OUR CHALLENGE Professor Graham Donaldson The Robert Owen Centre University of Glasgow August 2014

1. OUR CHALLENGE • Professor Graham Donaldson • The Robert Owen Centre • University of Glasgow • August 2014

2. Summary - Big Messages 21st century poses new and fundamental challenges for school education Need to balance short-term impact with long-term growth – urgent does not always mean important CfE/TSF/HGIOS provide strong policy and professional context Invitation to have more professional engagement in educational change Significant implications for teachers, schools, local authorities and national government

3. Factors Driving Change Demands to use public resources efficiently Information on school quality, including international comparisons Technological developments, commercial interests & media • Rising importance of education • Knowledge and the economy • International competition • Growing expectations Increased autonomy at local and school levels Increased accountability in public sector and demands for evidence-based policy making

4. Trends and Forces Shaping Twenty-First Century Education • “...no education system can remain static. The world is changing rapidly, Technology is transforming our lives. The skills needed in the future will be very different from those needed today. Education offers each individual and nation the best chance of navigating an unknown future – coping with uncertainty, adapting to evolving conditions and learning how to learn.” • Lee Hsein Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore 2012 (Oceans of Innovation, IPPR 2012)

5. How the demand for skills has changedEconomy-wide measures of routine and non-routine task input (US) Mean task input as percentiles of the 1960 task distribution (Levy and Murnane)

6. Low skill jobs are vanishing Over the last six years, the UK economy has shed 400 no-qualification jobs every day Beyond Leitch (Patel et al., 2009)

7. Some Implications • New and growing expectations? • Instrumental pressure? Education is for work? • Generational competition for resources? • Growing inequality - deprivation and educational achievement? • Education for democratic participation / citizenship? • Uncertainty and lifelong learning? • New conceptions of knowledge? • Creativity, teamworking, problem-solving? • Better learning or different learning? • Anywhere, anytime learning? Hand-held connectivity? • Social networking

8. Some Interesting Challenges Defeating destiny – deprivation/expectation/aspiration Raising standards – particularly in maths and science and basic literacy and numeracy skills Establishing a broader, more secure and enduring base of education before qualifications Creating space for engaging teaching and learning Sustaining high quality and relevant education

9. 21st Century schooling? • Importance of • deeper conceptual understanding • connected and coherent knowledge • authentic knowledge in context • creativity and problem solving • learning in collaboration and to collaborate • Move from what students should be learning towards what they should become? (Priestley and Biesta 2014)

10. “..many of today’s schools have not caught up as they continue to operate as they did in the earlier decades of the 20th Century. • “How can learning within and outside schools be reconfigured in environments that foster the deeper knowledge and skills so crucial in our new century?” • “To succeed in this is not only important for a successful economy, but also for effective cultural and social participation and for citizens to live fulfilling lives.” • OECD 2008

11. Storming the classroom citadel • Package and push? • Direct and demand? • Manage and measure? • Promise and punish? • Hearts and heads? • Network and nourish? • Pervasive tension between immediate impact and long-term, sustainable growth

12. Impact of Reform • ‘...there is strong evidence from a variety of sources that two decades of reform have not led to anticipated levels of educational improvement, and certainly not commensurate with levels of investment in education, but have led to widespread teacher and headteacher dissatisfaction’ • Hoyle and Wallace Educational Leadership: Ambiguity, Professionals and Managerialism 2005, pp. 4-5

13. What might work? PISA 2012 • Schools with more autonomy over curricula and assessments tend to perform better than schools with • less autonomy when they are part of school systems with more accountability arrangements and/or greater teacher-principal collaboration in school management. • Stratification in school systems, which is the result of policies like grade repetition and selecting students at a young age for different “tracks” or types of schools, is negatively related to equity; and students in highly stratified systems tend to be less motivated than those in less-stratified systems. • Beyond a certain level of expenditure per student, excellence in education requires more than money: how resources are allocated is just as important as the amount of resources available. • Across OECD countries, students who reported that they had attended pre-primary school for more than one year score 53 points higher in mathematics – the equivalent of more than one year of schooling – than students who had not attended pre-primary education. OECD PISA Results in Focus 2014

14. SUCCESS FACTORS The past The most effective systems Student inclusion Some students learn at high levels All students learn at high levels Curriculum, instruction and assessment Routine cognitive skills for lifetime jobs Learning to learn, complex ways of thinking, ways of working Teacher quality Taught to teach established content High-level professional knowledge workers Work organisation ‘Tayloristic’, hierarchical Flat, collegial, differentiated and diverse careers Teacher evaluation and accountability Primarily to authorities Also to peers and stakeholders

15. BUT • Economic and Social Research Council • Education in a Devolved Scotland 2013 • Reading score of 15 year olds • PISA, 2009

16. Teachers and change • Cuban and Tyack in Hattie ‘Visible Learning ’ 2009

17. The Reform ‘Programme’ • Broad, twenty-first century education for all (four capacities / outcomes- based general education between 3 and 15/Senior Phase) • Deep learning and higher standards • Literacy and numeracy across the curriculum • Engaging, imaginative and purposeful pedagogy • Assess what we profess – wider achievement • AND • A new paradigm of governance and change • A revitalised teaching profession • Distributive leadership • Constructive accountability • GIRFEC • One aligned agenda

18. 21st century schools need teachers who • have high-levels of expertise – subject, pedagogy and theory • have secure values – personal and professional accountability for the wellbeing of all young people • ask hard questions of themselves and others • take prime responsibility for their own development • see professional learning as an integral part of educational change • engage in well-planned and well-researched innovation • are outward-looking and seek partnerships • Teaching Scotland’s Future, Donaldson 2010

19. From CPD to Career-Long Learning • “She’s been on a course” • Cascade – spray and pray • “They should try teaching here” • “When were they last in a classroom”

20. What Works Best? • Authentic – real issues in context • Extended not one-off • External stimulus and challenge • Engaged in learning • Collegiate – necessary but not sufficient • Supportive leadership • Funding/release time/voluntary or compulsory unrelated to influence on student outcomes • Timperly et al quoted in Hattie ‘Visible Learning’ 2009

21. Key Elements • Professional culture – collegiate, reinforcing and exploring • Professional commitment • Supporting structures and partnerships • GTCS Standards • PRD • Focus on impact on learning

22. Scottish Teacher Education Reform Clear national priorities New degrees – practicum reconceptualised Career-long professional learning – ITE/Induction New Standards Framework from GTCS More relevant, collegiate and challenging professional development Professional review and update Masters level profession – Scottish Masters Framework Scottish College of Educational Leadership (SCEL) Strong partnership approach - University engagement • (Donaldson, Teaching Scotland’s Future 2010)

23. What about you? • Do not feel imprisoned by the past or the context • Active member of extended professional community • Professional inquiry and exploration • Engage with complexity • Masters level thinking • GTCS Standards and Professional Update • Leadership is not about length of service • Aspiration, reflection and optimism • A revitalised teaching community • Better experiences and outcomes for our young people

24. KEY MESSAGES • The world is changing fast • Schools are inherently sceptical about external solutions • The answer lies in the school and the wider learning community • Nobody can give you that answer but outside support and challenge matters • Be clear and honest about your challenges – no conspiracies of ignorance • The way forward is more about exploration than implementation • Draw strength from colleagues – isolation is the enemy of improvement • Break new ground – real action research