Mark Ford - Why it’s time to ‘Talk Pedagogy’

Professional Advisor on Pedagogy, Mark Ford reflects on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and argues that now is the perfect time to ‘Talk Pedagogy’.

In his book ‘In Search of Deeper Learning’, Jal Mehta explored how American high schools could create more powerful learning experiences for students, leading (over time) to deeper learning. He recognised that to create challenging, rigorous and purposeful education, schools needed to combat historical and contemporary forces that were working directly against their objectives.

Mehta identified a number of common factors within schools that had successfully transformed the learning experiences of their students. Notably, he found that teachers who were providing deeper learning experiences for students had typically themselves had a ‘seminal learning experience’ within their career, which had strongly influenced their teaching practice. This brought to mind my own experience as a young teacher.

I remember setting a Year 8 Science class that was deliberately challenging and was very similar to work I had set for my GCSE class. I was puzzled by the high quality of work from the younger class, which matched many of their older Year 11 peers. Determined to explore this more deeply, I stumbled upon ‘concept mapping’, as a tool to uncover the depth of a learner’s understanding. I soon discovered that the Year 8 pupils did not have the same depth of understanding. This encouraged me to question the learning process and explore pedagogy more deeply.

In a few years’ time, many teachers will look back and identify this current time, under the grasp of COVID-19, as a seminal point that helped shape their thinking in relation to pedagogy. The crisis has acted as a catalyst for changes that were unimaginable at the beginning of 2020, with schools embracing blended learning and the COVID classroom. Whether we are thinking about learning experiences, personalised approaches or the very way our schools are organised in time and space, it is very likely that many things will never go back to the way they were before.

In the midst of this ongoing disruption we need to work together to deepen our understanding of pedagogy, within the context of the four purposes and the new curriculum for Wales. Talk Pedagogy has been developed, as part of the National Exploration of Pedagogy, to support this process. As an online, virtual community teachers, leaders and other school staff coupled with middle tier colleagues will be able to share thinking and reflect on practice in order to support this. Other resources, such as the reflective tools within the PLP and the range of free academic literature available through EBSCO (within the PLP), can also play a key role in helping us to develop our thinking.

Talk Pedagogy provides a space to reflect on some of the big questions for teachers, to share our thinking, to reflect on our approaches to professional learning and consider how our experiences can empower the workforce to embrace change. Key questions include:

• How might we need to upskill ourselves in order to realise the new curriculum?
• What are the pedagogical principles that need to underpin our professional learning?
• What do meaningful and authentic professional learning experiences look and feel like?
• How do we need to hone our metacognitive skills?
• What part does collaborative enquiry play?

Reflecting on our practice during the pandemic will be a key feature of these discussions. The importance of wellbeing and ‘readiness to learn’ coupled with strategies to support motivation, engagement and interaction are all coming to the fore – perhaps in a way they have not done so previously. Talk Pedagogy will provide the space to capture some of this thinking so that we can use it as a springboard to support our work on further shaping the learning experiences we want to see in ‘our’ schools in a 21st Century Wales.

The Professional Standards can also play a role in shaping our thinking. In relation to pedagogy, the standards are under-pinned by the concepts of ‘Refining Teaching’, ‘Advancing Learning’ and ‘Influencing Learners’. If we reflect on the statements that sit under each of these, as teachers and leaders, then how might we now be thinking differently? In what ways has our view of the ‘learning environment’ and how we manage it changed as our repertoire of blended learning experiences has grown? How will our relationships with parents and carers be different, as we engage with them in relation to the four purposes?

When I first started visiting schools and having discussions with middle tier colleagues, at the beginning of 2020, we reflected on something Ken Robinson once said:

"…we need a radical change in how we think about and do school – a shift from the old industrial model to one based on entirely different principles and practices. People do not come in standard sizes or shapes, nor do their abilities and personalities. Understanding this basic truth is the key to seeing how the system can be transformed. To do that we have to change the story: we need a better metaphor..."

When we were having these discussions we did not envisage the onset of a world-wide pandemic and the radical changes we would all face.

Over the last year Teams, Google Meet and Zoom have helped us to think differently about how we ‘get together’ and communicate with one another. But we have also seen the limitations of online interaction, reinforcing the central role that face to face socialisation plays in our professional learning. When we do come together as groups (at some future point), how do we ensure that we build stimulating and productive encounters?

Many of us are now starting to think differently about how we think about and do school. There are many things we want to get back to and need to get back to – but there are also things we need to stop doing, start doing or simply adapt. Talk Pedagogy will allow us to discuss some of these things, as part of the wider national exploration of pedagogy.

About Mark Ford

Mark is currently on secondment to the Welsh Government working on pedagogy, leadership and professional learning. Mark worked in secondary schools for nearly 25 years before joining the ERW as the regional lead for school to school improvement in 2016. He has also had roles supporting curriculum development and professional learning in two local authorities.

