International Teaching Councils Conference, June 2009

published:25 Aug 2009

Extracts from a speech by GTC Chief Executive Keith Bartley given at the International Teaching Councils Conference in Cardiff, 24 June 2009

Keith Bartley spoke to delegates from around the world, from countries that either have a professional body similar to the GTC in England, or are in the process of developing one.

Keith’s speech, which focused on teacher professionalism and accountability, was given before the Government made its announcement about the planned introduction of a licence to teach for the profession, a matter which is still being debated and consulted on. A definite and detailed licence to teach scheme has not yet been put forward.

Check against delivery

Text of speech

I’m not sure when someone addressing a similar gathering could have said otherwise, but it’s an exciting, a changing and a challenging time for teaching and for the teaching profession.

I’m going to be speaking today about the changing context of teacher professionalism, and in particular how this relates to professional accountability, and how the accountability system might need to evolve to serve learning better. And I should say that although I will be talking primarily about the view from England, I hope that this will lead us to some general points about the nature and future of professional accountability. 

Professional judgement

Thinking on professionalism and accountability is shifting. It’s my firm belief that this brings with it the opportunity for a more personal sense of – and commitment to – accountability to be linked to more freedom for teachers to use their professional judgement. This holds great potential for the further development of learning in our schools. But as teaching councils we will need to play our part in ensuring that what emerges works for the benefit of learning and doesn’t simply form a different – or worse, additional – layer of process.

There is currently a critical tension between teachers’ administrative and system accountability and their own professional values and goals. The current regime neither fully encourages nor supports teachers’ professionalism. Instead a concept of accountability is encouraged that is limited to the monitoring of performance against specific and externally imposed targets, rather than a concept that incorporates a sense of personal/individual accountability as a professional or one that incentivises teachers to extend their professional knowledge and practice.

There is, I think, a broad acceptance of the need for teachers to have more scope for making informed professional judgements. And the Government in Westminster is stressing the importance of intelligent accountability, where institutions and individual professionals are trusted to work to set standards, with sufficient flexibility to adapt to local needs and circumstances. This professional licence of course needs to operate within a framework of professional accountability and, I would argue, professionally-led regulation.

The urgent need to tackle the persistent and widening achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged needs to be a key driver of this debate in education. Teachers need to be given greater responsibility to find the answers that are right for their individual pupils. They need this responsibility to be accompanied by more opportunities and more freedom to innovate to be able to do this. And they need to be able to equip themselves to do so by being able to access good professional development opportunities. Accountability needs to help, not hamper, all of this.

Professional accountability

We need to address the balance of national frameworks of institutional accountability and a burdensome framework of individual accountability, for example, through pupil testing, carrying with it as it does the potential to negate the personal professional responsibility of teachers. Put simply, children at the age of 11 are subject to a very narrow range of tests that are used for too many purposes. They are high stakes tests. We should be looking for stronger models of professional accountability that celebrate and motivate teachers to apply their professional judgement. 

We currently have a national accountability model that monitors – and therefore focuses – schools simply on test results rather than on ensuring the access to professional improvement, and indeed performance, of their teachers. A better balance between these two drivers could lead to teachers being allowed more individual freedom to exercise their professional judgement.

All of which means the time is ripe to consider professional accountability, and to make sure it is fit to achieve our common aim, to serve and support young people’s learning.

I argue that what we need are quality assured practitioners, supported by quality assured professional learning opportunities, teaching in quality assured workplaces.
Professional registration is of course a hallmark of a profession and an important means of assuring the public at large about teacher quality; that they are properly qualified and of good standing. This basic form of registration works alongside professional regulation to demonstrate that problems that may occur are dealt with fairly and transparently and in the public interest.

At GTC England we have stimulated a debate about what a more active expression of professional registration could look like, and what the benefits might be for teachers’ professional judgement, the standing of the teaching profession and, ultimately, for pupils. Some kind of more active registration, revalidation or renewed registration is common to many professions other than teaching of course. Equally that doesn’t mean that it is necessarily right for teaching, or that the models used by other professions would be right for us, but it seemed timely to be exploring the issues.

We must be very clear what we want and what we expect from any model of more active registration that may be introduced. Teachers specialise in learning and they know that clocking up a certain number of hours of study does not guarantee learning has taken place. If the teaching profession is to move towards this kind of system, we must be very clear both about the aims and expectations of what will be achieved, and that this will have at its heart – and have a measurable impact on - teaching and learning.
I’d like to spend a little more time now thinking about one of the possible motivations for advocating new approaches to more active registration, namely that it could help to persuade policy makers of the capacity of the profession to be more trusted to exercise its own judgement.

