Where are the Curriculum specialists in Northern Ireland?
Over the last year it has been interesting to watch the number of educational specialists who have been invited to come over to Northern Ireland to help us to develop our strategic reviews into the curriculum and assessment. There have been a number of highly qualified professionals who have been involved in the various reviews set up by the Department of Education. It is great to have their experience and wealth of knowledge feeding into the NI education system, but I do feel a little embarrassed by the lack of Northern Irish voices who are leading curricular change in Northern Ireland. Maybe they are there but are largely invisible?
The reality is that over the last 20 years in Northern Ireland we have forgotten how to talk about, challenge and know how to think about our curriculum in Northern Ireland. Part of this is the reality that most of our teachers have never really had to deal with change. Teachers have become happy to teach the same old stuff. We like what we teach and we teach what we like. This has meant that support for thinking about the curriculum has evaporated. When I go to educational conferences in England, I am embarrassed by the gulf between their thinking and ours. There has been no real impetus for change. And, if change is required, it will be minimal and often will follow structural changes in England the rest of the UK.
I have been a teacher for 30 years and have been a Vice Principal for the last 11 years. The last big curriculum change that I have seen was in 2007 (18 years ago). The rate (and appetite) of change has ground to a halt and we have become complacent and lacked any drive for innovation.
I have been both fascinated and delighted to see the current NI Education Minister driving some change to try and Transform education in NI. Interestingly, many teachers have not really noticed or acknowledged the changes. At present, most of these conversations seem to be happening at extremely high levels – with minimal interest from teachers working at the ‘chalk face’.
I have been involved in helping develop different aspects of the curriculum in NI – usually linked to my specialist subject – geography. I have attended many different training events and subject-specific conference talks about the curriculum, yet have had little input into any changes within NI. As a Vice Principal, I have a deep knowledge and understanding of what works and what does not work in my school. I understand the pressures of different subjects and how they link into qualifications at KS4 and Post 16. I understand the local employment landscape that my students will go into. Yet, I have had little opportunity to discuss my particular opinions.
I would dearly love to have the opportunity of meeting up with other like-minded school leaders to talk curriculum. I would love to discuss the aims, objectives and key foci for what consitutues learning in 2025 (and beyond) in Northern Ireland. We need more space to meet, discuss, chat and share ideas.
Here are 8 ways that I believe we could make improvements to ensure that Northern Irish educators are leading the way in any NI Curriculum reform:
- The DE often only listens to people at Principal level
Unfortunately, we operate in a system where the people running the classroom are rarely listened to. It has been good to see some surveys offered out to all stakeholders in the education system. However, the loudest voice still seems to be those who are the Principal of schools. Whilst this is a useful barometer for any changes required – I do feel that teachers need to be consulted more in group discussion to investigate what they think.
CCEA used to run a Curriculum Monitoring exercise but this has not happened in quite a few years. We need to build new mechanisms that allow teachers to volunteer to be part of different committees and teams discussing the changes within our curricular offer.
- Research into Curriculum and Pedagogy is not evident in NI
After completing my PGCE, I have gone on to complete a Masters in Educational leadership and management and the PQH qualification. Although some of these courses did focus on Curriculum, there was little focus on pedagogy. Over the last 6 years, I have tried to develop my knowledge of curriculum thinking and pedagogy. In an effort to make myself better informed, I have read copious amounts of books and have attended multiple conferences both personally and virtually, but every single one has been run by organisations in England. I am pretty much self-taught when it comes to my gained knowledge in relation to Teaching and Learning/ Curriculum. There are minimal training organisations/opportunities within NI. I welcome the new plans for TPL in NI but I do wonder if we can maybe encourage more NI-focused training and support.
I have often lamented that there seems to be a large gap between the research completed in NI universities with what is actually happening in classrooms. There needs to be a closer working relationship between our local education specialists and their research to feed into our classrooms. It would be good to see much more evidence of teacher-as-researcher roles within NI schools.
- Access of teachers to research is minimal
Again, something that I have highlighted often is that it is nearly impossible for teachers to get access to recent research. Over the last few years I have often asked one of my university-based children to look up and download articles and journal pieces that were behind pay walls. How do we expect teachers in NI to stay up to date with recent research if they cannot get access to it? I would like to see a body within NI that highlights key pieces of educational research and makes these available as part of a virtual learning library that is regularly updated.
