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The General Teaching Council for England (GTC) comments on one of the latest Primary Review reports, titled Learning and Teaching in Primary Schools: Insights from Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP).
The report makes reference to Hughes’ research project ‘home-school knowledge exchange’ (HSKE), which looks at the benefits of interactions between learning in home and school.
Commenting on the report’s findings, Keith Bartley, Chief Executive of the GTC, says:
‘We are keen to encourage teachers to develop the exchange between home and school learning and to support a ‘learning dialogue’ between teachers and parents. It is important to help parents to engage fully in their child’s school experiences and to help teachers understand better children’s learning outside of school.
‘We are confident that involving and engaging parents in children’s learning has a positive impact on a child’s enjoyment, motivation and enthusiasm for learning, especially in a primary school setting. The GTC has recently commissioned its own research with parents about their experiences of involvement and engagement in their children’s learning, which highlights this very issue. And the key messages for teachers from the ‘home- school knowledge exchange’ research are featured in the GTC’s on-line evidence resource for teachers, Research of the Month.’
Commenting on the report’s findings that effective teaching is dependent on teacher learning and that this development is best achieved through teachers’ critical inquiry, with colleagues, in the classroom context, Keith Bartley says:
‘We fully support this finding and strongly believe that teachers’ continuing development is key to their effectiveness in their professional roles. The GTC Teacher Learning Academy (TLA) offers teachers personalised learning opportunities that have been identified from their day-to day classroom practice, ensuring they are relevant and in line with their pupils’ development.
‘At the heart of the TLA is the notion of teachers working together; sharing their findings, ideas and best practice with colleagues for the benefit of each other, the whole school and all pupils.’
Commenting on the report’s findings that learning should aim to help individuals and groups to develop the intellectual, personal and social resources that will enable them to participate as active citizens, Keith Bartley says:
‘Both teachers and pupils need to feel empowered and confident that important issues can be discussed in the classroom. This will not only make for a more varied and substantial learning experience, but also empower pupils and give them confidence to discuss issues that are unfamiliar and, in some cases, worrying. We know schools that encourage children to explore environmental issues on a very local scale, actually enable children to understand these matters better, and feel more confident about dealing with them on a global scale.’
