The programme responds to the current national crisis in the teaching profession, with 44% of England’s state school teachers planning to leave their roles within the next five years. ECTs are the most at risk, with a quarter choosing to walk away from their teaching roles within the first three years.

The ECT Eden Project Weekender programme aims to support ECTs to help them rediscover the reason they became teachers in the first place through reflection, adventure, collaboration and building a network community to support them in their future career path.

Sam Kendall, Eden’s Head of School Learning, leads all of Eden’s work with schools, young people and their teachers. She said: “Teaching is such a wonderfully fulfilling job, and more than ever we need inspired and inspiring professionals to help prepare young people for our rapidly changing world.

“However, for a number of reasons, the scales are tipping unfavourably and many teachers are choosing not to stay in the profession.

“We’re hoping this new programme will help equip ECTs with the tools, takeaways and support they need to always keep in mind their motivation for starting out in this career and reconnect with the difference they want and can make for young people and their future. We want them to feel valued, to feel important and to be inspired to go on to have long and thriving careers.”

A group of 15 ECTs from 10 primary schools within the Learning in Harmony Trust were the first to take part in the ECT Eden Project Weekender programme.

Zahra Edwards, an ECT from Sheringham Primary School in Newham, London, was one of the attendees at this inaugural event. Zahra said: “The weekend was mind-blowing. It surpassed anything that I could have expected. It’s not just that we took the time to find our ‘why’, it felt like a wellness weekend.

“It has definitely re-inspired me, particularly for someone who works in a school in London, where our playgrounds aren’t big open spaces. Seeing how I can bring the outdoors back into the classroom and find alternative ways to engage my class has been really important to me.

“I’ve come away feeling calm, like I can take anything on, and like I can reconnect with myself and reconnect with my class.”

Over the three days, the programme encourages attendees to set intentions, learn about Eden’s Mission and reason ‘why’, rediscover their own reasons ‘why’ and take part in nature-based activities around the Eden site. They also hear from eminent guest speakers and take plenty of time for reflecting and crucial downtime.

Alex Bell, school leadership coach and Director at Portland Education , helped conceptualise and facilitate the programme. Alex said: “Teachers, and particularly those starting out in their careers through the statutory Early Careers Framework, spend a great deal of time learning about what they need to teach and how to teach with less emphasis on the ‘why’.

“What you teach will change in time. How you teach will get better over time. But why you teach is a precious flame that needs to intensify, not diminish over time.”

The ECT Eden Project Weekender is available to all schools with Early Careers Teachers and has been designed using the principles of the DfE Early Career Framework (ECF) and Education Endowment Fund’s Effective Professional Development recommendations.

To find out more about the ECT Eden Project Weekender, contact Sam Kendall on skendall@edenproject.com

A new initiative designed to showcase the impactful and essential work of Teaching Assistants has been launched by one of the UK’s foremost educational charities.

The campaign All I Do, created by the leader in vocational and technical learning NCFE, features real Teaching Assistants reading out public opinions about the role, before challenging the misconceptions and celebrating everything they do for children, young people and schools.

It comes as increasing pressure on school budgets means this vital role is at risk, potentially leaving some of the most vulnerable children without the support they need.  

Angie Rogers, Subject Specialist in Teaching and Learning at NCFE, said: “Teaching Assistants deliver a wealth of value for schools, yet often don’t receive the recognition their role deserves. We want to raise awareness of the impact Teaching Assistants are having every single day in supporting the needs of children and young people.

 “Teaching Assistants make up over a quarter of the workforce in schools, including up to 35% of the primary workforce. As a specialist role, they support some of the most vulnerable children and young people, including students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

“Despite the essential work they do, Teaching Assistants are often the first role to be made redundant or have hours reduced when budgets get stretched. That’s despite most teachers across primary and secondary schools saying they don’t have everything they need to support students with SEND.

“This is why we’re on a mission to champion everything Teaching Assistants do and the difference they make to so many. We’re also focused on supporting Teaching Assistants directly and helping them to develop their skills by improving access to specialised development and training opportunities.”

In a poll earlier this year by the research organisation Teacher Tapp, 88% of primary teachers and 81% of secondary teachers felt they didn’t have all the help they needed to support students with SEND.  

A recent National Association of Head Teachers survey also highlighted that, because of increasing pressure on budgets, 66% of school leaders believe they will need to consider making Teaching Assistants redundant or reducing their hours.

Lindy Orchard’s son is on the autistic spectrum and she has experienced first-hand the ways Teaching Assistants have supported him through the education system.

She said: “We knew he had problems from about the age of two, so we’ve had quite a lot of interactions over the years with a wide range of Teaching Assistants. It was an assistant in a nursery who was one of the first professionals to spot that things weren’t quite right, and that it wasn’t just me as a mummy being overbearing or overprotective.

