NPQLTD Cycle 3: Building
Culture and Ethos
Formative Assessment Task Options
Option 1: Provision for early career teachers (ECTs)
Programme framework statements covered
Delivering effective professional development
Learn that…
3.3. All schools with early career teachers undertaking statutory induction must adhere to the regulations and relevant statutory guidance.
Learn how to…
Play a formal role for trainee and early career teachers by:
3.l. Applying, where relevant, an understanding of the Early Career Framework, the ITT Core Content Framework, the Teachers’ Standards and the Standard for Teachers’ Professional Development to the school’s training and induction offer.
3.m. Understanding the roles and responsibilities within the induction process and ensuring early career teachers access their statutory entitlements.
3.n. Contributing to a programme of professional development for mentors, trainee and early career teachers that satisfies the statutory requirements and aligns effectively with other programmes of professional development activity within the school.
Introduction
This formative assessment task is intended, primarily, for participants who will be expected to, or hope to, take responsibility for the leadership and management of the Early career framework (ECF) in their school, and who wish to confirm, or enhance, their knowledge and understanding of its operation.
The Early career framework (ECF)
In brief, from September 2021, statutory induction for new teachers changed as part of the ECF reforms. Subject to parliamentary procedure, all early career teachers (ECTs) in England undergoing statutory induction will be entitled to two years of high-quality professional development support based on the ECF.
To gain a high-level, summary overview of the implications of the ECF reforms for schools and school leaders, visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-career-framework-reformsoverview/early-career-framework-reforms-overview.
If your role involves significant responsibility for ECTs, you are strongly advised to familiarise yourself with the key DfE publications listed below.
▪ Department for Education (2019). Early career framework. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-career-framework
▪ Department for Education (2016). Standard for teachers’ professional development: Implementation guidance for school leaders, teachers, and organisations that offer professional development for teachers. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachme nt_data/file/537031/160712_-_PD_Expert_Group_Guidance.pdf
▪ Department for Education (2019). Initial teacher training (ITT): Core content framework. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-training-itt-core-contentframework.
▪ Department for Education (2021). Teachers’ standards: Guidance for school leaders, school staff and governing bodies. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teachersstandards
Ofsted framework: Guidance to inspectors
The importance attached to these reforms is reflected in revisions to the Ofsted School Inspection Handbook (October 2021), which states that inspectors must assess the effectiveness and support put in place for ECTs.
“Inspectors must meet Early Career Teachers (ECTs) where possible and may wish to visit lessons given by ECTs. In doing so, inspectors should take into account the fact that ECTs have less experience than other teachers but must assess the effectiveness of the support and professional development put in place for ECTs to ensure that ECTs have the knowledge and skills necessary to teach in their chosen subject or phase. This must include the quality of mentoring and what the school has done to support their development in areas for improvement identified by initial teacher training providers. Inspectors should discuss how ECTs are supported by the school in managing pupils’ behaviour. Inspectors must meet with mentors and where possible, the induction tutor.” (emphases added)
(Ofsted, 2021, School inspection handbook, p. 21)
Task: Provision for early career teachers
Establishing effective arrangements for the professional development of ECTs involves a number of key strategic decisions. These are explored in this task.
Step one
Review your understanding of the three delivery models for the ECF: Early career framework reforms: overview - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Step two
Download the ‘Strategic decisions for the implementation of ECF’ proforma, available below, and use this as the basis for:
▪ a conversation with a trusted colleague to gain their perspective(s)
▪ a conversation with a fellow course member in another school (face to face or virtual) to discuss similarities and differences between your schools’ approaches
▪ recording your personal responses to the questions posed
When you have completed these activities, reflect upon your thoughts and conclusions, and use these to produce a PowerPoint presentation titled ‘The Early Career Framework in my school’ Your presentation should address (a) the rationale behind your proposals, and (b) the challenges that will arise in implementing your programme and how you will address them. The audience for the presentation is the senior leadership team, although it is not a requirement you submit it to them.
The presentation should have a maximum of 10 slides; you should use the notes page to explain the purpose behind each slide, or to add additional comments to help the reader understand your intentions.
When you have completed your presentation, upload it in Canvas to your leadership mentor within the timeframe identified
Proforma: Strategic decisions for the implementation of ECF
You will need to download three copies of the proforma.
Use separate proformas to record (a) your personal reflections, (b) the views of a trusted colleague and (c) the views of a fellow course member.
Prompts Response
If delivery Model One is chosen – what criteria should the school use when selecting from the list of accredited providers?
Whichever delivery model is chosen, how will the school choose its mentors?
What qualities/skills/experience should the school look for?
What metrics should the school use to evaluate the
effectiveness/impact of the programme?
What additional induction activities should be provided by the school?
Option 2: Effective instructional coaching
Programme framework statements covered
Delivering effective professional development
Learn that…
3.2. Teacher developers should choose activities that suit the aims and context of their professional development programme. Successful models have included regular, expert-led conversations about classroom practice, teacher development groups and structured interventions. However, these activities do not work in all circumstances and the model should fit the educational aims, content and context of the programme.
