Collaboration and Co-teaching for Successful Learning

By Nicola Crompton, Senior Teacher – Leader of Student Support Services and Claire Myers, Assistant Leader of Learning, Language Acquisition

As a non-selective school, and one which values diversity and inclusion, we treat all students as individuals, recognising they each possess different strengths, as well as areas for growth. Students have different needs at different times, with some needing more or additional support to be successful learners.

Within the Primary School, we have a combined team of specialists, including counsellors, EAL instructors and teachers, Learning Support Teachers, including support for those who excel academically, and a Speech and Language Therapist. They work with their teaching colleagues to meet the diverse language, social and emotional and academic needs of our students.

One of the ways in which we achieve this is to practice collaborative teaching, also known as co-teaching, throughout the Primary School. This is where the adult support from a specialist teacher is taken, whenever possible, into the classroom and where the students are supported alongside their peers.

What is collaborative teaching?

Collaborative teaching involves a specialist teacher or instructor and a class teacher co-planning and co-delivering the teaching instruction and taking shared responsibility for all students’ learning.

Why do we advocate for collaborative teaching?

We have seen the positive impact for both staff and students. When teachers share their experience, knowledge and skills there is significant potential for professional growth and upskilling of teaching practice.

Students benefit from more direct adult attention, interaction and feedback when there are two or more members of staff working within a lesson. Practising key skills, knowledge or language within their classroom supports contextualisation of skills.

There are benefits to teachers having a slightly different expertise and key intentions in the lesson. For example, the class teacher may be focusing on teaching specific scientific content and the other on reinforcing scientific language.

A great deal of research validates our own observational evidence. In 2016, Professor John Hattie found ‘collective teacher efficacy’ (the shared belief by school staff that they can achieve more by working together and sharing expertise) to be the most effective strategy for increasing student achievement.

Earlier, in 2014, Linda Darling-Hammond and Dion Burns

stated that, “more than any other policy area, actions that support collaborative learning among teachers appear to hold promise for improving the quality of teaching” (p. v). (1).

During CSL, we continued to provide similar models of support to students, with our specialist staff joining class lessons and breakout groups. This allowed us to maintain the support we can provide to groups and individuals.

It has been proved that, while effective, collaborative teaching is not as simple as putting two teachers in the same room and asking them to teach together. Time is needed to establish relationships and norms of working. Both adults need to have confidence in one another’s abilities, value the time that co-planning takes and be prepared to share responsibility for the learning process.

To support this, we planned and delivered a staff CPL session back in March 2021. This was very well attended by teachers and instructors from across the Primary School. The same session was then provided to our new teaching colleagues in November.

As more teachers embrace the concept of collaborative teaching and all that it encompasses, our impact on student learning is ever increasing.

Some quotes from Primary School teachers:

“For me, if every lesson had two teachers, the learning would be doubled. Co-teaching is a perfect way to conduct onsite, live professional development. We all approach activities differently and, because of that, two minds will always work better than one!”

“Collaborative teaching is an opportunity to learn from each other and share best practices. Lessons work best when we are both invested in the planning of the lesson. Where one teacher plans and both co-instruct, we don’t have the same understanding of the lesson.”

“Co-teaching is most effective when relationships are good between the teachers, when they trust each other and are both willing to collaborate. A feeling of vulnerability on both parts is one of the challenges co-teachers face.”

And from the children:

“I really like it when there is more than one teacher in my classroom. It means if I ever need to ask about the learning, there is probably a teacher at my desk or near my desk to help me. If the teacher wasn’t nearby, I probably wouldn’t ask - I would just guess.”

“Sometimes, I finish my task quickly and the other teacher in the room will look at what I’ve done then give me an extension. It might be different to my friends so we can’t help each other with these ones. I love it when this happens!”