School of Education
PLATINUM PARTNERSHIPS IN LEARNING AND TEACHING IN THE NORTH Newsletter - December 2015 (Edition two)
Wishing you a very tmas s i r h C y r r e M hool c S e h T m o r f of Education
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INTRODUCTION AND WELCOME
It is difficult to believe that it is six months since we were preparing the last newsletter. A lot seems to have happened in the world of teacher education in a short space of time. For us, the end of the last academic year saw a great set of newly qualified teachers leave us and go into posts all over the country. The completion rates for all of our ITE programmes were excellent and many had had jobs lined up from Easter, so it was satisfying to see them go through our examination boards in June and July so successfully. The final year students on the BA in Primary Teaching did exceptionally well, with 40 out of 80 trainees graduating with first class honours degrees and 31 obtaining upper second class honours at the Summer
Congregation in the Cathedral in June. This year’s Neville’s Cross College Award for outstanding undergraduate ITE trainee went to Hannah Rowland. There were also some outstanding performances by PGCE trainees as well, both academically and professionally on school placements, and this attracted a lot of praise from our external examiners. We hope many of them will be able to return in January 2016 to attend the Winter Congregation. We are, as you can imagine, extremely proud of them. Almost before those groups were out of the door we were thinking about the 2015/16 cohorts. The BA team had held open-day events in Spring and early Summer and the PGCE teams held two very successful pre-course days in June, with high attendance. There was a lot of adjustment to documentation to be done over the Summer to bring our new Standards guidance into life and we very much appreciated the help, support, and suggestions from colleagues in our partnership schools who worked with us on these in the Summer Term. Last academic year we piloted PebblePad as an e-learning portfolio for our secondary PGCE students and so this term, with the University’s support, we have extended its use to those secondary PGCE
trainees who are now NQTs. We have also rolled it out to the primary PGCE trainees and to the first year BA (Primary Teaching). The roll out will continue and by 2019/20 all trainees in all years of all ITE programmes as well as all our NQTs will be using it. We hope head teachers in schools employing our NQTs will find this useful for career development and progression. At the end of September, we held a very successful Partnership conference in Hardwick Hall Hotel, Sedgefield. A good lunch was followed by an entertaining lecture from Professor Joe Elliott on the Dyslexia Debate and a very helpful and positive discussion about the “Durham Difference” for partnership. Our thanks to everyone involved in that day for making it so successful. It only remains for me to thank all of you for your continued support in helping us to train great teachers and to wish you all a peaceful and enjoyable holiday when the break eventually arrives. Lynn Newton Divisional Director – Initial Teacher Education
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NQT TEAM UPDATE Since the new term began, the NQT Team has been busy preparing and working with our new group of NQTs. Many initiatives and events have been planned for this academic year to support Durham NQTs and provide opportunities for enhancing their development as NQTs. These include addressing issues surrounding safeguarding, behaviour management and special educational needs and disability. As always, our main concern at Durham is to support the professional development and learning (PD&L) of practitioners within and beyond our partnership schools, including newly and recently qualified teachers. Kirsty Anderson, the Durham PGCE Primary NQT lead, has been communicating with NQTs via the Primary NQT Facebook page access the page regularly, and the team in Durham updates the page with posts about job opportunities, classroom ideas and useful links. The NQTs themselves make use of the page to ask for lesson ideas and resources, which is a very useful tool! The focus since September has been developing an offer of 1:1 support. Twice monthly the NQTs can contact Kirsty either by phone or in person between 4pm - 7pm on specified dates. Primary NQTs are also encouraged to email queries at any time. This is proving very successful - queries have ranged from reminders about lesson ideas to discussions about career progression to support for job interviews, all of which have been positive! Alongside this continued 1:1 support, a TeachMeet took place on the 17th of November. Partnership Schools and Primary NQTs attended the twilight session. The theme was SEND, with a short keynote from one of our new Durham colleagues, Rachel Simpson. The Facebook page is a great way to remind everyone about the TeachMeet, and Kirsty hopes to see many more of our NQTs at future TeachMeets to share good practice, and to catch up on their progress so far! Janet Degg, the NQT Team lead for BA Stockton NQTs, has been consulting with her NQTs regarding productive initiatives to support their continued progress in schools. Janet and her colleagues provide a programme of PD&L events in response to the needs and interests of NQTs and RQTs from Durham ITE Programmes. BA NQTs can meet with Janet via a direct phone line for support, and email support is also available from 3.00 to 4.30pm every Thursday. Janet e-mails all BA NQTs with news about events and activities and there is also a BA NQT Facebook group. In response to needs and interests identified by NQTs, Janet has planned some specific PD&L events in order to support their on-going progression. For example, next term Dr David Waugh will present a