American trained teacher leading the way in Wales

Katie Davies is a bit different to other school teachers in Wales. Katie teaches Geography and Health & Social Care at Eastern High in Cardiff, but she was actually born and bred in the USA and qualified as a teacher at Eastern Illinois University in the Mid-West.

Having completed her teacher training in 2008, Katie taught in schools in her home country for four years. However, being married to a Welshman, Katie and her husband decided to relocate and moved from the USA to Wales in 2012.

On touching down on this side of the pond, Katie found that her teaching qualification was recognised in England, but not in Wales. Katie therefore needed to cross the bridge to England every day to get teaching work in the Bristol area.

Katie said: “I worked hard to qualify as a teacher in the United States and was proud of what I had achieved. I wanted to continue to my career, so I began commuting every day to secure teaching work”.

About eighteen months ago, Katie secured a job at Eastern High in Cardiff but because her qualification was not recognised, this was as an unqualified teacher.

But there was light at the end of the tunnel. On 1 January of this year, the Welsh Government introduced new legislation meaning that any qualified teacher from across the world can apply to have their teaching qualification recognised in Wales and in turn be awarded Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). The assessment is carried out by the Education Workforce Council (EWC), the regulatory body for education practitioners working in schools, further education, work-based learning and youth work in Wales.

Katie said: “I was aware that this change was afoot, so I submitted my application as soon as the new legislation came in. Within a couple of weeks, my application had been approved and I am now a fully-fledged teacher in Wales. I’m delighted as I love teaching and have made Wales my home”.

Since Katie’s successful application, the EWC has already received a further 10 applications from qualified teachers in countries ranging from Ireland to Hong Kong to Australia.

EWC Chief Executive, Hayden Llewellyn said: “We welcome this change by the Welsh Government, it was eagerly anticipated and brings parity with the recognition arrangements in other countries. All applications we receive are assessed against rigorous criteria, meaning that we are able to welcome experienced teachers from outside of the UK who bring not only the necessary qualifications but also wide and varied cultural backgrounds.”

If you qualified as a teacher outside Wales and would like to have your qualification recognised here, please visit our page for practitioners trained outside Wales.

Susan Davis & Chantelle Haughton - Ethnic Minority recruitment to ITE and the teaching profession in Wales: an opportunity to have your say.

In January 2021, our multi-ethnic team at Cardiff Metropolitan University launched an important research project to evaluate ethnic minority (EM) recruitment into initial teacher education (ITE) and the teaching profession.

Within the UK, the under-representation of EM groups in teaching was initially highlighted in 1985 in the Swann report. There has been a long-standing concern about the under-representation of minority ethnic teachers (Carrington et al, 2000; HMSO, 1985). In Wales, the then General Teaching Council for Wales published a strategy for teacher recruitment and retention in 2003 which included the need to improve EM recruitment to teaching. It suggested that this would require more research, guidance and greater collaboration within the education sector (GTCW, 2003). More recently, Haque (2017) and Joseph-Salisbury (2020) have highlighted a persistent shortage of EM teachers in England.

In short, despite the issue of EM under-representation within teaching having been first raised nearly over 25 years ago, there has been little concrete change.

According to Stats Wales, (2020) 12 per cent of pupils aged 5 or over in Wales are from backgrounds other than white British. However, there are disproportionately low numbers of EM teachers in Wales in comparison to EM pupils. Across Wales teachers are less ethnically diverse than the pupils they are teaching with only 1.3 per cent of teachers in Wales categorising themselves as being from a non-white background. It is therefore clear that the Welsh teaching profession and Welsh universities need to embrace change and begin to provide equality of opportunity for EM ITE students, teachers and leaders. This issue needs to go back to basics, and the pro-active recruitment of a new generation of EM students onto ITE programmes (Egan, 2020) needs to be explored in depth.

How you can help

We have been capturing the views of serving EM teachers about their ongoing career progression and listening to learners aged 14+, to gain an understanding of their views of teaching as a possible career. This evidence we are gathering will inform the Welsh Government to determine the sort of changes that will be required to increase the recruitment of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic students into the teaching profession.

Through our research, we aim to identify perceptions and opinions from a range of groups. We want to know:

• Are EM school pupils and students in further and higher education aspiring to become teachers? And, if not, why?
• What do EM applicants who were unsuccessful when applying to ITE programmes feel are the factors which led to their rejections?
• How do newly qualified EM teachers and EM teachers at various stages of their careers feel about their career progression?
• What do EM school leaders think about these matters and what particular issues do they encounter on career journeys?

Our research will reflect on and unpick elements of socially constructed layers of lived reality for participants (Garcia et al., 2015) and will aim to understand this complex dynamic, taking into account participants’ culture, background and lived experiences.

Conversations and focus groups form the basis of our investigations. We expect the data will lead to a virtual vision map, a collaborative document which we will present to the Welsh Government along with the final report. This will enable a decolonised approach to future policy development in Wales.