Learn how to…
Plan, conduct, and support colleagues to conduct, regular, expert-led conversations (which could be referred to as mentoring or coaching) about classroom practice by:
3.i. Tailoring the conversation to the expertise and needs of the individual (e.g., adapting conversations to be more or less facilitative, dialogic or directive).
3.k. Where appropriate, creating opportunities to co-observe a lesson segment, exploring and modelling what a teacher with a particular area of expertise sees and thinks.
Introduction
As the leader for teacher development, a key aspect of your role may be to develop your school’s capacity to deliver some of its professional development itself; often this will mean making provision for developing or leading instructional coaching. This is a sizeable task, and before embarking upon it you will need to be secure in your understanding of:
▪ types of coaching
▪ the skills needed to be an effective coach, and the training available to develop those skills
▪ your school’s stage of development, i.e., staff experience of coaching and being coached, the number of trained coaches the school can draw upon
▪ the evidence for the positive impact of coaching and its value for money
▪ scenarios in which coaching may not be appropriate
The last decade has seen a growing interest in instructional coaching in schools, with increasing numbers adopting practices which approximate to this definition:
“Put simply – instructional coaching involves a trained expert working – be it an external coach, leader teacher or peer – with teachers individually, to help them learn and adopt new teaching practices, and to provide feedback on performance. This is done with the intent to both support accurate and continued implementation of new teaching approaches and reduce the sense of isolation teachers can feel when implementing new ideas and practices.” (TDT, 2018, What is instructional coaching?)
Resources
Listed below are resources for you to access in advance of completing this activity:
1. Instructional coaching: An introduction (Jim Knight, The Instructional Coaching Institute)
This 6-minute video outlines the differences between facilitative, directive and dialogical coaching. Instructional Coaching - Bing video
2. Instructional coaching and early career teachers
Short case study provided by Stuart Voyce, deputy headteacher at a secondary school in West Yorkshire. Instructional Coaching and Early Career… | Huntington Research School What is instructional coaching? (Gary Jones, 2018, TDT)
Brief blog post discussing the validity of claims made for the effectiveness of instructional coaching. What is instructional coaching? - Teacher Development Trust (tdtrust.org).
3. Effective professional development. (EEF, 2021)
Download the poster (see tabs at top of page for link).
Effective Professional Development | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)
Task 2: Developing effective instructional coaching
This task requires you to design a PowerPoint presentation about the potential benefits of instructional coaching.
Step one
In preparation, you should undertake some of the following activities:
▪ Access and make notes on the resources listed above.
▪ Meet with your in-school performance coach to discuss your school’s experience of coaching, including some or all of the following:
o previous and/or current experience of coaching
o staff feedback on the effectiveness of any coaching they have engaged in, either as a coach or coachee
o your school’s culture – is it supportive of, and conducive to, the development of a coaching culture?
o your school’s coaching capability and capacity, i.e., how many appropriately trained coaches does the school have?
Step two
Contact a school with significant, positive experience of the effective use of coaching. This might be your local teaching school, another school within your trust or diocese, or a school with a good reputation in this area. Arrange to meet with them (we recommend this should be virtual) to discuss why coaching is successful in their school.
When you have completed these activities, reflect upon your thoughts and conclusions, and use these reflections to produce a PowerPoint presentation titled ‘Developing instructional coaching in my school’. The audience for the presentation is the senior leadership team, although it is not a requirement that you submit it to them.
The presentation should have a maximum of 12 slides; you should use the notes page to explain the purpose behind each slide or to add additional comments to help the reader understand your intentions.
You may wish to address some of the following topics according to your school’s stage of development:
▪ coaching at my school – current practice
▪ types of coaching – facilitative, directive and dialogical
▪ the research evidence that coaching has a positive impact, and your rationale for its development in your context
▪ when coaching is not the answer
▪ headline proposals for the development of coaching
When you have completed your presentation, upload it in Canvas to your leadership mentor within the timeframe identified
Option 3: Delivering effective professional development
Programme framework statements covered
Delivering effective professional development
Learn how to…
Deliver effective professional development by:
3.b. Choosing appropriate development approaches including modelling, explanations and scaffolds, acknowledging that novices need more structure, support and exemplification.
3.d. Ensuring that time is protected for teachers to plan, test and implement new, evidenceinformed ideas.
3.g. Making reasonable adjustments that are well-matched to teacher needs (e.g., to content, resources and venue).
Introduction
The authors of the EEF’s ‘Effective professional development report’ make three recommendations, the third of which is encapsulated in the extract below.
“No matter how well thought out a PD programme is in terms of content and design, for it to succeed it needs to be feasible and appropriate to the school or setting context.”1
Their conclusions have sobering implications for those leading professional development activities in their organisations. They remind us that an elegant design, which incorporates the key mechanisms identified in this report as being essential for effective professional development programmes, will not succeed if the conditions for the effective delivery of the programme are not present.
