UCET
Management Forum
Research and teacher
education in the UK (but mainly
England) – where next?
Ian Menter
www.bera.ac.uk
BERA-RSA Inquiry Questions
1.
What is the role of research within initial teacher education (ITE) and
how does it contribute to programmes of continuing professional
development and learning (CPDL)?
2.
What is the impact of research-informed teacher education on the
quality of teaching and how far does research-based teaching improve
learning outcomes for students?
3.
How far does current provision across the UK meet the requirements
of research-informed teacher education and research-based teaching?
What are the barriers to creating research-rich environments at a
school and system level and how may these be overcome?
Commissioned Papers
A. Mapping provision:

Review of UK policy and practice – Prof Gary Beauchamp, Prof Linda Clarke, Dr Moira Hulme,
Prof Jean Murray

Review of international policy and practice – Dr Maria Teresa Tatto
B. Philosophical reflections:

Philosophical reflections on the contribution of research to teachers’ professional knowledge
– Prof Chris Winch, Dr Alis Oancea, Dr Janet Orchard
C. Review of the evidence:


Review of ‘research-informed clinical practice’ in initial teacher education –
Dr Katharine
Burn, Trevor Mutton
Review of the role of research in teacher quality and school improvement – Dr Monica Mincu

Review of teachers’ continuing professional development and learning (CPDL) and the
continuum of professional learning – Philippa Cordingley

(May 2014) Teachers’ Views: perspectives in research engagement. Prof. David Leat,
Rachel Lofthouse and Anna Reid
Final Report May 2014
Research and the Teaching
Profession
Building the capacity for a selfimproving education system
www.bera.ac.uk
Summary findings
– Internationally, enquiry-based (or ‘research-rich’) school and college
environments are the hallmark of high performing education systems.
– To be at their most effective, teachers and teacher educators need to
engage with research and enquiry - this means keeping up to date
with the latest developments in their academic subject or subjects and
with developments in the discipline of education;
– Teachers and teacher educators need to be equipped to engage in
enquiry-oriented practice. This means having the capacity, motivation,
confidence and opportunity to do so;
– A focus on enquiry-based practice needs to be sustained during initial
teacher education programmes and throughout teachers’ professional
careers, .... embedded within the lives of schools or colleges and
become the normal way of teaching and learning, rather than the
exception – ‘Research Literacy’
Recommendations
In building a research-rich culture, practitioners and policymakers in England,
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland face different challenges and begin from
different starting points. For this reason, the inquiry’s recommendations are
jurisdiction-specific. These cover a range of issues, including: initial teacher
education; continuing professional development; research leadership and
capacity; practitioner engagement.
With regard to both initial teacher education and teachers’ continuing professional
development, there are pockets of excellent practice across the UK but good
practice is inconsistent and insufficiently shared. Drawing on the evidence, the
inquiry concludes that amongst policymakers and practitioners there is
considerable potential for greater dialogue than currently takes place, as there is
between teachers, teacher-researchers and the wider research community.
It also concludes that everybody in a leadership position – in the policy community, in
university departments of education, at school or college level or in key agencies
within the educational infrastructure – has a responsibility to support the creation
of the sort of research-rich organisational cultures in which these outcomes, for
both learners and teachers, can be achieved.
The four nations plus...
– England: The Carter Review
– Northern Ireland: current review
– Scotland: Donaldson implementation
– Wales: Furlong > Tabberer > Furlong
– The Republic: implementation of review
England – the outlier?
• The peculiarities of the English (EP Thompson)
• The European dimension (don’t mention
Finland any more!)
• Misinterpreting global forces – the risk to
quality in education (and educational
research)
• Can it only get better? (General Election next
May)
BERA 2014: Aileen Kennedy,
University of Strathclyde
• The Inquiry serves specific purpose(s) for us in
Scotland:
– Validation of current direction of policy travel
– Another source of evidence from which to argue our
position that research is a fundamental aspect of quality
teacher education
– A focus for cross-UK discussions and action which can
benefit us all, despite variations in context
BERA 2014: Geoff Whitty (Bath Spa
University) - International
dissemination
•
•
•
•
•
Australia
New Zealand
India
China
USA
etc
Good reception, examples of good practice, but
divergent models. Tendency to see the report as
legitimating own practice.
The UUK Report: The Impact of Initial
Teacher Training Reforms on English
Higher Education Institutions
The change in balance also has implications for government’s
need to ensure a sufficient supply and consistent quality in
the teaching of skills in areas important to economic growth.
The teaching profession is heavily dependent on the
university sector for training chemists, physicists,
mathematicians, computer scientists and modern linguists.
Data shows that the new School Direct training route
recruited only two-thirds of its allocation in 2013–14, while
university (and other core) recruitment exceeded 90% of its
allocation. Whereas School Direct has been more successful in
recruiting trainees into subjects such as English and history, it
has been less so in science, technology, engineering and
mathematics (STEM) subjects. This has contributed to a
shortfall in the number of trainee teachers recruited into
several subject areas, such as mathematics and physics.
UUK continued
There are concerns, therefore, that, as the
government pursues its ambition for a schoolled system, the pace of change could create
teacher supply issues in the future if
university-delivered training becomes
unsustainable. It is vital that a greater level of
stability is given to universities, and that their
role within the wider ITT system is recognised
and clearly defined within the government’s
strategy for teacher training.
The Nuffield Foundation Report: The
costs and benefits of different initial
teacher training routes
• Led by Institute for Fiscal Studies
• Problems with methodology – crude view of costs
and benefits
• Bigger problems with dissemination:
“The study shows that Teach First offers the overall best value for money for
training teachers in the high priority subjects, such as Science and Maths, which
make up the majority of our intake. For 98% of the secondary trainees Teach First
recruits, the report finds that it is better value for money than either a standard
PGCE or School Direct unsalaried. The study also showed that schools said that
Teach First has the highest benefit of any current teacher training route and the
value of that benefit was worth significantly more than any other route.”
• Further work to be done
England: The Carter Review
Purposes:
• define effective ITT practice;
• assess the extent to which the system
currently delivers effective ITT;
• recommend where and how improvements
could be made; and
• support choice in the ITT system by improving
the transparency of course content and
method.
Carter Review – the research
dimension
• What do the best ITT providers do to ensure new teachers are prepared to
adopt evidence-based teaching and are research literate? What would you
like to see more of?
• What is the most effective way of integrating theoretical and practical
training?
• How important is academic accreditation in ensuring that trainees become
research literate?
• What are the characteristics of weak training on evidence-based teaching?
What would you like to see less of?
• To what extent do universities’ research priorities match school needs?
Contacts/follow-up
• BERA HoDs event 3 February
• ian.menter@education.ox.ac.uk