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To the next level: improving secondary school teaching to outstanding Research report Peter Daw Carol Robinson To the next level: improving secondary teaching to outstanding Welcome to CfBT Education Trust CfBT Education Trust is a top 30* UK charity providing education services for public benefit in the UK and internationally. Established over 40 years ago, CfBT Education Trust has an annual turnover exceeding £100 million and employs more than 2,000 staff worldwide. We aspire to be the world’s leading provider of education services, with a particular interest in school effectiveness. Our work involves school improvement through inspection, school workforce development, and curriculum design for the UK’s Department for Education, the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), local authorities and an increasing number of independent and state schools, free schools and academies. We provide services direct to learners in our schools, through projects for excluded pupils and in young offender institutions. Internationally we have successfully implemented education programmes for governments in the Middle East, North Africa and South East Asia, and work on projects funded by donors such as the Department for International Development, the Australian Agency for International Development, the World Bank and the US Agency for International Development, in low- and middle-income countries. Surpluses generated by our operations are reinvested in our educational research programme, Evidence for Education. Visit www.cfbt.com for more information. * CfBT is ranked 27 out of 3,000 charities in the UK based on income in Top 3,000 Charities 2010/11 published by Caritas Data Welcome to Owen Education Owen Education is a consultancy led by Peter Dougill and Mike Raleigh. It specialises in evaluation and review in education and children’s services. Cover image: © Copyright Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of CfBT Education Trust. © Copyright CfBT 2013 To the next level: improving secondary teaching to outstanding Contents About the authors 2 Acknowledgements 2 Executive summary 3 1 Introduction 5 2 The findings of recent UK research on teaching 7 3 The view from teacher educators in universities 12 4 The view from the schools 18 4.1 Observed characteristics of the most effective teaching 19 4.2 Five case studies from schools 22 4.3 The view from the students 36 5 Conclusions and recommendations 38 5.1 What do these schools tell us? 38 5.2 Key characteristics of success in schools with mature systems and cultures 39 5.3 Recommendations for moving to the highest stage in teaching quality 41 References 42 1 To the next level: improving secondary teaching to outstanding About the authors Dr Peter Daw is a former HMI and Divisional Manager at Ofsted and was a Senior Regional Director for the National Strategies. Dr Carol Robinson is Principal Research Fellow in the Education Research Centre at the University of Brighton. Acknowledgements The research was led for Owen Education by Peter Daw. Carol Robinson conducted the review of UK research literature. Peter Daw conducted the interviews with university staff and made some of the visits to sample schools. Other school visits were carried out by Alan Howe and Helen Howard. The team is very grateful to the headteachers, principals, other staff and students of the following schools which were visited in the review for their eager co-operation and openness: Aldersley High School, Wolverhampton Blatchington Mill School and Sixth Form College, Brighton & Hove Oathall Community College, West Sussex St Bede’s Catholic College, Bristol St Mary’s Catholic High School, Wigan Stoke Damerel Community College, Plymouth The Bridge Learning Campus (secondary base), Bristol The BRIT School for the Performing Arts & Technology, Croydon Twynham School, Dorset They also thank the following universities whose members of staff were interviewed for this enquiry: Keele University (David Miller) University of Exeter (Professor Debra Myhill) University of Leeds (the late Professor Philip Scott) University of Reading (Professor Andrew Goodwyn) Thanks are also due to John Richmond, who edited the final report. Ofsted’s HMI were not interviewed during the research and interviewees’ comments are entirely their perception. 2 To the next level: improving secondary teaching to outstanding Executive summary This study complements and builds on a previous report, To the next level: good schools becoming outstanding (Dougill et al., 2011). It focuses on schools that either achieve and maintain high-quality teaching or succeed in rapidly improving the effectiveness of lessons. The study is set in the changing context of school improvement, which is putting a renewed emphasis on the quality of teaching and especially subject-specific pedagogy. A review of recent UK research covers teaching strategies which improve learning; professional development approaches which enable teachers to learn new skills and refine their practice; and factors which either enhance or impede such improvement. The review shows the importance of the active involvement of learners in their own learning. Teachers’ skills of questioning and explanation, based on sound subject knowledge, are seen to be important to learners’ progress. Teachers’ professional development is found to be most effective when based on individual need and in context and when pursued collaboratively in schools. Coaching and mentoring are also useful when characterised by high-quality support. Interviews were conducted with experts in university education departments to shed more light on the precise features of very effective subject pedagogy. These experts confirmed the complex interplay of skills, knowledge and personal qualities to be found in the practice of effective teachers. They especially emphasised the importance of these teachers’ awareness of the needs of individual learners and of the way they develop students’ conceptual understanding and skills within lessons and during longer units of work. Nine secondary schools, selected for their success in improving teaching and learning, were visited for the study. Senior leaders, heads of subject departments, effective subject teachers and their students offered their views on why and how these teachers achieved their success. Sample lessons from each of the nine schools are briefly described, followed by more detailed case studies of five of the schools, tracing something of their improvement journey and philosophy. The visits illustrate how schools with the most mature practice explore differences in pedagogy from subject to subject and advance the role of subject leaders. Lesson observation and study are a permanent part of a self-critical culture in these schools. The schools share two common characteristics: strong visionary leadership; and effective, integrated systems for regular quality review, performance management of teachers and associated continuous professional development. The report draws together the findings from the literature, the interviews and the school visits to identify a number of key characteristics of success for improving teaching. Figure 1 summarises these key characteristics, and highlights how they are manifested in schools with more mature systems and cultures. Such schools are those which have been performing well for some years, with established, stable senior leaders and staff at lower levels, and with mature systems for monitoring, evaluation and teacher development. 3 To the next level: improving secondary teaching to outstanding Figure 1: Key characteristics of success for improving teaching identified in schools at different stages of the improvement journey Characteristics Schools with more mature of success systems and cultures • Inspirational leadership • Delegated leadership • Accountability of teachers • Lesson observation for the school’s success as a shared enquiry • Shared expectations of quality • Effective teaching: customised within subjects and understood • A major emphasis on within a longer timeframe self-evaluation • Instinctive and continuous • School-wide assessment self-evaluation for learning • Excellent assessment • Teacher development mainly in-house • A perspective beyond the school The report makes recommendations for moving to the highest stage in teaching quality, based on the findings of this small-scale study. These recommendations focus on: • developing subject leaders • making time for subject teams to meet and plan • being subject-specific about pedagogy • establishing longer units of work as the standard currency of scrutiny • making judicious use of student self-assessment • seeing the school as a contributor to local networks. 4 To the next level: improving secondary teaching to outstanding 1 Introduction Changes to the educational landscape This report appears at a time of very rapid change in the educational landscape in England. Increasing numbers (now over half) of secondary schools are moving from being maintained by local education authorities to academy status, sometimes individually and sometimes as part of a group or ‘chain’ of schools. Low-attaining schools are becoming academies under the control of a range of sponsors, often when they have been judged as inadequate in inspections, or have GCSE results below the designated ‘floor standard’ (in 2012, set at 40% of pupils gaining five or

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