What’s happening in Scotland and Wales?

Scotland and Wales are both in the midst of large-scale programmes of education reform. Driving the reforms in both contexts has been the assertion that developing ‘teacher quality’ is crucial to reform success (Donaldson, 2010; 2015; Scotland, 2023; Wales, 2023).

To develop ‘teacher quality’, both contexts have invoked the concept of ‘teacher professionalism’ as the policy solution (Scotland, 2023; Wales, 2017). This conception of teacher professionalism is markedly similar in both the Scottish and Welsh policies, primarily involving a commitment to career-long professional learning, adherence to professional teaching standards and the development of research-literacy (Scotland 2023; Wales, 2023).

To achieve this, each context has produced its own suite of policy directives that directly impact upon the work and practice of teachers. In Scotland, these have included the introduction of a National Improvement Framework, a recently revised suite of Professional Standards for Teachers, and the development of the Professional Update process.

In Wales, the new curriculum - Curriculum for Wales - is in its infancy, with the majority of schools beginning implementation in September 2022. To support its implementation, a new suite of Professional Standards for Teaching has been launched, along with a National Approach to Professional Learning. Interestingly, performance management arrangements have not been updated in line with these reforms and new directives - the guidance remains the same as it was when it was published in 2012.

Project Aims

The overall aim for this project is to address the question of whether the policy directives outlined above are supporting secondary school teachers in Scotland and Wales to be good teachers.

To do this, I have spent the past couple of years studying what might be meant by ‘teacher quality’ or what I refer to as ‘the good teacher’. I have read academic literature, reports from supranational organisations such as the OECD and World Bank, historic and philosophical ideals of teaching, as well as looking at how teachers are portrayed in the media and movies.

I have also looked in detail at how ‘teacher quality’ is presented in Scottish and Welsh education policy - i.e. how these national policies construct an image of what they think ‘the good teacher’ involves.

What I have found missing, however, are the voices of teachers themselves - your voices. Despite being the ones on the ground, doing the job day-in day-out, there is a surprising lack of research as to what teachers themselves believe constitutes a good teacher or what they feel they need in order to be supported in their work.

Hence, this research. I want to give your voices a platform; a space to be presented alongside what is documented in academic research and political documents; a space to pay real attention to what you think and need.

As such, I am seeking to explore what you think about the three following general questions:

1) What do you think makes a good teacher?

2) To what extent do you feel supported to be a good teacher in your current environment?

3) What do you need in order to be better supported to be a good teacher?

Project Supervisors