Our research will continue until the end of March 2021. We are keen to hear from you if you are from an EM background, either as a student (14+) who may or may not have thought about a teaching career, or a serving teacher or leader. We need your voice in relation to this research project. Please contact our research assistant, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for further information.

References

• Egan, D. (2020) Ethnic Minority Recruitment to the teaching profession in Wales: Outcomes of a rapid review of background research evidence. Welsh Government.
• Carrington, B., Bonnett, A., Nayak, A., Skelton, C., Smith, F. Tomlin, R., Short, G., and Demaine, J. (2000) The recruitment of New Teachers from Minority Ethnic Groups, International Studies in Sociology of Education, 10 (1), 3-22
• Garcia, J. A., Sanchez, G. R., Sanchez-Youngman, S., Vargas, E. D., & Ybarra, V. D. (2015). Race As Lived Experience: The Impact of Multi-Dimensional Measures of Race/Ethnicity on the Self-Reported Health Status of Latinos. Du Bois review: social science research on race, 12(2), 349–373.
• General Teaching Council Wales, (2003) Action Plan for Teacher Recruitment and Retention in Wales. Wales: General Teaching Council for Wales.
• Haque Z (2017) Visible minorities, invisible teachers: BME teachers in the education system in England. Runnymede Trust and NASUWT. 
• HMSO (1985) The Swann Report. Education for All. Report of the Committee of Enquiry of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.
• Joseph-Salisbury (2020) Joseph-Salisbury R (2020) Race and racism in English secondary schools. Runnymead Trust. 
• Stats Wales.gov.Wales (2020) Pupil level annual census, September 2020. Available online at: www.https://statswales.gov.wales

Anthony Priest - Mental health, wellbeing and Covid-19: free support for schools in Wales

As the Covid-19 crisis continues in to 2021, the education workforce has shown an unwavering determination to ensure students are able keep learning, while juggling increasing professional and personal demands. Teachers and staff have adapted to new regimes and dealt with constant guidance changes, all while delivering daily lessons to students. This has left many of our professionals understandably feeling exhausted.

Yet we still hear of education professionals going the extra mile to support the children and young people they work with. This is particularly the case as the pandemic has crystallised pre-existing concerns such as learning inequality, child poverty, and access to technology.

Recent findings from Education Support’s Teacher Wellbeing Index 2020 research tells us that the wellbeing of education staff is significantly lower than that of the general population. Symptoms of poor wellbeing such as difficulty concentrating, insomnia and tearfulness are also on the rise.

If not addressed these symptoms can lead to diagnosable mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. Stress levels also remain high across teaching professionals (62%) and senior leaders (77%), with long hours and workload being a major contributor.

This is why Education Support continues to call for staff wellbeing to be central to education policy and school practices. Support for teachers has become an issue of social chances and national recovery. This generation of children will be significantly affected by experiencing a global pandemic during their compulsory education. It is vital that those responsible for giving them the best chance are well enough to keep showing up - both physically and emotionally.

Education Support’s School Wellbeing Service - free support for schools

At Education Support, we are heartened by the courage and compassion of the education workforce and proud to be able to offer support during this difficult time.

Funded by Welsh Government, Education Support can now offer support to schools across Wales with a focus on supporting staff mental health and wellbeing. Through the School Wellbeing Service, we are offering free workplace wellbeing services. We can provide your school with resources, staff workshops and advice on policies and practices based on best practice that support staff wellbeing during this time.

You will be allocated a Wellbeing Advisor who can work with you to create a bespoke plan of support that is tailored to your school’s needs.

The advisor can also provide access to other services, through Education Support, including support for headteachers in Wales through a facilitated peer-to-peer support programme and the offer of one to one supervision delivered by trained counsellors. Again, this service is free for schools in Wales.

What schools using the service say

We have received an overwhelmingly positive response from staff who have already accessed the School Wellbeing Services in Wales. Here is just some of the great feedback that we have received:

“I have found it invaluable to have a 'go to' expert such as yourself who is always available and can signpost us to different levels of support for various scenarios…It has been particularly beneficial to gain collective support as a group and then reflect on how it has impacted back in our different school context…we are very grateful to Education Support and the part you are playing during the pandemic.

I felt uplifted when leaving school! It is really so important to talk and share, and good to speak to people outside my normal circle of support, too.

It was one of the best things I ever did to sign up for this support group. I truly value the opportunity to get together with such a lovely bunch!"

If you would like to get in touch to find out more about how we can help (or arrange a call) please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Free confidential helpline available

In addition to the School Wellbeing Service for schools, Education Support’s free and confidential helpline is also available to all education staff in Wales. This includes teachers, lecturers and support staff or youth workers working in schools and colleges.

If you are struggling with difficult feelings you can get emotional support from a trained counsellor by calling 08000 562561. Support is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Call us. We’ll listen.

Anthony Priest

Anthony Priest is a Workplace Wellbeing Advisor at Education Support.