twilight session for NQTs on ‘Writing with and for Children’ and ‘How to Teach Spelling Effectively’. There is also the NQT Conference planned for BA NQTs at Queen’s Campus, Stockton on Saturday morning, 2nd July, 2016. The programme details will be forwarded to NQTs soon. PGCE NQTs, both primary and secondary, are welcome to attend this conference as well if they would like to. It is also hoped that some BA NQTs would like to join the BA Humanities field visits later this academic year. This is an opportunity for them to develop their field visit leadership skills. These visits are in December 2015 and March 2016 and are hosted by Janet (RE), Ron Rooney (Geography) and Dr Andrew Joyce Gibbons (History). Contact Janet if you are interested. Additionally, Janet would like local school children to visit the University. Last term one RQT with some of his colleagues benefitted from bringing his Y6 class to the University for a ‘University experience’. This is something that can be arranged for NQTs and RQTs this year, too. Dr Karen Lowing, who is the overall NQT Team lead, also leads for Secondary PGCE NQTs. She ran a twilight event for new NQTs on the 17th November in the School of Education. The session began with a presentation from Steven Holden, Durham Constabulary, on safeguarding in schools. Pam Vennart from Queen Elizabeth School then talked about Behaviour Management strategies for NQTs. Karen concluded with a session on NQTs as practitioner enquirers, a particular approach to progressing professional practice and learning in the classroom. Durham Secondary NQTS are already familiar with this approach from their studies during their PGCE year. Karen encouraged NQTs to continue their work as classroom researchers by reminding them of the opportunities at Durham to complete their Masters in practitioner research. In addition, Karen is also in contact with secondary NQTs via the secondary NQT Facebook page, where events and news items are regularly posted. Karen encourages all Secondary NQTs to engage with this resource and will soon be inviting secondary NQTs to engage with online tutorials at certain times and days of the month, in order to support NQTs progression in practice. The use of PebblePad as a repository for resources for secondary NQTs and as a space to diarise developing practice and store a range of supporting evidence of practitioner development is also being trialled this year. Lastly, Karen is planning further twilight sessions and a June conference for NQTs, soon to be RQTs, and the new up and coming group of NQTs from the present secondary PGCE cohort. Further details of twilight sessions and the June conference will be advertised via the secondary NQT facebook page.
If you have any general enquiries, in the first instance please contact Karen at: k.a.lowing@durham.ac.uk. Specific enquiries for Primary and BA NQT leads can be sent respectively to: Janet.degg@durham.ac.uk or Kirsty.anderson@durham.ac.uk
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RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS The practical work challenge: incorporating the explicit teaching of evidence in subject content Ros Roberts and Cath Reading, who both teach science on Durham’s primary and secondary Partnership programmes, have recently published an article in School Science Review http:// www.ase.org.uk/journals/schoolscience-review/ about the challenges of implementing the Working Scientifically component of the Science National Curriculum. The new National Curriculum in England aims for pupils to understand traditional ideas in biology, chemistry and physics as well as understanding evidence, as specified in Working Scientifically. Ros and Cath draw on years of research and work with our students in Durham to suggest how the teachers might teach about evidence, providing examples from their experience such as: If you want to know more about our work or would like to discuss how it might be used to support teaching in your school, please contact Ros or Cath directly or via our PD&L unit Emails: rosalyn.roberts@dur.ac.uk; catherine.reading@durham.ac.uk; Janet.degg@durham.ac.uk (PD&L Unit lead) Reference: Roberts, R. and Reading, C. (2015) The practical work challenge: incorporating the explicit teaching of evidence in subject content. School Science Review, 96(357), pp. 31-39 Website: http://community.dur.ac.uk/rosalyn.roberts/Evidence/cofev.htm
