions to ask about how we make the very best use of the resources available to us. Staffing is by far the greatest budgetary cost in a school and managing timetables and deployment time is a challenge. Adding additional engagement with sustained mentoring to those workloads and costs may seem unreasonable. But just flip that for a minute. Staffing is also the biggest resource that schools have; potential resides in each individual, as does expertise. 

My model is now known as the CoG Model of Professional Learning (Lofthouse, 2020). If we put mentoring at the heart of the model, we must ask ourselves, “Is mentoring helping us to learn and develop or has it just created more busy work?” CoG stands for Cycles of Growth; mentoring should enable learning to be cumulative, and new and effective practices to be generated. 

If we think ahead to developing more mentoring, we do so in the belief that it will trigger professional learning and thus change professional practices and behaviours. My research suggests extending mentoring could help to create schools where teachers and leaders are able to articulate their ideas and share their achievements through multiple internal and external networks. It can also reassure professionals that as they are always learning, it is OK to ask for both support and critique. This helps to open up access to new ideas and ensures that ideas and evidence are reviewed with an informed perspective. 

If mentoring is effective, professionals at all career stages learn to accept critique which is given in a generous spirit, and know that they can offer the same to others. Building this into the fabric of the workplace allows teachers and leaders to meet the challenges of their work by allowing their professional repertoires and expertise to expand, so that their schools become more effective in creating successful education for all. 

The take-away…

Being a mentor can share characteristics with Cinderella. It offers little glamour in professional lives and often happens behind the scenes, but it is essential. I lead a research and practice centre at Leeds Beckett University called CollectivED and we believe that both being mentored and offering mentoring can make a difference throughout professional lifespans (hence our use of the hashtag #MentorsMatter). The schools’ workforce is diverse and its challenges are significant, but the opportunities to make a real difference through education are real. As teachers and school leaders, it is important to know what can make that difference, and while we acknowledge that no single strategy fits all, there is a lot to be said for developing approaches which sustain personalised professional learning. Mentoring can support this.  

References 

• Billett, S. (2011) Workplace curriculum: practice and propositions, in Dorchy, F. and Gijbels, D. (Eds), Theories of Learning for the Workplace, Routledge, London, pp. 17-36. 
• Lofthouse, R. (2018) Re-imagining mentoring as a dynamic hub in the transformation of initial teacher education: The role of mentors and teacher educators, International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMCE-042017-0033. Available as open access document at http://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/5262/1/ReImaginingMentoringasaDynamicHubAMLOFTHOUSE.pdf
• Lofthouse, R. (2020) Creating and Engine Room for Learning, Carnegie School of Education Blog, https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/blogs/carnegie-education/2020/11/creating-an-engine-room-for-learning/

A former secondary school teacher, Rachel Lofthouse is now Professor of Teacher Education and Director of CollectivED The Centre for Mentoring, Coaching and Professional Learning at Leeds Beckett University. You can contact Rachel via email and follow her on Twitter @DrRLofthouse / @CollectivED1. Free working papers are available via the CollectiveED website.  

NACE coaching and mentoring services

NACE offers coaching and mentoring services to support school leaders and practitioners at all career stages, helping to develop a wider culture of coaching and mentoring across the school. These services can be provided remotely or on-site, and are tailored to the meet the needs of each individual and organisational context. Find out more.