“Towards the end of primary school there was a Higher Level Teaching Assistant who came in and was put one-to-one with my son for a while. She introduced things like a visual timetable for him at school, using time out cards for him, and was able to change the onus from he’s giving us a hard time, to he’s having a hard time.”

As part of the campaign, NCFE is looking for people to take a short survey so they can better understand perceptions around the role, both from Teaching Assistants themselves and others. Whether you’re currently working as a Teaching Assistant, work in education, or just interested in learning more, you can get involved.

To find out more about the campaign and to complete the survey, visit https://www.ncfe.org.uk/celebrating-teaching-assistants  

Blue Sky, which is based at The Lodge at Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School, part of the Romero Catholic Academy, welcomed more than 20 education professionals to one of its first in-person sessions as part of a bid to help teachers in the region maximise their potential.

The session saw a mixture of teachers, teaching assistants and leaders hear about the new opportunities and take part in a seminar focussed on improving pupil engagement and progress in Maths lessons.

Will Allen, Director of Blue Sky, has collaborated with strategic and professional partners to harness talent across primary, secondary and special schools in the region ahead of the launch.

The programme aims to ensure the best possible teaching standards for the benefit of children and young people in the city by providing school-to-school support in target areas.

He said: “This is an exciting new chapter for Blue Sky as we expand our training and development opportunities to teachers across Coventry, Warwickshire and the West Midlands, and ultimately have a real impact on the learning experience of children across the region.

“The level of expertise we have across the Romero Catholic Academy is tremendous, and while we continue to make this accessible to our own staff members, our expansion means that we will also offer these opportunities to other schools as part of a bespoke support package, whether that’s for certain subjects, leadership skills, or for SEND learning.

“Our new Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programme will be one of our flagship provisions following our expansion, but we will also look to extend invites to events, seminars and workshops throughout the school year, while having the capability to visit schools to deliver training in house.

“We’d love to hear from other schools and fellow education professionals about their personal development plans, and look forward to rolling out our new and improved provision in the next academic year.”

Blue Sky is delivering CPD to schools across the city throughout the academic year, including courses on Catholic Leadership, Senior Leadership Development, Subject Leadership, Teacher Development and a wide range of additional training and workshops.

For more information visit blueskytsa.org.

“We are delighted to offer this support to the early years sector as they look ahead to implementing the revised EYFS from September,” said Beatrice Merrick, Chair of the Early Years Coalition. “It is a rich resource which will support knowledge of child development and how children learn, and help practitioners make their own professional judgements about meeting the needs of the children they work with.”

Although Birth to 5 Matters builds on previous non-statutory guidance for the EYFS, it has updated all the material to reflect research evidence and meet the needs of practitioners today.  It outlines the foundations of good practice and offers information and guidance for practitioners to consider how the Principles of the EYFS can be brought to life in their setting. New sections on play, characteristics of effective learning, and self-regulation are designed to help practitioners to reflect on and develop their own pedagogy.

“The guidance includes detailed examples of trajectories of development and learning in all the prime and specific areas,” says Nancy Stewart, Project Lead.  “The need for this information to support child development knowledge came through very clearly in our consultations.”

But she cautions that a new mindset is needed across the sector, to move away from a checklist approach that takes practitioners away from being with children. “If settings have been using previous guidance as a checklist, they should not see Birth to 5 Matters as a replacement to be used in that way,” she says.  “Instead, it is a support for informed professional judgement that will help practitioners move to a new way of understanding and supporting children’s learning, with a minimalist approach to recording assessment.’

The Early Years Coalition is currently planning for training materials and events to introduce practitioners to using Birth to 5 Matters, as well as to support professional development in areas that have been highlighted through the consultations.

The launch at 7pm on Wednesday 31 March will be streamed live at https://www.facebook.com/birthto5matters, and a recording of the event will be available after the launch at https://www.birthto5matters.org.uk/ .

This newly launched Creative Education CPD course has been designed to help educators to reflect on their teaching and learn new skills that will allow them to implement small changes to their professional practice, and support their teaching in this new and uncertain world.

The global pandemic has massively impacted teaching staff, who have had little or no time to keep up with changes necessary or reflect on how to transform the landscape of teaching and learning.

Pupils’ deteriorating mental health, exam confusion, excessive workload, pressures of assessment targets and inspections, infection risks… The stressors in teaching are many and varied.

Led by Natalia Ernstman, Plymouth College of Art’s Senior Lecturer on their MA Creative Education: Making Learning, this new course, which will be delivered solely online, focuses on the belief that creativity is the route through which wider systemic challenges in education and personal resilience can be addressed.

