THE REVIEW MATRIX

EVIDENTIAL STRANDS Submissions Soundings Surveys Searches

PERSPECTIVES: Children Society Education

THEMES: Purposes & values Learning & teaching Curriculum & assessment Quality & standards Diversity & inclusion Settings & professionals Parenting, caring & educating Beyond the school Structures & phases Funding & governance

EVIDENCE: QUANTITY

Formal written submissions received 1052 (between 1 & 300 pages each)

Collective consultations to date & scheduled 274 (between 1 hr & 2 days each)

Regional community soundings 87 sessions in 9 regional locations

National soundings 9 full-day seminars in London & Cambridge

Other consultations 180 to date and scheduled

Commissioned surveys of published research 28

Published sources cited in the research surveys 3000+

Further published sources cited in final report 1000+

INTERIM REPORTS

October 2007

Community Soundings (1)

November 2007 – May 2008

How well are we doing? Standards, quality and assessment (3)

Children’s lives and voices: home and school (4)

Children’s development, learning and needs (4)

Aims and values (4)

Structures and curriculum (3)

Governance, funding, reform & quality assurance (4)

Teachers: training, development, leadership, workforce reform (3)

Learning and teaching (3)

February 2009

Towards a new primary curriculum (2)

PRIMARY ITT – SOME ISSUES FOR DISCUSSION

THE BEST-TRAINED TEACHERS EVER? Politics and evidence.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: ways of conforming vs ways of thinking.

TDA standards vs models from research. (More)

THE CURRICULUM: expertise, PCK, the classteacher system, roles and routes. (More)

PEDAGOGY: recipe vs repertoire; prescription vs principle.

ROUTES: the future of the BEd; the viability of a one-year PGCE

THE TEACHER EDUCATORS: what expertise does the job really require? Is there is ‘signature pedagogy’ for ITE? (Shulman / Furlong)

UDEs: RESEARCH AND QUALITY (Smithers and Robinson).

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT:POLICY vs RESEARCH

THE TDA STANDARDS: QTS (Q) – Core (C) - Post-threshold (P) – Excellent (E) – Advanced Skills (A) What is the difference? Where do they come from? How have they been validated? How useful/objective are they?

GLASER. Development as change in agency over time: externally supported – transitional – self-regulatory.

DREYFUS AND DREYFUS. : novice – advanced beginner – competent – proficient – expert. From rules via precedent case and strategic knowledge to intuition, fluidity and idiosyncrasy. ‘Experts engage in performance in a qualitatively different way than do novice or competent performers.’ (Berliner)

NBPTS standards as validated by reference to research and learning outcomes: ‘The features with the greatest ability to discriminate between the expert/non-expert teachers were the degree of challenge the curriculum offered, the teachers’ ability for deep representations of subject-matter, and the teachers’ skilfulness in monitoring and providing feedback to students.’ (Berliner).

‘Deep representations of subject matter’, the class teacher and ITT…

Expert teachers: advanced skills or constrained skills?

THE CURRICULUM PROBLEMACCORDING TO ROSE

‘How can we help primary class teachers solve the quarts-into-

pint-pots problem of teaching 13 subjects, plus religious

education, to sufficient depth, in the time available’

THE CURRICULUM: THE REAL PROBLEMS

WHAT IS PRIMARY EDUCATION FOR? The absence of debate about the aims of primary education. Stated aims as cosmetic; real aims as before.

MANAGEABILITY vs EXPERTISE: is the problem the curriculum, or the available resources and expertise for teaching it? Why does Rose presume this is a problem only for class teachers? The wrong tree?

ONE CURRICULUM OR TWO? The 1870-2009: the 3Rs and the divided curriculum

THE CHARADE OF REFORM. 1989 and 1998: re-labelling & adjustment at the margins rather than reform. Since then -

the erosion of children’s statutory entitlement to breadth and balance

the untenable opposition of breadth and ‘standards’

standards in literacy and numeracy as proxies for the quality of the whole.

‘STANDARDS NOT CURRICULUM’. The distorting impact of the standards agenda (PNS + SATs)

TRANSITION AND CONTINUITY, especially EYFS-KS1.

A MUDDLED AND POLARISED DISCOURSE. Subjects, knowledge, skills and themes.

PRESCRIPTION, COMPLIANCE, DEPENDENCE and the loss of autonomous professional discussion.

A NEW PRIMARY CURRICULUM: ELEMENTS

The Community Curriculum

30% of teaching time

Overall framework and Programmes of study

Locally proposedNON-STATUTORY

Domains• Arts and creativity• Citizenship and ethics• Faith and belief• Language, oracy and literacy

• Mathematics• Physical and emotional health• Place and time• Science and technology

Aims• Wellbeing• Engagement• Empowerment• Autonomy

• Encouraging respect and reciprocity• Promoting interdependence and sustainability• Empowering local, national and global citizenship• Celebrating culture and community

• Exploring, knowing, understanding and making sense• Fostering skills• Exciting the imagination• Enacting dialogue

A New Primary Curriculum

The National Curriculum

70% of teaching time

Overall frameworkNationally determined

STATUTORY

Programmes of studyNationally proposedNON-STATUTORY

CONDITIONS FOR SUCCESS

Genuine reform: not mere re-labelling of existing national curriculum

Redefine standards: entitlement to excellence in all domains, not just in what is tested

Redefine / rebalance roles: DCSF, QCA, National Strategies, local authorities & schools

Re-invigorate local innovation and ownership through community partnerships and

capacity-building

Re-think national strategies: re-integrate literacy and numeracy with English and

mathematics

Make what is non-statutory genuinely so: end ambiguity of ‘non-statutory but obligatory’

Reform national assessment

Re-think teaching roles & staff deployment for new approach to entitlement /standards

Encourage school and professional partnership and networking

Reform ITT and CPD with new roles and enhanced expertise in view

Lift level of curriculum debate, especially in relation to subjects, knowledge and skills

PRIMARY ITT – SOME ISSUES FOR DISCUSSION

THE BEST-TRAINED TEACHERS EVER? Politics and evidence.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: ways of conforming vs ways of thinking. TDA standards vs models from research.

THE CURRICULUM: expertise, PCK, the classteacher system, roles and routes.

PEDAGOGY: recipe vs repertoire; prescription vs principle.

ROUTES: the future of the BEd; the viability of a one-year PGCE

THE TEACHER EDUCATORS: what expertise does the job really require? Is there is ‘signature pedagogy’ for ITE? (Shulman / Furlong)

UDEs: RESEARCH AND QUALITY (Smithers and Robinson).

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