With my new role at Edinburgh University, I've been enjoying hosting a study visit of twenty Chinese headteachers. We began the visit on Monday with sessions at Moray House to show them the long history of teacher education there, followed by a Scottish welcome dinner hosted at the City Chambers to celebrate strong partnerships between Scotland and China.
After great sessions yesterday at Moray House on the Scottish policy context and teacher professionalism and standards, theory was really brought into practice today during a fantastic visit to Dunbar Grammar School today. It was also my first visit to a Scottish high school, so I was quite interested in the visit and any thematic connections with my higher education research. The Headteacher gave an overview of his growing school community, the curriculum, and their School improvement plan. He highlighted student choice in the curriculum (which is much greater at this high school compared to elsewhere) and the breadth of subjects including health and wellbeing, computing, business, and home economics. Furthermore, the Headteacher emphasised the importance of not only teachers' and parents' voices but also pupils' voices contributing to the revised curriculum and the school improvement plan. It was great to hear the Headteacher speaking about the importance of student voice and student engagement.
The Chinese Headteachers really enjoyed the tour of the school, bringing it to life as they saw cooking classes, science, art, and PE. They even were able to see a social studies class where students were being taught to think for themselves and articulate what they would do if they were President Trump with regards to building a wall with Mexico. The Headteacher emphasised of course that students were not being influenced in what to think (and could lose their job for this) and instead were learning how to think critically and substantiate their arguments with research they could do on their mobile phones in class.
We were all impressed to see the fantastic inclusive education support provided by the Pupil Support Workers both inside and outside the school including mindfulnesss sessions, trips to the beach, hiking, gardening, working on a farm, outdoor cooking, and building relations with local elderly residents (for which they won a national award for partnership).
The Chinese Headteachers were also very interested to hear about the support provided to newly qualified teachers by both the school and the local authority. They saw how new teachers needed to meet General Teaching Council Standards for Registration, and keep up their standards through continuing professional learning. They were particularly interested in performance management of staff who did not meet the standards, which is an important issue that can arise across all education contexts internationally. In looking at the similarities and differences between secondary and higher education, I was reflecting on how universities offer the PG Certificate in Academic Practice to new lecturers and opportunities for academic staff to earn Higher Education Academy Fellowship, but they do not tend to have strong performance management processes for staff who do not excel in teaching.
Last but not least, we enjoyed learning about and seeing the various technology used in the high school. This included EdBuzz Google resources, email for submission of homework, collaborative areas where teachers could share resources, the Pupil Record System, students' digital portfolios of their progression records to document their learning, Kahoot online quizzes which students could complete using smartphones, and ShowMyHomework to document homework for students and their parents. They also were able to learn about student voice including the prefect system, student council, and surveys. They saw student feedback forms (including questions on enjoyment of learning, academic challenge, and the quality of feedback provided by teachers) and learn how they are used as one way to monitor and support teacher performance.
It was a fantastic visit and it was especially interesting to focus on themes of student voice in the Scottish education system, student curricular choice, technology in the classroom, and inclusion. There are such interesting connections between these themes in secondary education which carry on into higher education. It was also fascinating to explore sometimes tricky issues such as smartphone use in the classroom, dealing with student behaviour issues, and processes for teacher performance management which are not often spoken about in higher education.
After great sessions yesterday at Moray House on the Scottish policy context and teacher professionalism and standards, theory was really brought into practice today during a fantastic visit to Dunbar Grammar School today. It was also my first visit to a Scottish high school, so I was quite interested in the visit and any thematic connections with my higher education research. The Headteacher gave an overview of his growing school community, the curriculum, and their School improvement plan. He highlighted student choice in the curriculum (which is much greater at this high school compared to elsewhere) and the breadth of subjects including health and wellbeing, computing, business, and home economics. Furthermore, the Headteacher emphasised the importance of not only teachers' and parents' voices but also pupils' voices contributing to the revised curriculum and the school improvement plan. It was great to hear the Headteacher speaking about the importance of student voice and student engagement.
The Chinese Headteachers really enjoyed the tour of the school, bringing it to life as they saw cooking classes, science, art, and PE. They even were able to see a social studies class where students were being taught to think for themselves and articulate what they would do if they were President Trump with regards to building a wall with Mexico. The Headteacher emphasised of course that students were not being influenced in what to think (and could lose their job for this) and instead were learning how to think critically and substantiate their arguments with research they could do on their mobile phones in class.
We were all impressed to see the fantastic inclusive education support provided by the Pupil Support Workers both inside and outside the school including mindfulnesss sessions, trips to the beach, hiking, gardening, working on a farm, outdoor cooking, and building relations with local elderly residents (for which they won a national award for partnership).
The Chinese Headteachers were also very interested to hear about the support provided to newly qualified teachers by both the school and the local authority. They saw how new teachers needed to meet General Teaching Council Standards for Registration, and keep up their standards through continuing professional learning. They were particularly interested in performance management of staff who did not meet the standards, which is an important issue that can arise across all education contexts internationally. In looking at the similarities and differences between secondary and higher education, I was reflecting on how universities offer the PG Certificate in Academic Practice to new lecturers and opportunities for academic staff to earn Higher Education Academy Fellowship, but they do not tend to have strong performance management processes for staff who do not excel in teaching.
Last but not least, we enjoyed learning about and seeing the various technology used in the high school. This included EdBuzz Google resources, email for submission of homework, collaborative areas where teachers could share resources, the Pupil Record System, students' digital portfolios of their progression records to document their learning, Kahoot online quizzes which students could complete using smartphones, and ShowMyHomework to document homework for students and their parents. They also were able to learn about student voice including the prefect system, student council, and surveys. They saw student feedback forms (including questions on enjoyment of learning, academic challenge, and the quality of feedback provided by teachers) and learn how they are used as one way to monitor and support teacher performance.
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