Providing a quality framework

Issue 30

Photo of Brian Henson

Brian Henson

A review of the chartered teacher status aims to further raise standards, writes our journalist Brian Henson.

Steel girders

How do you raise teaching standards in Scotland's schools? The answer, as we all know, is to raise the standards of teachers.

For the first time, GTCS has a framework in place that links the various elements of teacher education to produce a professional pathway that will guide a teacher through every stage of their career. From initial registration after graduation, through full registration following probation to chartered status for those who don't want to quit the classroom for a managerial position.

It's the last that is currently under the spotlight at GTCS.

The Chartered Teachers' Standard

A wide ranging review of the Chartered Teachers' Standard has been:

  • endorsed by the Scottish Government
  • approved by the professional standards committee of GTCS
  • presented to the Council.

The revised standards help teachers to think about themselves and their teaching in a professionally critical manner

Tom Hamilton is director of education policy at GTCS. He is convinced that the new standard is more transparent and fits more closely with the other standards - and that it will attract many more teachers to apply for chartered status.

"One of the reasons the Scottish standards have always been so widely accepted is that they have values and commitments at the heart of teaching in Scotland.

"Our latest review highlighted more clearly the kind of values that underpin what it means to be a chartered teacher. That should be good for teachers in terms of identifying what they are doing, and thinking about their own practice."

It will also help universities, he thinks, to deliver the academic programmes that teachers now have to follow in order to gain their chartered status.

Becoming a Chartered Teacher

Until 2008, teachers looking to become chartered teachers had two options. They could sign up part-time at a university and study a modular masters degree over several years - or they could apply to GTCS for direct accreditation, based upon their prior learning.

The accreditation option was removed last year. Now everyone who wants to be a chartered teacher must go the university route. And it will continue to test their abilities to juggle work and study.

Gillian Robinson, academic co-ordinator for the Chartered Teacher Programme (CTP) at the University of Edinburgh, was a member of the review panel. She said: "We consulted with teachers, directors of education, local authorities and government and asked them what they wanted us to change. Many of those we spoke to - and this included teachers - demanded even more rigorous processes, and greater focus on the impact the CTP is going to have in schools in future. The people who've already achieved chartered status know how hard they had to work and I think they want to make sure that the people who follow them are worthy of the award."

She believes the CTP is more about the journey than the destination. "It's not a case of how long it takes a teacher to achieve the standard," she said. "Building competencies is not about the time it takes one to get there, but about the depth of one's understanding and commitment, and the values that underpin them. They are rarely ever completed."

World-leading quality teachers

Tom Hamilton believes that Scotland will continue to lead the world in producing teachers of quality. He said: "There's been a huge amount of research cash spent finding out how schools can be improved. Time and again they have discovered the obvious - that the only way to improve schools is to improve the quality of the teachers. And many countries - including our own - have developed 'accomplished teachers' programmes to help them do just that."

For example, the USA has something called National Board Certification where teachers are supported at state level to prepare portfolios showing the exceptional quality of their teaching, which are then put forward for consideration at a national level.

"Given the importance of the state in the American education system, to have something nationally certified is a big thing. Like the CTP there are salary implications if you achieve National Board Certification, but even so it's the professional recognition, the profession approbation that really matters to teachers. The recognition that their practice is of particular merit and serves their pupils particularly well - that's really what matters."

He added: "Of course, having Scottish standards that help teachers to benchmark their own teaching, their own professionalism is an advantage as teachers increasingly reflect on their own performance, considering individually, and then as part of the nationally agreed Professional Review and Development process, just how professionally effective they are."

Improve instruction; improve outcomes

The revised Standard for Chartered Teacher will help those on the journey towards chartered status and those who are already there to think in a professionally critically manner about themselves and their teaching.

In its 2007 report "How the world's best-performing school systems come out on top", McKinsey and Company state that: "The top-performing school systems recognise that the only way to improve outcomes is to improve instruction: learning occurs when students and teachers interact, and thus to improve learning implies improving the quality of that interaction."

That is exactly the process which is at the heart of becoming a chartered teacher.

Related websites

www.gtcs.org.uk/charteredteacher

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Latest comment...

would like to knowthe GTCS view on this scenario. I agree with Steve its a last option!