Ane Instruction for Bairnis to be Learnit in Scottis’: A Study of Scots Language in the Scottish Secondary Classroom The study began in 2010 and was funded by The Beacon Trust and Newcastle University. Data was collected from two southwest Scottish comprehensive secondary schools. The researcher wished to explore pupil and teacher attitudes regarding the place of Scots language in the Scottish classroom. The researcher also explored how such attitudes have transpired and why they sustain. Suggestions and recommendations for the inclusion of Scots in Scottish schools were produced from the results of the study. Results and wider analysis are soon to be published in academic journals within the fields of sociolinguistics, cultural studies and education. The full research study can be accessed via the following link: https://theses.ncl.ac.uk/dspace/handle/10443/2677
5 A summary of the main themes to arise from the results outlined that many participants were unsure as to what was meant by Scots and were hesitant with regard both the value of Scots and its place in Scottish schools. Numerous participants recognised Scots as an essential aspect of Scotland’s history and culture and as being intrinsic to national identity. A number of participants even encouraged the inclusion of Scots in the classroom. However, many participants did not regard Scots as ‘appropriate’ for school. They were concerned about the value of Scots and thought they, ‘would have to re-educate’ themselves in the code. Other staff participants recognized the need for a canon of Scots and further resources in Scots for schools. Dr. Lowing continues to publish in the area of sociolinguistics and national identity studies and is happy to discuss her work further via email: k.a.lowing@durham.ac.uk
CREATIVITY IN SCIENCE? Teachers in the UK are urged to foster creativity in young children (NACCE, 1999) Our research aims to promote creative thinking and problem solving abilities in children, through primary science learning. We are hoping to develop a CPD package for teachers, on strategies to promote creativity in science. As a first step, we have launched a questionnaire to understand teachers' notions of creative thinking in science. It would be great if you could spare, a little of your time (<15 minutes) to answer this questionnaire. The link to the questionnaire is given below.
https://durham.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/primary-teachers-notions-of-creative-thinking-in-science-7 We would be happy to share our major findings and deliver a half day or twilight teacher training session, at the end of our study. If you are interested in this, please feel free to email me (Prathibha Susan Abraham, email: p.s.abraham@durham.ac.uk) Our Research Team: Prof. Lynn Newton, Prof. Doug Newton & Prathibha S. Abraham
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NEW WORKS FROM DAVID WAUGH English subject leader David Waugh’s second children’s novel, “Girls Can’t Play Football!” was published recently, following the success of his first, Lottie’s Run. David has worked with children in partnership schools, using the stories as a stimulus for discussion and writing. Indeed, four partnership schools are acknowledged in the books, as children’s ideas led to changes in republication drafts. “Girls Can’t Play Football!” was first published as a short story when David worked as an adviser for National Strategies and was used in an interactive DVD, Developing Literacy in Initial Teacher Training. It tells the story of Lauren, who desperately wants to play football despite rejection by the boys. Lottie’s Run was written for his granddaughters, but after one of David’s students asked him to work with her class at Green Gates in Redcar, David completed it and it was published. A third novel, Jessica’s Other World, will be published in 2016. All three books are illustrated by Stuart Trotter, who also illustrates the Rupert stories.
David has also had academic books published in the last six months: Lessons in Teaching Phonics in Primary Schools with Jane Carter and Carly Desmond, and Beyond Early Writing with Sally Neaum and Adam Bushnell. Language and Communication co-written with Kate Allott, and a second edition of Teaching Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling in Primary Schools are due out in spring 2016.
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ONGOING SCHOOL OF EDUCATION RESEARCH Some ongoing research projects https://www.dur.ac.uk/education/research/groups/ that may interest colleagues in schools includes: • Stephen Gorard has National Literacy Trust funding to evaluate literacy on Academies programmes: He is currently working with 36 East Durham schools, many of which are members of the Partnership, to develop a Year of Reading. This will involve conferences, CPD in schools, work with children and visits from authors and illustrators. • Emma Flynn is exploring social learning and innovation with young children. She examines the contexts under which children learn for themselves and when they choose to learn from others.
