For several years my school has branded itself as a 'research-engaged learning community'. A touch grand perhaps but it captures the essence of the culture we are trying to engender throughout the school. We encourage teachers to engage with research – to read journals, articles, blogs and books about teaching and learning, and leadership. We want teachers to engage in research – to contribute to developing our collective understanding of how to maximise the richness and depth of our students' educational experience.
Action research of this kind is a superb form of continuing professional development (CPD). At the heart of any good CPD is a process of reflection whereby teachers adapt their practice in the light of new information, ideas or feedback. Engaging in research is an excellent way to do this. Firstly, because of the rigour of the approach and, secondly, because of the level of commitment secured as teachers select a topic of special interest to them; action research affords a high level of autonomy which teachers thrive on.
Our approach has been articulated and organised in different ways over the years, depending on funding and other constraints, but, in addition to formal master's degrees that we part-fund, our school has two main avenues for engaging in research as CPD.
The first involves every member of staff attending a teaching and learning workshop. Staff meet at scheduled points in the year in self-selected groups to pursue an area of mutual interest. We also take an extra staff day to facilitate this. There is a simple framework of exploration, evaluation and reporting-back. Some groups are cross-curricular, others are within subject departments and – although we have explored using an overarching framework or theme – increasingly teachers are left to decide what they want to do.
There have been some fascinating examples so far. Talking Texts was a cross-curricular approach, looking at the impact of reading texts aloud in class. 'Closing the gap' marking saw the physics department develop ways to enable students to act on written feedback. In Removing Scaffolding, our science teachers ran class experiments with less guidance to develop thinking skills.
All groups contribute to an event in the summer term in the style of 'marketplace CPD'. Each runs a stall presenting their findings and colleagues spend a couple of hours engaged in dialogue and discussion. We also run a half-termly staff publication, Learning Lessons. This features one piece of research and provides an excellent outlet for sharing ideas; they are all available on our website.
This year we have embarked on a new venture in partnership with CamSTAR – a collaborative group of schools facilitated by the Education department at Cambridge University: Cambridge Schools Teachers and Research. We've been members for many years and are now supporting a series of teacher-research projects following a process that CamSTAR has devised. Some 16 teachers in 11 different groupings have enrolled to explore their teaching and learning workshop ideas through CamSTAR. The aim is to add rigour and depth to all aspects of the process by formulating questions, developing an effective methodology (surveys, video capture, test data, interviews), conducting an impact analysis and reporting findings for a peer audience.
The projects are expected to run for 12 to 24 months and the teacher researchers are expected to produce a report using a CamSTAR template, approximately 1500 words long, that can be fed into the CamSTAR group online, through conferences and in a publication of similar work across the collaborative. Here are some examples of projects in their early stages this year:
In theatre studies we're using video to capture and e-folio to improve self and peer assessment. We are looking at the use of cloud-based 'exercise books' where students can upload and share their work, including word documents and recorded footage of their performances. The public critique is already showing signs of improving the quality of the work produced.
In history we're researching the problems that year 13 students encounter with critical thinking, particularly with evaluation of historical sources for their independent investigation coursework essay. This links to a study with KS3 history students where the teacher is recording the discourse between pupils as they explore sources, leading to greater insight into the skills needed to evaluate sources effectively.
In economics, students are working as editors and authors of articles on economic issues, producing a specialist publication. We have already seen the students involved benefit from the project; they are motivated by writing for a public audience and go further with their research and analysis. Plus, the articles they have written are well worth reading.
Maths teachers are trialling pre-recorded video as means of explaining concepts. The project involves three different videos, of varying interests and depth, along with a ladder of questions for three groups of different ages and abilities. So far it has been well received by all. The lower-ability groups responded particularly well, possibly because they enjoyed the different format, and being able to pause or rewind without embarrassment.
Teachers have also explored the idea of learning Latin as a 'living language' with more opportunities for dialogue, as opposed to a straight translation-based subject. This project lends itself to a range of methodological approaches - test data and focus group responses, for example - and promises to provide a very interesting perspective.
We've found teachers are highly motivated by the process; it is voluntary, self-directed and unpaid, yet they engage with it because of the rewards that this level of rigour brings. The high quality support from Cambridge is invaluable although the gains are mutual: through this process, we are adding to the sum of human knowledge. That is what research is all about. We are fortunate to have the link with Cambridge and an established staff publication but both approaches could be adopted anywhere and I recommend the whole research-as-CPD process very highly.
Tom Sherrington is headteacher at King Edward VI Grammar School in Chelmsford.
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