Natalia said, “Teachers are at the front line of the pandemic in so many ways. Apart from having their own health to worry about, they are also dealing with increased feelings of anxiety and disillusionment among pupils, as well as fears and frustrations from parents. They are carrying enormous amounts of responsibility, yet it seems that they haven’t received the necessary support to be able to deal with this mental and physical burden. Nobody was prepared to deal with what Covid did to our society, but where other sectors have had more leeway to get it wrong and try again, teachers are under constant pressure to handle and solve the situation correctly and immediately. They are just expected to get on with it and make it work, because if they don’t, it’s our children’s futures that are on the line. It personally really worries me that so many teachers suffer from mental health issues as a result. It is harrowing to hear how many ambitious, enthusiastic and capable people decide that the teaching profession is too stressful for them and quit. It puts even more strain on the ones that remain, it’s desperate on so many levels.”

“At Plymouth College of Art, we don’t have the solutions to all of this, but we do know about creating safe and creative spaces where people can learn together to tackle challenging societal, professional and personal issues. That is what this short course is all about: creating a space to catch our breath, take stock and using the arts and research to design and implement small changes that support our teaching in this uncertain world. I have designed the course in a way that allows for ‘relaxed’ sharing of experiences and playful approaches to exploring where we are and where we want to go. Experts will share their view and will provide theoretical pedagogical underpinning.”

The course will also welcome guest speakers and educators to two of the sessions, one of which will be Dr Penny Hay, artist and educator, Reader in Creative Teaching and Learning, Senior Lecturer in Arts Education, Research Fellow, Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries; School of Education, Bath Spa University and Director of Research, House of Imagination (formerly 5x5x5=creativity).

The course is open to teachers in both primary and secondary education, as well as headteachers and managers in education, NQTs, and support workers. A limited number of places are available. The course will comprise of 5 online evening sessions over a period of 10 weeks. The first session will take place on 22 February 2021. Click here to find out more and to book your place.

In a report published today, the IOP is urging governments across the UK to commit to establishing an entitlement for teachers which ensures at least half of their professional learning is subject-specific. The report, Subjects Matter, says this change would raise student academic outcomes, and ultimately economic prosperity, through increases in UK workforce productivity.

Governments can seize this opportunity, IOP recommends, by building a world-class system of subject-specific CPD to ensure that all teachers are able to improve their subject knowledge throughout their careers. Such a system would provide all students, in all schools, with access to high-quality subject teaching. This would increase the number of well-educated students and consequentially increase overall UK economic productivity, the IOP says. It would also reduce the current disparity of academic performance between UK regions, presenting government officials with a high-value opportunity to continue building on the ‘levelling up’ agenda. The additional investment would represent about 1% of the salary budget.

Jonathan Flint CBE, IOP President and a former managing director at BAE Systems, commented on the pressing business case to invest in teachers: “Great teachers inspire the best outcomes in their students, whatever their subject. They are key to the UK’s future prosperity, and this proposal to raise teaching standards is an opportunity we must seize as soon as possible.

“Governments across the UK have a real chance here, to improve student outcomes over the long term while also tackling the economic emergency posed by the pandemic. By investing in the teaching workforce of today, we can better equip more students with the knowledge, understanding and abilities that will fuel the industries of tomorrow. Now is our opportunity to act, particularly given the UK already has a critical skills deficit, serious teacher recruitment and retention challenges, and ingrained inequality.

“This is the time to be investing in great teachers – giving them the tools and support they need to help students to realise their full potential. If the UK is to fulfil its ambition of becoming a research and innovation-driven knowledge-based economy by the end of decade, UK PLC will need to see this kind of investment in the teaching workforce in the next Comprehensive Spending Review.”

Pointing to a wealth of evidence, the Subjects Matter report states that – in terms of improved attainment and progression rates – teaching quality has been shown to be the single most important school-related factor in determining student outcomes. It also has a larger influence than class size or teacher salaries. Unlike other professions such as doctors and lawyers, however, there is currently no UK-wide requirement for teachers to develop knowledge of their specialist subject through accredited CPD after they qualify at the start of their careers.

According to the 2018 Department for Education Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), fewer than 50% of teachers in England had participated in curriculum-related CPD in the twelve months prior to the survey, compared to almost 90% of teachers in Shanghai and 80% of teachers in Singapore.

In addition, the survey found teachers in England engaged in less CPD overall than in most other high performing countries, and were less likely to engage in subject-specific CPD. Further DfE data shows that CPD expenditure varies hugely between schools and local authorities, with the highest expenditure-per-student in England being nearly ten times greater than the lowest.

Emily Perry, Professor of Education at Sheffield Institute of Education, Sheffield Hallam University welcomed the publication of the Subjects Matter report, saying: “There is a strong body of evidence which shows that many teachers lack access to high quality CPD. Therefore, I welcome this report from the Institute of Physics, which draws together the evidence to propose constructive, achievable ways in which the UK governments can improve the quality and provision of teacher CPD.

“It’s very helpful to see how teachers can be better supported to engage in subject specific CPD, through changes in the culture, provision and its quality. The IOP has provided recommendations that will result in all teachers gaining access to high quality support to improve their subject and pedagogical expertise, thereby increasing their retention in the profession and improving the educational outcomes of children and young people.”

https://www.iop.org/about/publications/subjects-matter