FOCUS ON .... THE PGCE SECONDARY Secondary PGCE students and staff have experienced an exciting and engaging start to the new 2015/16 academic year. The induction period in September welcomed the new cohort of beginning teachers to The School of Education and introduced these students to the current context in education and the role of the teacher therein. Aspects of character, resilience and the levels of professionalism required to be successful in the teaching profession were also considered. Students were encouraged to examine pertinent agendas in education such as safeguarding, tackling prejudice, child development and effective behavioural strategies to ensure progression. In particular, students were supported in beginning to develop an enquiring and critical stance as autonomous practitioners by, for example, engaging critically with the Teacher
Standards and what it is to enter the teaching profession in today’s Britain. Subject groups within the Secondary PGCE programmes have also been very busy with, for example, the PE students transforming themselves into the fictitious dance group, The Dunelm Dance Company. They were tasked with choreographing an expressive dance routine to reflect their interpretation of a poem called “Masks”, which tells the story of struggle, anger, fear, determination and resilience. The poem contained nine different masks, each with its own colour, identity and personality. It was the role of every student to become his or her mask, and express this through dance. From toxic black, the devil himself, to yellow, like an early morning warming sun, each aspect was incorporated into one, flowing dance routine that reflected the student’s interpretation of the poem.
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The PE students underwent hours of rehearsals to perfect their routine. For many of the students, this was a somewhat unnatural process and activity for them but it helped to hone their determination and resilience, characteristics they will demonstrate and model in their placements and future teaching careers. No barrier stopped them successfully achieving this challenge! Recently Maths students joined Science and Geography students on a two-day residential course at Blencathra, to consider approaches to teaching various aspects of Maths beyond the classroom. Students calculated the height of mountains and the flow rate in rivers, using mathematical principles. Maths students benefitted from the expertise of the scientists and geographers and the latter groups enjoyed considering their subjects from a more mathematical perspective.
9 Scientists explored classic fieldwork, the biologists helping chemists and physicists with approaches to learning outside the classroom. Additional activities included succession studies on a scree slope, pond dipping, catch release and sampling techniques, creative bucket fieldwork and river studies. This event proved to be an excellent cross-curricular opportunity in providing students with invaluable perspectives and strategies with which to teach their subject in schools. Running up to Halloween, the English group held a spooky creative writing session. Dressed in costume, the students toured Durham and at various pertinent points they practiced their presenting skills by reading ghost stories to the rest of their group. During this session the students also planned lessons to support their pupils to write creative supernatural stories. They collected many different engaging stimuli, developed strategies to introduce the conventions of the short story and considered approaches to differentiate effectively for writing amongst the range of abilities they will encounter in their pupils. From this session they will produce a scheme of work on the supernatural, which they can both use in their own classrooms and offer to their colleagues as way of thanks for hosting them during the autumn / winter placement.
All staff managing, teaching and supporting on the PGCE Secondary programme have thoroughly enjoyed the start to another successful year at Durham University and look forward to working with school colleagues in the near future. Please contact Dr David Stevens at david.stevens@durham.ac.uk if you wish further information on the Secondary PGCE programme at Durham.
Professional Development and Learning (PDL) 10
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT How can Durham University colleagues help? AND LEARNING (PDL) Did you know that it is possible for you and your colleagues to tap into a wealth of expertis
here in the School of Education? We have staff who can cover different phases of education How years can Durham University colleagues help? and sixth form working. We can also from early and primary through to secondary Did you know that it is possible for you and your colleagues to tap into a wealth of expertise here in the aSchool Education? We have staff who canarts cover differenthumanities phases of education support across wideofrange of subjects, from the though to the sciences. In from early years and primary through to secondary and sixth form working. We can also support addition, oura wide research into a range curricular, andsciences. practice issues may across range of subjects, fromofthe arts thoughpedagogical humanities to the In addition, our be of research into a arange of curricular, pedagogical andand practice issues may be ofUnit interest. have be mor interest. We have Professional Development Learning [PD&L] andWewould a Professional Development and Learning [PD&L] Unit and would be more than happy to discuss than happy tohow discuss how we can help support best practice in schools. with you we canwith help you support best practice in schools.
Research informed Parctice schools / students visits to the university
Partnership support in schools Non-award bearing CPD
Enrichment activities in schools
Subject knowledge enhancement NQT support and provision
So how does the PD&L Unit work?
