Wellington Festival of Education – Day 1

I was at Wellington College today for the first day of their 13th Festival of Education. The venue and weather were equally agreeable, and the talks diverse, informative and well curated. Much of what I listened to and thought about is timely in our development at my school. Some time to hear about how others are tackling big issues was useful away from the sometime relentless pace of the school term. Dami Dounda and David Weston from the Teacher Development Trust kicked off my day. There was a brief review of the state of education, touching on teacher numbers, retentions, vacancy rates and sickness. The numbers country wide are quite scary, with vacancy rates quintupling since 2021 (up from 0.1% to 0.5%) and sickness days increasing 50% (from 2.2M to 3.3M). The system’s problems are well rehearsed, and short of a really radical change are likely with us for some time to come. The EEF Evidence on Retention (2023) report was then summarised, which identifies system, school and individual level factors that affect teacher retention. Key messages centred on the the importance of a well-planned and integrated induction process for all staff (including induction into the culture of the school) and on-going support through mentoring and coaching. Some differences between early career and expert teachers were then discussed. Expert teacher planning, teaching, understanding of classroom dynamics etc is central to the development of our professionalism. Imposition of rigorous standardisation in an effort to improve educational standards can run up against this, reducing teacher agency in their work and adversely affecting retention. The talk ended discussing whole school improvement, looking at the importance of time and space for colleagues to collaborate (eg co-planning), being part of whole school decision making, having a shared mission, and classroom safety. There was a nod to AI, with David indicating his use of ChatGPT as a virtual coach – something that we’re already looking at in school. Almost explicit in much of what Dami and David talked about was the motivation of teachers to remain in the profession, and continually striving to improve. The importance of autonomy, purpose and mastery was all there, reaching back to ideas from Self-Determination Theory – this theme was picked up explicitly at the end of the day. Tom Sherrington then gave a useful talk as a trustee of the National Baccalaureate Trust. This organisation started a few years back, advocating for an English Bacc – a qualification that would cover a broader range of the achievements of our students. In the last year, they have reformulated their purpose, working with and accrediting school/area/trust based baccalaureates. These have been developed from primary schools up to secondary school levels, and are run across two or three years. NBT then accredits these if they fit  within their model. There are three central strands: the core learning (subject based qualifications), the personal project (an extended enquiry with a significant final product that is publicly presented) and personal development (eg service, creativity, physical or cultural activity etc). Underlying all three strands are six principles that must be met if NBT is to accredit the school-based baccalaureate – inclusion, aspiration, challenge, breadth, balance and coherence. In a similar way to Duke of Edinburgh, these Baccs should be broad but challengin g, allowing for recognition and celebration of the huge diversity of activities that our students do. Several examples were presented, providing a useful range of models for other schools to develop from. In a you-couldn’t-plan-this-better talk, Voice21 then gave a clear, concise and erudite discussion on what oracy is, how and whether it can be measured, and what the future of oracy education may be like under a future Labour government. Oracy was identified as the intersection between learning to talk and learning through talk. The central message was that oracy is far reaching across the whole curriculum, is multi-faceted, can be taught, but that reliable and valid assessment is hard. The Oracy Framework identifies four central areas: physical, linguistic, cognitive and social&emotional. Using the framework, schools can support students in becoming more successful in discussion work, be more effective in their communication and deliver inspiring speeches. Recognising that assessing oracy is challenging, recent work on using comparative judgement to assess oracy was discussed. This form of assessment has been successfully demonstrated with English assessment through organisations like NoMoreMarking. It will be interesting to see the full details of how important a future government makes oracy, and whether it does attain equivalence with the importance currently put on numeracy and literacy. Eddie Izzard provided a wonderful lunchtime interlude in conversation. She covered education, diversity and inclusion, how her transgenderism has shaped her life, and her politics. Her message to a theatre of teachers was uplifting and positive. Watch out for “be brave and curious, not fearful and suspicious”, “we are all a little bit different, but a lot bit the same” and “make connections rather than breaking them” in the months ahead. The day finished with a whistle-stop tour of cognitive load and self-determination theories, and allied other ideas, from Claire Badger from Godolphin and Latymer School. Under the title of “Motivation – Does cognitive science have the answer?”, Claire rapidly summarised CLT and SDT, and drew together the ideas that competence, relatedness and autonomy lead to motivation. The linkages between competence and CLT are clear – if a student is achieving well, and we are supporting that in our teaching and their learning by taking account of what we know about how we learn, then motivation is more likely. InnerDrive, who sponsored the ‘Cognitive Science’ strand of the conference, has produced a nice mapping diagram linking together some key ideas of effective practice drawn from CLT and Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction. This will provide a useful central touchstone for our T&L discussions next academic year, along with a great summarisation of her talk. Claire then discussed some neuroscience investigations, and useful texts on the teenage brain, to address the ideas around relatedness. Key ideas included the high importance of social inclusion and peer approval to the teenage brain, and brain scans showing the co-location of social rejection and physical pain responses. Discussion of autonomy finished the trio, and the balance needed in allowing our students opportunities to make choices and our understanding of what is most effective. Results from studies on revision techniques was discussed to exemplify this. In revising for assessments, differences between re-reading and retrieval were investigated, showing the latter tended to lead to better outcomes. However, retrieval is more effortful, and students don’t tend to feel as successful when they are revising this way, compared to rereading – the performance vs learning dilemma. Here Claire’s message was to talk with the students about their learning, and how they learn – metacognition now sitting atop the EEF’s most effective methods for improving student progress. All in, a great day of professional learning for me, and plenty of ideas and debates to bring back to school in September.