Teaching Scotland’s Future

1. Teaching Scotland’s Future Building on Graham Donaldson’s review of teacher education Sean Stronach Scottish Government

2. Teaching Scotland’s Future: overview of process • February 2010: Graham Donaldson commences review. • January 2011: Teaching Scotland’s Future published. • March 2011: Scottish Government response. • 2011 - ?: practical planning, embedding and evaluation of change.

3. Teaching Scotland’s Future:what is driving the change? International: • Foundations of successful education lie in the quality of education professionals and their leadership. • Focus on school education policy in the context of increased importance of international comparisons. National: • Imperatives of Curriculum for Excellence: improving standards and addressing equity. • Long-standing focus on enhanced teacher professionalism since at least ‘Teaching Profession for the 21st Century’ (2001).

4. Teaching Scotland’s Future:premises for change • Teaching as complex and challenging. • Leadership necessary from entry to the profession. • Coherent, career-long approach, with improved partnership working. • Rigorous selection; more relevant learning; to higher standards; with more efficient use of time and resources.

5. Teaching Scotland’s Future:taking it forward • Scottish Government accepted all recommendations, in full, in part or in principle. • National Partnership Group to take forward many of the main recommendations.

6. Teaching Scotland’s Future:key work strands Overarching: • Higher priority in policy-making (recommendation 1). • ‘new and strengthened models of partnership’ (recommendation 15).

7. Teaching Scotland’s Future:key work strands Selection: • Develop proposals for improving selection to ITE courses and maintain an overview of work to assess and, where necessary, support development of literacy and numeracy skills of entrants (recommendations 4 & 5).

8. Teaching Scotland’s Future:key work strands The early phase: • Planning initial teacher education and induction as one overall experience (10, 25 & 29). • Proposals on the nature of degrees: including the phasing out of the traditional BEd degree and further development of part-time and distance learning (9 & 11). • Develop clear expectations about those areas of greatest difficulty for teachers, where the early phase should focus more directly (12, 13 & 14). • Proposals for how evaluation of the effectiveness and impact of programmes in the early phase of teacher professional learning can be improved (22).

9. Teaching Scotland’s Future:key work strands Career-long professional learning: • Building greater accreditation and Masters-level credit into continuing professional development (44). • Clear expectations of areas where enhanced focus is needed within continuing professional development (42). • Shift balance of professional learning to more collaborative, sustained approaches, centred on self-evaluation and outcomes for children (33). • Improved impact from mentoring across the teacher education system (27 & 28).

10. Teaching Scotland’s Future:key work strands Professional learning for leadership: • Develop educational leadership pathway, including consideration of development opportunities for experienced headteachers (46, 47, 48 and 49). • Recommendations on role a virtual college of school leadership could play (50).

11. National partnership group:next steps. • National Partnership Group to confirm detailed plan for taking work forward, with timescales, to Ministers after the summer. • Continue to develop communication: www.npgteachereducation.gov.uk

12. Teaching Scotland’s Future Building on Graham Donaldson’s review of teacher education