We have’ an established CPD and Outreach Unit – the PD&L Unit - to keep schools informed about our activities and to provide non award-bearing CPD support, not only for our partnership So how does the PD&L Unitprofessional work? colleagues in the region. The interrelated areas of school colleagues but for other the CPD and outreach work are shown above. The work is multi-faceted and Partnership schools may be involved in several different activities in a year. Partnership schools will normally hear The School of Education has established a CPD and Outreach Unit – the PD&L Unit - to keep schools about the opportunities through their STCCs (for primary colleagues), through school tutors (for informed about colleagues), our activities and provide non award-bearing secondary from ourto website or through this newsletter.CPD support, not only for our
partnership school colleagues but for other professional colleagues in the region. The interrelated areas of the CPD and outreach work are shown above. The work is multi-faceted and Partnership
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WHAT IS ON OFFER IN EACH AREA? Partnership in the Community
This includes opportunities for Partnership schools to bring students to visit the University, either in Stockton or in Durham. A typical visit would take place outside the normal University teaching term and could include talks, curricular activities or guided tours of the campus. Some schools have already had science problem challenges for KS 2 children with University staff. Other examples are the Maths Trail in Hardwick Park, or the visit to the University’s Botanic Gardens which provides a great venue for science activity. In mid-November, we held a Mathematics Enrichment Morning. On Saturday 14th Children and teachers from partnership primary schools had a thoroughly enjoyable and challenging morning at Queen’s Campus. Coming from as far away as Leyburn and Stanley, specialist teachers and children worked with the BA Primary specialist trainee teachers, Janet Degg and Andrew Joyce-Gibbons. The maths challenges the children had to complete included: exploring the properties of prime numbers, developing algebraic expressions, systematic investigation of the properties of numbers, verbal reasoning with fractions, and, iterative approaches to problem solving. The day was made even more special thanks to the first and second year trainees who gave up their Saturday morning to help run the event. Parents were also given informal and practical advice on supporting learning through questioning. The morning finished with a plenary focusing on learner resilience and encouraging a growth mind-set. We are really looking forward to inviting even more children, teachers and parents next year!
Non-award bearing CPD
The PD&L unit offers short non-award bearing sessions for staff meetings and twilight sessions for teaching colleagues to update or refresh ideas.
For example, Dr Alan Walker-Gleaves offers sessions on Computational Thinking, Basic and Intermediate Coding, and Using the Raspberry Pi. We can arrange for a member of our staff to visit your school if you let us know your particular interests. For example, one of the schools that visited the University in June have invited Cath Reading (BA Primary Education Programme Director) to go into school to present science activities. There are also opportunities for teachers to join the BA QTS trainees on Humanities field trips. If you would like to join the field visit to Egglescliffe village in December 2015, or to Souter Lighthouse or Bede’s World in March 2016, as a visitor, please contact us.
NQT Provision
While the NQT Team provide a programme of support and events in response to the needs and interests of our own NQTs and RQTs from Durham ITE programmes, we are always happy to include other NQTs and RQTs if space allows. Please read about this in the earlier newsletter item by Dr Karen Lowing.
Participation in Research
We are one of the leading research departments in the country. Did you also know that the Pupil Premium Toolkit was developed here by Steve Higgins and a team of colleagues? You might have seen Joe Elliott talking about his book, The Dyslexia Debate, on “Loose Women” on televisions, but do you know what he actually said? You and your school may be interested in finding out more about our research or even in participating in the educational research taking place within School of Education. Current projects include:
• schools working on RME and
collaborative planning strategies with Janet Degg; • teachers working on teacher
well- being research with Kirsty Anderson; • Caroline Walker-Gleaves’ current research into how schools support adopted children, and her work exploring whether Caring Primary Teachers make pupils better learners; • Ros Roberts’ work on concepts of evidence in science; • research into creativity and teaching for creative thinking by Lynn Newton; • The link between “heart” and “mind” – the impact of emotions on teaching and learning – by Doug Newton. There are many more research projects going on. Visit the website for more information. If you are interested in working with us in these or any other areas, do get in touch. Alternatively, if your school has a project that you would like help with, we would also be happy to discuss it with you.
Who do I contact?
Contact Janet Degg in the School of Education if you would like additional details about any of the non award-bearing CPD and Outreach opportunities mentioned above on: Tel: 0191 334 0196 or Janet.degg@durham.ac.uk
Contact us on: School of Education Durham University Stockton Road Durham County Durham DH1 1TA Tel: +44 (0)191 334 8310 Fax: +44 (0)191 334 8311
Email: partnership.coordinator@durham.ac.uk Web: www.durham.ac.uk/education
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