- Professional Development of teachers is not fit for purpose
Teachers need to be encouraged to continue their development as professional teachers throughout their teaching career. There needs to be mechanisms to monitor and support teachers to continue to investigate their management of teaching and learning.
For example as a Vice Principal, what is available for me to be able to continue to develop my practice and my role? Where are the extension courses, the top-up professional learning postgraduate courses? Where is the support for people in pastoral leadership? Where are the opportunities for people to be able to develop their pedagogical classroom practice?
A few years ago I was involved in a small pilot study to encourage Early years teachers to complete their portfolios online and to continue to build on their professional CPD on an annual basis. I was encouraged to finally see some proper thinking on what teacher professional development should look like – but it disappeared without a trace. PRSD is not fit for purpose. The support we give to Early Career Teachers is not fit for purpose and we are not supporting young teachers enough as they transition into teaching.
In other jobs like nursing, professionals have to provide evidence and certificates of different things that they have achieved, courses they have passed and elements of professional learning that are adding to their professional practice. I would like to see the EA set up a series of annually-revised courses so that teachers at all stages of their career, can be continuing to learn and improve their practice.
See https://timmanson.wordpress.com/2020/08/17/supporting-teachers/
- Professional dialogue is not present in NI
Part of the issue is that within NI we have lost the opportunity for professional conversation. As a Geography teacher I have not had the opportunity for any professional development since 2007. Eventually, I decided to try and organise some other training myself a few years ago to help other lonely geographers. But, we have created a system where teachers are institutionalised into individual silos of practice and have little opportunity to share their experiences and learn from the practice of others. I am looking forward to seeing who leads the training when the new curriculum is ready for roll-out.
Teachers need to be forced into opportunities where they have to share ideas between schools and areas. I like that some ALCs have started to gather teachers again for localised training programmes and would like to see this further developed across NI. Yes – there are barriers, but perhaps the DE can help make things easier by enforcing all schools to share the same holidays and training day calendar.
- Lack of opportunities for Professional Qualifications
Local universities offer expensive access to qualifications that many young teachers will use to help them to climb the greasy pole of school leadership. But what is available beyond this? I have often considered working at a PhD but it is expensive and too much of it would be focused on things that I am not that interested in doing.
Also, why should I have to pay for me to learn how to be a better teacher? Surely it is in the interest of my employer to give me the best possible training so that I can be the most effective that I can be in my role? All postgraduate training should be free and easily accessible.
- Lack of external support – university courses/EA/ Subject-specific support
For some reason, teaching and working in schools has become lonely. Maybe this a hangover from COVID. Teachers feel lonely, there is a decided lack of support. There is a lack of institutional knowledge. At post-primary level – when do groups of geography teachers get together to share ideas? Where is the institutional knowledge and experience being developed and knowledge and skills being passed from one generation of teachers to the next? We used to see marking conferences for CCEA as the only chance for professional dialogue but now with online Teams meetings and a focus on online marking – even this opportunity is not developing wider professional skills.
When I started teaching, 30 years ago, there was a range of subject officers who could provide professional help and guidance – it would be good to see a similar level of support again.
- Competition between local schools still makes collaboration difficult
The post-primary sector is competing for business. We are in direct competition to gather as many customers to our ‘brand’ as possible. Failure to do so causes our numbers to drop and jobs to be lost and a quickly spiralling cycle that leads to schools having to close or amalgamate. It is not easy for local schools to share ideas and give up part of their USP. In some ways it is easier for us to share with schools that we are not in direct competition with in NI. This should be leaned into and there should be mechanisms for more sharing of good practice. It is easy to share ICT proficiency or reading programmes but it is harder to share curriculum plans, timetabling expertise and building blocks and pastoral issues and responses. The EA (and DE) need to realise that we do not always want to share our great ideas and practices with our neighbouring schools because it makes what we do less special. It is hard to consider the ‘greater good’ if you school is struggling to find students to come to it.
I remain encouraged that the conversations are starting to happen in relation to what is happening in NI. I do hope that we can continue to go in the right direction and create a vibrant, dynamic, research-driven curriculum that will be reviewed often and ensure that we are making learning as interesting as possible for our learners.
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