Trust in the profession

For me achieving a shift in professional accountability to one which permits teachers greater freedom and support to exercise their professional judgement responsibly is crucial. Let me say clearly that I whole-heartedly support the need for the profession to be accountable – this isn’t about a free-for-all with the profession operating in a vacuum without reference to its responsibilities to pupils, parents and society.

But it is teachers’ capacity and freedom to innovate that will unlock our ability to tackle persistent under-achievement in our schools. This is put at risk if professionals feel stifled and constrained by excessive levels of prescription and unhelpful accountability from being creative and taking measured risks; we must achieve a better balance.

Effective accountability also makes it possible for teachers and head teachers to be able to give a more meaningful account of their work to their most important stake holders – the children, parents and communities that they serve – and gives parents and pupils a very clear account of how schools and teachers support children’s learning. If teachers can give a better, richer account of their work to pupils, parents - and their peers- that will strengthen professional accountability for teaching and learning, and serve the public interest very directly.

And because schools that are the most effective in engaging parents with what their children are learning, and know how that learning can be supported, are the schools in which parents have the clearest understanding of what is happening in school, there is a clear link here between accountability and pupil outcomes supported by that accountability.

Innovative teachers, innovative schools

To look more closely at the links between innovation, professionalism and – another crucial factor – professional learning – I’d like to look at evidence from a report commissioned by GTC England and the Innovation Unit. This report, “Teachers as Innovative Professionals” found characteristics common to innovative schools.  In these schools:

• teachers saw their leaders modelling innovative practice
• there was a commitment to continuing professional development as a core practice - not a bolt-on
• time was found to initiate, experiment and reflect

In these schools teachers were also more likely to refine, test and evaluate their ideas. The skills to develop and evaluate new ideas were actively developed.
Most ‘innovations’ are the adaptation and development of approaches tried elsewhere. In the most innovative schools, national initiatives and evidence from elsewhere will be picked up, assessed for relevance, adapted for the local context, evaluated and improved and disseminated to other schools.

Teachers say they introduce innovation in their teaching to respond to the needs of their pupils, and that this increases their own job satisfaction.
Vitally, successful schools had continuing professional development at the very centre of the life of the school – not at the margin, not as an optional extra, not as a bolt-on.

Professional development

If a significant aspect of professional accountability is about commitment to on-going development, then the quality of, and teachers’ access to, CPD is vital. GTC England has invested resources in what constitutes effective CPD and how that can be recognised nationally. We see this as a key part of the GTC England’s commitment to raising standards of teaching and learning. In the development of the Teacher Learning Academy, we have tried to ‘hardwire’ these principles of effective CPD into a framework for classroom-based learning opportunities for teachers throughout their careers.

I mentioned earlier that the Government in England plans to introduce what it describes as a licence to teach. We know little more than this at the moment, although we are anticipating more information may come through an imminent White Paper. Above all, we must emphasise how crucial it is that any model of licence to teach, active registration or renewal that may be introduced into teaching is one that really supports teaching and learning, and does not simply add another layer of bureaucracy and unhelpful accountability. We are currently awaiting with interest the report of the select committee inquiry into school accountability; although this will be much broader than my topic today, including Ofsted, school self-evaluation as well as national testing and other themes.

We will continue to produce evidence and convincing arguments about what needs to be considered if this kind of system is to be successfully introduced and to achieve what must be its core aim to help teachers to improve teaching and learning.

Teacher Learning Academy

One of the requirements of the Teacher Learning Academy (or TLA) is that participants share their newly acquired knowledge and learning. A small scale project undertaken by one teacher can therefore have an impact across a department, across the whole school or even more widely across the profession. It is a powerful manifestation of belonging to a professional community, both at school level and more widely, and it reinforces a shared sense of professional identity.

So, what distinguishes undertaking a project through the TLA from simply attending a course or other CPD?

The nature of the process is the distinguishing characteristic; all the elements are those which evidence has shown to be the most effective vehicles for deep learning, in that they are those most likely to bring about a change in behaviour as a result.

When using the six core dimensions within the process, teachers report much greater confidence based on understanding of, and empathy with, their learners, applying these principles in their own teaching. The huge value of coaching and mentoring as a core skill cannot be under-estimated.

And, you may well ask, how is it working? Well, we have 18,000 teachers enrolled – that’s 1 out every 30 teachers registered in England and those teachers come from nearly 2,500 schools – that’s 1 in every 10 schools. And we only moved this from pilot to national roll-out a fortnight ago! It is really taking off – we had one thousand teacher enrolments in one week in early June – and over 1,000 schools have come on board in the current academic year.

And why is it so popular? I argue because it is owned by the profession, it is led, mentored and verified by the profession and it symbolises the community of professional learning about their practice that teachers themselves have generated. It is a real talisman of the profession’s willingness to take higher levels of professional accountability for the development of pedagogy and knowledge.