Teaching and Learning In England


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England Teaching

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Ross Morrison McGill founded @TeacherToolkit in 2010, and today, he is one of the 'most followed educators'on social media in the world. In 2015, he was nominated as one of the '500 Most Influential People in Britain' by The Sunday Times as a result of...
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How does English teaching compare across the world when compared to 47 other jurisdictions?

The Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) asks teachers about working conditions and learning environments at their schools. This is my analysis of England.

The OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey covers about 260,000 teachers in 15,000 schools across 48 countries and economies. My focus in on areas we can improve, particularly on teacher-agency which is a focus of my doctoral studies. In most of the following examples, England lag behind the OECD average.

England lag behind many…

  1. Teachers’ views of how society values their profession – England is lagging in mid-table
  2. Teachers’ statutory salary and salary satisfaction: Novice teachers
  3. Teachers’ statutory salary and salary satisfaction: Experienced teachers.
  4. Highest educational attainment of teachers.
  5. The average number of different professional development activities.
  6. Teachers’ autonomy in curriculum choice – one of the worst in the world for English teachers
  7. Time spent on actual teaching and learning
  8. Collaborative school culture characterised by mutual support
  9. Feedback received by teachers is very high, including observations, student surveys, assessment of subject knowledge, external results and school-based results as well as self-assessment, for example, appraisal. Page 54 is also worth a closer analysis.

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Download the report

Let’s consider Shanghai and Finland for a moment, or Estonia who topped PISA rankings in 2019, or ponder on the direction of professional collaboration we have, poorly received by teachers when schools overly steer teacher autonomy. On my travels I have been reassured, but we are clearly not doing enough. I am saddened by these results. There are some positives and I would encourage you to look through the report in detail. Everything you need is on the OECD website, with a breakdown by 48 countries. There were 6 key indicators used and shown in the maps below:

  1. Teachers aged 50 and above, 18.5%
  2. Class time spent on teaching and learning, 79.9%
  3. Teachers feeling prepared to manage the classroom, 68.0%
  4. Teachers feeling prepared for the use of ICT for teaching, 50.7%
  5. Teachers feeling prepared to teach in multicultural settings, 42.7%
  6. Teachers feeling prepared to teach in mixed-ability settings, 68.8%

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This has to be some of the worst outcomes for England when compared to 47 other countries – and opportunities for teachers to participate in school decisions (teacher agency) is at its worst!

 


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