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Taking part in a university’s early professional development (EPD) programme helped one teacher to develop her confidence and take control of her practice.
Katy is in the third year of her Masters course at the University of Hertfordshire. The university’s EPD programme gives teachers a chance to discuss and reflect on their practice.
The aims of the course are to:
Katy revealed her professional learning and reflective practice in three different contexts:
Katy explained that her development had been affected by key incidents that changed how she saw her role, and how she developed relationships with staff and pupils. Some of these resulted from the pedagogy of the programme, while others were part of the life of a school. All were significant events that broke with the normal pattern of teaching.
One incident that had a profound effect on her was the death of her teaching assistant, which occurred only three weeks into her first term’s teaching. The process of having to talk to her class about the death, and handle a situation for which there were no guidelines, forced Katy to determine for herself how best to respond.
Katy had been trained to teach through a four-year training programme packed with carefully planned experiences and activities. As a result, she saw herself as a passive receiver of knowledge. In dealing with this event, she had no previous experience to draw on and its impact was clearly strong.
Katy had previously seen knowledge as something transmitted by experts, yet now experienced it as gained through reflection on practice. She learned that not everything can be planned for, and achieved a better understanding of the importance of her relationship with her class:
‘It made me feel more human and less sort of mechanical, like a bit of a robot delivering something.’
This contrasts with her perception of her ITT experience, which she describes as ’listening to things‘ and ’taking things in’.
This early experience may have sensitised Katy to other observations. For example, she spoke about a context where she began to examine the effectiveness of a teaching strategy:
'I started questioning whether the children really did enjoy group reading... and perhaps they’re starting to stutter a bit because they’re nervous.'
Many teachers could make this kind of observation. The important point in Katy’s case was that she chose to examine this issue through a practice-based enquiry, and made some changes as a result:
'It made me see... I really can have an impact on the children in the school and I can make changes.'
By attending this kind of programme, students develop a sense of ‘ownership’ of their own practice, and they can use this to take forward their own development. Some teachers seize them and use them and some do not, or cannot, and Katy is an example of a teacher who does.
Katy gives a clear picture of a teacher who has grown in confidence and is excited by her ownership and control of her practice. She demonstrates a change, from when she felt her practice was closely following a prescriptive agenda, to being in control, and feeling that she can really have an impact.
NQTs are supported in their first two years by university tutors. If they choose to move from the Advanced Diploma on to a Masters, they are also supported into their third and fourth years of teaching.
The support NQTs receive from schools and their local authority is complemented by sessions with university tutors as part of the University’s Advanced Diploma. In completing the Masters, teachers move on to follow a programme to support their journey through their EPD.
The course include strategies that create:
Local authority (LA) partners provide a range of support for the programme. This includes NQT sessions (where teachers can join the EPD programme), finance, facilities and other resources. The LAs also share the teachers’ work with colleagues across the LA, as appropriate.
School colleagues have a vital role in maximising the impact of teachers’ work on the programme.
Teachers typically focus their enquiries on areas identified in the school improvement plan. The value of this is evident when teachers complete impact audit forms. These show how their work has impacted on themselves, pupils and colleagues in school and beyond. Impact is particularly significant when schools support teachers’ enquiries into practice and the dissemination of the results.
Our thanks to Roger Levy and Mary Rees of the University of Hertfordshire for these additional details. You can find out more about courses for teachers on the university website.
