Teachers as Leaders. Sustaining Professional Development Through Leadership

Author(s):

Livia Ostafe(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

01. Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations

Format:

Paper

Session Information

01 SES 08 C, Developing school leaders and teacher leaders

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-10

09:00-10:30

Room:

428.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Joan Smith

Contribution

One of the important objectives of Great Britain regarding the proposal and implementation of educational politics is the improvement of the process of teachers’ professional development. Recent educational politics for professional development (W. Robinson, 2008) have the power to reform the entire British educational system. The concept of personalized education and teaching – a relatively new concept -, the increase of school responsibilities regarding teacher’s personal training will generate a new role for the career of teacher. Thus, the future of this educational system, characterized more by continuity than by transformation is hard to predict (W Robinson, 2008).

The Teacher Development Agency – TDA has already started radical changes for the future of the didactic career. These proposals are to be found in the work ”Futures: Teaching 2012 and 2020”, which represents the work of the most important agencies focused on teacher training and professional development.

Teachers must consider themselves leaders and not robots that implement one rule or another. They should have initiative and decide for themselves or together with teachers working in the same field, when problems appear. They should learn to share and become transparent regarding their activity in the class. Moreover, teachers should know that they have the right to ask for the help of educational institutions.

In UK, the term of the “teacher as a leader” (teacher leadership - TL) does not have the same meaning as in the United States of America, it does not refer to the school’s administrative management, to”being a boss” over the other teachers, but the idea is that of initiating personal didactic activities, being a leader is the synonym of a professionist in the educational field (E. Hoyle, 2008). TL is a concept that refers to the recognition of the potential of teachers who can be leaders as part of their role-status. This idea involves the disappearance of the educational practice (Louis at all. 1995) through which tacit knowledge is transmitted (D. Frost, 2013).

The quality of leadership in any establishment is key to providing excellent learning. There is a common sense of purpose to provide a wide range of opportunities which help learners gain qualifications and experiences that enhance their life chances and develop confidence in their own talents and abilities. For this to happen, learning and teaching need to be at the centre of everone’s thinking.

Considering the facts above we decided to cunduct a case study that can shows what are the outcomes that can be achived by a school after implementig TL programs. What's the teacher's attitude towards professional learning and teacher leadership? Did they see any remarcable changes in their professional activity during the implementation of TL programs? What about afterwards? Did the student's academic achivements improved or not?

The purpose of the present research is to identify and analyze the impact of TL programs on schools. For that we have analyze a case study conducted for Birchwood Highschool, Bishop's Stortford UK.

Birchwood Highschool is situated in Bishop’s Stordford, Hertfordshire area and it has had an educational specificity and an academic status since February 2012. The highschool has 1400 pupils (2012) and a number of 96 teachers including the director of the school and the deputy headteacher.

The OFSTED rapport says that Birchwood highschool is a good inclusive school which offers good results both for pupils and for teachers.T The results obtained by Birchwood Highschool are good in general.

Method

The study below is a qualitative one whose aim is to underline the outcomes that can be achieved (or not) after implementing TL (Teacher Leadership) programs. In order to analyse and evaluate teachers’ attitude regarding the impact of TL programs, it was conceived ”The interview guide for teachers which contains 17 questions grouped in 4 sections: • Professional identity • Learning ability as part of professional development and leadership • Good practices professional learning • Cultural context of the school Data have been collected between December-February 2013. The interview (Annex 1) has lasted between 25-40 minutes, being recorded by a voice recorder. The responders were 10 teachers from Birchwood Highschool, Bishop's Stortford UK. The teachers were of all categories, meaning newly qualified ones until school headteachers. Thus, I had:  3 teacher who was NQT (newly-qualified)  3 teachers who had an experience of over 6 years  2 teacher who had the status of the headteacher’s assistant (assistant headteacher)  2 teacher with the status of headteacher and 1 teacher with the status of adjunct headteacher (deputy headteacher). The study was carried out by an exploratory endeavour, by using the method of the interview and by applying the categorical analysis of content, based on which we managed to gather information about the impact of TL programs in Birchwood HighSchool.