Whilst not the central focus of this activity, you will find it valuable to consider the ‘mechanisms’ the EEF report has identified by accessing ‘Effective professional development: The mechanisms of PD’: EEF-Effective-PD-Mechanisms-Poster.pdf (d2tic4wvo1iusb.cloudfront.net)
If you wish to deepen your understanding further still, then you should access the full report.
As you complete the task below, keep in mind the EEF mechanisms that you have explored, with a particular focus on their implications for the effective delivery of programmes of professional development.
1 Education Endowment Fund (2021). Effective professional development report, p. 30 https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/effectiveprofessional-development..
Task 3: Delivering effective professional development
For this task, you will evaluate a professional development programme you have been involved in, and then use the outcomes from your evaluation to produce a PowerPoint presentation titled ‘Delivering more effective professional development in my school’.
Step one: Choosing a professional development programme
Choose a professional development programme you have engaged with, as either a participant or a facilitator/coach, etc. Ideally focus on a programme that was:
▪ delivered in the last couple of years – simply because it’s easier to remember things that took place more recently!
▪ delivered over several sessions
▪ delivered on your premises to your staff only (or with colleagues from within a MAT)
▪ intended to address an area of significant importance to the school, e.g., an improvement specified in your school improvement plan, an area identified by Ofsted as requiring attention
If you cannot identify a programme that meets all of the above conditions, you should select a programme that meets at least some of them. The programme you choose might have been:
▪ a facilitator-led course
▪ a programme of coaching support
▪ joint practice development activities or support through a teacher learning community
▪ lesson study based
Step two: Evaluating the programme
Complete the ‘Evaluating a programme of professional development’ proforma (below). Use the prompts on the proforma to critically evaluate the programme you have chosen; if you identify important issues that are not addressed by the proforma prompts, please make a note of these also.
Step three: Reviewing your evaluation with your in-school performance coach
Arrange to meet with your leadership performance coach to discuss your responses to the evaluation proforma prompts and to gain their perspective on the effectiveness of the training.
Following your discussion of the outcomes from your evaluation of this specific programme, broaden your discussion to incorporate other professional development activities provided by the school. This will help you to establish if the particular programme you have evaluated was typical of the school’s approach, if different lessons may be learned from the evaluation of other programmes and so on.
Should you wish to gather other staff perspectives’ , you might hold similar conversations about your evaluation with them.
When you have completed these activities, reflect upon your thoughts and conclusions, and use these to produce a PowerPoint presentation titled ‘Guidelines for delivering effective professional development in my school’. The audience for the presentation is the senior leadership team, although it is not a requirement that you submit it to them. In your presentation, you may wish to address the following issues:
▪ creating an environment conducive to effective professional development
▪ recognising, responding to, and providing for differing staff needs
▪ planning an implementation strategy for ensuring professional development has a positive impact on children’s learning
▪ (you may wish to reference any relevant research)
When you have completed your presentation, upload it in Canvas to your leadership mentor within the timeframe identified
Proforma: Evaluating a programme of professional development
For each of the prompts below, indicate if the item was, on balance, a strength (i.e., it made a positive contribution to the professional development process) or a weakness (i.e., it hindered the professional development process). If the prompt is not applicable, put n/a.
Prompt S/W? Reason
Environment
School culture/stage of development – the success, or otherwise, of a particular professional development activity may be determined by a host of factors that are separate to the professional development activity itself, but significantly impinge upon its effectiveness. These include:
▪ the prevailing culture within the school
▪ the school’s current improvement trajectory
▪ staff morale
To what extent might any of the above, or other school-based factors, have contributed to the effectiveness of the programme? Were the programme’s timings sensitive to staff workload? Consider:
▪ when in the day/ week/term/year the programme took place
▪ duration of the whole programme and individual sessions
Venue arrangements – consider:
▪ the training room –adequate ventilation? Adequate lighting? Adequate space for participants to move around? Appropriate temperature?
▪ refreshments – all needs catered for? Appropriate for time of day? Separate area for consumption?
▪ appropriate provision made for staff with disabilities?
Meeting staff needs
Cognitive load:
▪ Did the programme make appropriate demands with regard to the volume/complexity of information that participants were expected to understand?
Meeting diverse needs – how successful was the programme in meeting the needs of the range of participants? Consider:
▪ how effectively the programme provided for ECTs and more experienced staff
▪ how effectively the programme deliverers used different techniques (e.g., modelling, scaffolding, explanations) to provide for ECTs and more experienced staff
Did the programme deliverer(s) provide feedback to staff on their performance?
Were participants required/encouraged to set and agree goals for themselves and/or their pupils following the programme?
Did the programme deliverer(s) provide affirmation and reinforcement after progress?
Embedding outcomes: Ensuring professional development has impact in classrooms What arrangements were made for time to act? Consider provision made for:
▪ opportunities to practice techniques
▪ planning new interventions
▪ testing new interventions
▪ implementing new interventions
What arrangements were made for embedding new techniques/skills?
Consider provision made for:
▪ revisiting with staff key ideas/outcomes
▪ reminding staff of the school’s expectations, i.e., with regard to actions to be implemented
Support for action – what support was provided for:
▪ planning new interventions?
▪ testing new interventions?
▪ implementing new interventions?