Professional Learning
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Information about the school
Ysgol Penglais is an English medium school based in Aberystwyth, serving a wide area in North and mid-Ceredigion. There are around 1100 students at the school with 12.8% of students eligible for free school meals and 34.8% on the ALN register There are two special units on site: the Learning Support Centre for students with high levels of needs and the Hearing Resource Centre. Around 10% of pupils speak Welsh as a first language and 34 other languages are spoken at the school.
During the last five years, the school has been on a journey of improvement. This was underpinned by the school’s new vision which starts with the aim of being a ‘happy, ambitious and high achieving school where everyone is respected and valued’. This inclusive and ambitious vision incorporates the need to work as a whole community and for everyone to be the best that they can be, so that pupils can be successful citizens of their communites, Wales and the world. Professional learning has been a crucial aspect of the journey with an strong focus on teaching and learning. This has led to a very open culture where good practice is continually shared.The work done in the first two years in developing staff and pedagogy put the school in good stead to focus on developing the Curriculum for Wales. Research has been a very important aspect of this work, with all developments based on research and professional enquiry. More recent work on developing a leadership model where individual departments or faculties are given responsibility for driving their own improvement has further advanced a culture of a self-improving school where trust and accountability go hand in hand.
Context and background to the effective or innovative practice
The school’s journey to develop professional learning started in September 2017 where leaders started to develop a more open culture focusing on development rather than judgement. More ownership of their professional learning was given to colleagues and research groups were introduced enabling all colleagues to contribute to strategic development at Penglais.
In September 2018, further ownership was given to teaching colleagues and middle leaders to lead on developing teaching and learning within their faculties and also the wider school. This included:
- ensuring that all meetings had a strong focus on teaching and learning
- removing all grading from lesson observations, focusing on the quality of the professional discussion that arose from the observations
- working in faculties to develop their own assessment policies within the framework given by the whole school
- providing whole school guidance and direction about teaching and learning priorities whilst also developing faculty leaders to take more ownership of teaching and learning within their faculties
- encouraging colleagues to start contributing and sharing ideas in the twice weekly briefings on inclusion and ALN provision and teaching and learning
- greater participation from colleagues in INSET training and whole staff meetings
- introducing a coaching programme where every teaching colleague had access to a coach within their faculty
The aim of the coaching programme was to develop aspects of pedagogy within their subject area. Time for effective feedback from coaching sessions was built into department meeting time. For example, the languages department set up a coaching and pedagogy session each Wednesday lunchtime for 30 minutes to discuss professional practice and coaching that had taken place.
In September 2019 performance management objectives, now called professional learning objectives, were linked to teaching and leadership with the emphasis on the professional standards including leadership for all colleagues. For example, the mathematics faculty started trialing different teaching methods based on cognitive research and started teaching parts of their lesson ‘silently’. Colleagues shared the results with all staff through briefings and INSET.
In September 2020, methods of making professional learning more bespoke were implemented. Twilight hours were used individually or within a department to develop their practice. This took various forms with some doing online training, some carrying out research and others taking up department-based training which could be disseminated during meetings. The mathematics faculty, for example, decided to study and trial different aspects of research into teaching mathematics and reported back their findings in faculty meetings.
Professional learning has been enabled by providing time for teachers to undertake pedagogical research, supporting staff to apply and evaluate new pedagogy and sharing practice in briefings and faculty meetings. Following on from the coaching within faculties, the school introduced the role of an ALN teacher-coach. Within this role, coaching has played an important part in refining instructional techniques, improving personalised support for ALN pupils, and embedding strategies that develop reading, writing and oracy across departments.
Description of nature of strategy or activity
There has been a great deal of adaptation, development and refinement to the provision for professional learning, especially during the pandemic. This included:
- a weekly newsletter on effective practice with links for colleagues to experiment without the feeling that they ‘will make mistakes and fail’
- colleagues, including NQTs, presenting on best practice in online briefings,
- faculties working together weekly to develop resources and support blended and live learning and then sharing their recordings to further develop blended learning teaching techniques; best practice was then shared in weekly screencasts and presentations on how to develop live and blended learning
- developing an open culture with transparency in discussions, by sharing elements that did not go as well as planned in the teaching
Strategies have been refined to further develop professional learning. These include:
- professional learning objectives that are clearly linked to teaching and learning with one focused on an aspect of each member of staff’s own professional learning. Time is given for all staff to focus on this. This objective is linked to developing teaching, leadership or professional practice which will have an impact on pupils’ standards. These objectives are regularly discussed throughout the year with the appraiser in what are called ‘catch up meetings’. These have led to some teachers undertaking professional enquiry in the classroom.
- adapting the inclusion briefing to not just informing colleagues about pupil needs but also how to refine teaching techniques for improved outcomes for ALN pupils
- developing the teaching and learning briefing to be a popular session where many colleagues are keen to share ideas, successes and failures. This has been particularly effective when sharing work about the new curriculum, giving colleagues an understanding of the developments in other AOLEs and recognising that creating the new curriculum is a process of trialling, evaluating and refining.
- providing the opportunity for all colleagues to purchase a book on teaching and learning or leadership which then will feed into the bank or resources in our teaching and learning corner for staff in the library
- using video recordings of lessons to enable teachers to record their own practice, share good practice with their colleagues and discuss opportunities for development
Any teaching and learning development at the school is now rigorously informed by pedagogical research. All professional learning is centered around the whole school priorities, which gives a framework for teachers and adults and encourages rapid progress in these areas. There is a very supportive culture where quality assurance and professional learning are firmly linked through developmental lesson observations, learning walks and other activities. This leads to open, honest and trusting conversations on how to further refine practice. Coaching is an important element of this, with many teachers and leaders taking the opportunity to develop their skills further by being coached and by becoming a coach.
Following on from research groups, a number of members of staff have extended their professional experiences in collaboration with external agencies, this includes:
- taking up opportunities to do a Masters in Education
- studying for PhDs in education
- collaborating with universities on research projects
- presenting or working with external agencies e.g. Aberystwyth University, NAEL
- working with other schools to develop leadership skills
Next year the school is looking to:
- continue with the internal professional learning model with the focus on pedagogy for the new curriculum and the school priorities
- introduce an additional coaching model
- introduce more bespoke pathways for staff
What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?
There is clear evidence that professional learning and a change in culture has had an impact on the teaching and learning across the school, which in turn has had an impact on pupils’ standards. This can be seen in:
- the school now having a strong collaborative approach and teachers and leaders regularly having high quality discussions around pedagogy and leadership. The collaborative, open and trusting culture of school and self improvement has led to animprovement in teaching and learning across the school.
- a strong improvement in the 2019 GCSE and Key Stage 5 results. This improvement has continued at all levels with many pupils now making good progress.
- the annual staff surveys reporting a clear improvement in the quality, usefulness and delivery of professional learning and the high number of staff who report that they are trusted to innovate to meet the needs of pupils
- increased uptake by staff in individual, group and external research studies and professional qualifications
- contributions to external organisations on how they deliver professional learning.
How have you shared your good practice?
Representatives from the regional consortium visited the school to see the impact of research on the teaching of maths. The headteacher presented to a regional conference on the journey of school improvement through the focus on professional learning. Information about the journey of professional learning at Ysgol Penglais has been shared with the National Academy for Educational Leadership Wales on their website.