Expected Outcomes

Processing the obtained data was done by listening and transcription of the interviews and then by analysing the content. Over 80% of the interviewed teachers have declared the fact that there is a strong connection between the results of students, the performance of teachers and the school’s prestige and development. 20% of them admit the fact that it is required an improvement of this aspect, but teachers are aware that the school where they teach is focused on learning. Also the TLDW (Teacher-Led Development Work) program had a huge impact on school's culture. Regarding the activities that lead to improvement of teacher's professional development, most teachers are optimistic when they speak about the activities which help them evolve from a professional point of view 90% of teachers think that INSET days are very useful. The same mark was offered for the way in which teachers are supported by the school, professionally speaking. All teachers from Birchwood Highschool believe that research projects and those for improving the didactic practice of other colleagues are very helpful. Moreover, teachers agree that school management is very useful for professional development. The teachers are satisfied with SLT (Senior Leadership Team) and the way professional development is done. Limits of the study: Our study is a qualitative one which immediately brings a higher rate of subjectivity. In spite of this fact, the richness of teachers’ answers and the way of expressing them were the most important factors that mattered when we gathered the data necessary for this study. Another boundary considered a difficulty was represented by the larger amount of time needed by both the researchers and the people who took part in the survey. We admit that we have spent 2 days in this school in order to get familiarized with teachers and the school.

References

1. Avis, J., (1994), Teacher Professionalism: One More Time, in Educational Review, 46 (1), 63-72. 2. Barnett, P., (2007), Investigating the Impact of Teacher – Led Development Work on Learning Culture of Barnwell School, unpublished postgraduate Certificate in Education Reasearch Disertation, University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education 3. Bennett, T., (2011), Not Quite a Teacher. Target Practice for Beggining Teachers, Ed. Continuum International Publishing Group, London. 4. Bogler, R., (2001), The Influence of Leadership Style on Teacher Job Satisfaction, in Educational Administration Quarterly, vol. 37, Nr. 5, pp. 662-683, London. 5. Bridges, D., Kerry T., (eds.) (1993), Developing Teachers Professionally, Ed. Routladge, London. 6. Bulgouh, R. V., (1997), Practicing Theory and Theorizing Practice in Teacher Education în Loughran J. şi Russel, T., (eds.) Teaching about Teaching. Purpose, Passion and Pedagogy in Teacher Education, 13-31, Falmer Press, London. 7. Burke, P., (1987), Teacher Development, Ed. The Falmer Press, London. 8. Calderhead, S., Shorrock, S., (1997), Understanding Teacher Education, Case-studies in the PD of Beggining Teachers, Ed. The Falmer Press, London. 9. Eurydice (2003) Key Topics in Education in Europe. Vol. 3. The Teaching Profession in Europe: Profile, trends and Concern. Report III, working condition and pay. Brussels: Eurydice 10. Frost D., Durrant, J., (2002), Teachers as Leaders: Exploring the Impact of Teacher-Led Development Work, School Leadership and Management, 22(2): 143-61 11. Frost, D., (1995), Reflective Action Planning: A Model for Continuing Professional Development în D. Frost, A. Edwards, H. Reynolds (eds.), Career Education and Guidance. Editura: Kogan Page, London 12. Frost, D., (2006), The Concept of Agency in Leadership for Learning. Leading and managing, special issue on the Carpe Vitam Leadership for Learning Project, 12(2): 307-21. 13. Frost, D., (2013), Developing Teachers, schools and systems: Partnership approaches, în McLaughlin C., Teachers Learning Professional Development and Education, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 14. Frost, D., (ed.), (2012), Teacher Leadership. An International Journal for Education Practitioners, vol. 3, nr. 1, Ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 15. Laight, J., (2012), Teacher Education: Is the Glass Full? în Dignan C., Stephens L., (eds.), Education Review. A New Vision for Education, National Union for Teachers Journal, vol. 24, nr. 1, 44-51, London. 16. Lomax, D., (1972), Education of Teachers in Britain, Editura: The Garden City Press Limited, Letchworth, Herdforshire, UK. 17.http://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/ 19. Wideen, M. F., Grimmet, P.P, (1995), Changing Times in Teacher Education: Restructuring or Reconceptualization, Ed. Falmer Press, London. 20. https://www.birchwoodonline.co.uk/community/

Author Information

Livia Ostafe (presenting / submitting)

Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi

Pedagogy

Iasi

Search the ECER Programme

Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
Search for authors and in the respective field.
For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.