Leading view papers – Days 1 to 7

Student learning: at the heart of teacher professional development

 

In all initiatives to improve learning, students need to be at the heart of the development, causing the educators involved in the work to pause and reflect on their good practice, thus informing their next practice in extending their repertoire effective teaching and learning. To understand what constitutes good and effective teaching and learning, it is necessary to consider what different stakeholders in education believe it to look like.

As educators, good teachers will have considerable experience of what this constitutes and will always use a variety of approaches in differentiating their teaching, ensuring they access the different learning styles and multiple intelligences of their learners. However, really effective teachers will be more than precise and will listen to the voice of the learner on what comprises deep learning. They will reflect upon their practice when planning to ensure that they are fully engaging all their students. They will assess for learning and share success criteria with their students, as well as create an emotionally secure environment for them to learn, in an ethos of praise and reward that is central to their progress.

Furthermore, outstanding practitioners will appreciate that they teach within a framework that is an increasingly accountable. They will also understand that while it is important for students to experience exceptional enjoyment and engagement in a lesson, those alone are not enough. These truly outstanding teachers will ensure that exceptional progress in new learning occurs, too. Some of these colleagues will have another dimension to their teaching that engages students through more than just technical proficiency having an ‘x-factor’. For effective teaching and learning to take place, there must also be a welcoming and amicable teacher who makes the learning environment an attractive and stimulating one. This, I believe strongly, can only occur within a school where every child matters and there is a consistency of approach in working together on the basic and common values shared by all, including that of mutual respect, which is central to a learning community in partnership with parents and the wider community.

I feel the use of technology to support teaching and learning, in order to improve learning, is clearly important. I believe that educators should be at the forefront of innovation in teaching and learning and especially in the application of technology in the curriculum to prepare young people for the ever-changing future, of which they will be a part. ICT will increasingly influence approaches to teaching and especially learning that facilitates the ability of students to become independent learners. I am sure that many teachers ensure that they capture the imagination of students in a way that appreciates the difference between education and entertainment, yet connects its learners in ‘stimulating contexts’ to difficult concepts delivered in personal, relevant and differentiated ways.

However, technology by itself is not enough. There has to be more to support all learners to engage, and take an interest, in developing their independent learning skills and curiosity in lifelong learning for its own sake, as well as for economic advantage in a competitive employment market. To this end, the challenge is for leadership in schools to shift its focus.

Traditionally, the leadership of schools has tended to concentrate improvement activity on teaching and learning. As significant as this is, by itself the approach is narrow, as is recognised in the wider commitment to the five outcomes in Every Child Matters (ECM). Leaders must change their perceptions of the school as an end in itself, to the school as an economic and social multiplier in the community. They must understand that schools are agencies of social change, for community renewal and the creation of communities of learning. Leaders must see that the nature of community and the neighbourhood are fundamental factors in school success. Family life, the prevailing culture of the neighbourhood and the socioeconomic profile of the school intake all have substantial effects on children’s attainment and therefore their future life chances. Consequently, school improvement and renewal are inseparable issues from neighbourhood improvement and renewal, particularly in the most disadvantaged areas. While neighbourhoods profoundly affect schools, they also have a key role in promoting cohesion and building social capital.

Therefore, the challenge for progressive leaders at the school level is to shift the focus from a ‘find and fix’ approach to impact on the factors influencing the life chances and educational success central to the ECM agenda for its learners, to a more ‘predict and prevent’ approach. This will require an intellectual shift in the attitudes of leaders to a new way of working, to ensure that the factors that impact positively on every child’s opportunities for success make the following features common practice in schools:

• an ethos of partnership, working with local public services, the community and other schools
• a concept of community that goes wider than children and parents
• an ethos of partnership and community that is regularly integrated into the vision, management plans and the day to day working of schools
• support for families, as part of a strategy to achieve better outcomes for children and young people
• the collection of evidence that the school is seen as a community resource by staff, pupils, governors and local people.

Practically, this will mean that leaders in schools will need to find ways to ensure that the needs of every child come first and so treat its learners in a more holistic way. Educators will need to translate the well-intentioned meaning of the ECM agenda in practical ways so they impact on improving every child’s life chances: ensuring a culture of high aspirations and expectations of all children; an increasing focus on deep support, as well as deep learning and precise teaching; a consistency with respect to applied policies; increased use of student voice in the running of the school and much more engagement with families and the local community.

Watch Max Buczynski's audio-visual presentation here. (3.25 MB file that requires Windows Media Player installed on your computer. Download a free copy of Windows Media Player for the operating system you are using here).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mr Max Buczynski is Assistant Principal at King Edward VII School, in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, in the United Kingdom.  King Edward VII is an above average sized school of around 2000 students. Mr Max Buczynski works in a large leadership team, with responsibility for learning development and intervention. Before this, he was assistant principal in a small leadership team at William Bradford Community College, in Leicestershire, a below average sized 14-19 college of  around 750 students, where his post involved responsibility for technology college development, data handling on pupil progress and examinations officer. Before being in a leadership team, he taught in five large comprehensive schools, each with a sizeable Sixth Form. This has included working in rural prosperity, where he enjoyed the wide and sophisticated variety of a high performance school, as well as the realistic challenge of his present and previous schools.

Mr Max Buczynski has been involved in a number of projects that have been associated with innovation in education and has always been attracted to advancements that have an impact on student enrichment opportunities, as well as being professional development opportunities. He has managed several Comenius projects that link European schools, to enhance educational and cultural understanding and to help raise awareness, and to celebrate differences, in a multicultural, but smaller, world. Mr Max Buczynski lives in a small, sleepy, rural village with his family, including two young daughters. He has a passion for cars and is a season ticket holder at Manchester United.

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