Teachers at one sixth-form college are carrying out so much research work that it has appointed a researcher in residence to support them.
Dr Sue Sing began her work at Christ the King Sixth Form College, which has three campuses in south-east London, last month. “For me, the appeal is to work directly with staff in a school-based context,” she says. “The opportunity to do that research with teachers is completely different. That’s really exciting - the scene is shifting about who can do research and what research is.”
Christ the King isn’t the first college to hire a researcher in residence: BSix Brooke House Sixth Form College in East London hosted a researcher from the London Institute of Education between 2008 and 2010. But the volume of research produced by staff makes Christ the King stand out.
More than 60 teachers have completed projects over the past three years, supported by training from the University of Warwick on research methodology and a bursary of £500. Topics have ranged from understanding how to prepare students for Oxbridge applications to the impact of character education.
Major commitment
Most of the work is done in teachers’ own time. And Sing acknowledges that it is a major commitment.
“One of the things I’ve been surprised by is how highly motivating it’s been for staff,” she says. “The idea of doing a research project on top of your day-to-day work as a classroom teacher, which in itself is exceptionally busy and more than a full-time job, could be seen as just one more thing in a busy workload. But the way they’ve grasped that opportunity has been inspiring.
“They’ve been so motivated and driven to take control of what’s happening in their classroom, to explore more deeply the things that they do on a day-to-day basis.”
Collegiate principal Dr Jane Overbury says the college’s emphasis on research grew gradually out of a desire for better CPD. Its merger with two other sixth-form colleges in 2009 and 2013 to create the three-campus college had freed up funds to focus on staff development.
Teachers transformed
The college created new leadership and newly qualified teacher programmes, both of which involved research projects. At the same time, it made use of the London Schools Excellence Fund to create a research project led by Sing into helping high-achievers to reach their potential.
This involved teachers from independent schools and state institutions researching each other, teaching in each others’ classes and studying each others’ methods. It was independent school staff who suggested the idea of a researcher in residence; until then, staff research projects had been supervised and mentored by the college’s senior leadership team.
“We could see this transformation taking place with the teachers just from being involved in a research project,” Overbury says. “We thought, ‘We’re the specialists in sixth-form education, and there’s actually very little literature out there in terms of pedagogy specifically for post-16 teaching and learning. Let’s start to command that.’ ”
It’s not just teachers who have been carrying out research - the bursaries are also available to support staff. Projects on e-purchasing and improving the efficiency of administration teams have already begun.
“All of our staff have professional worth, and everybody contributes to teaching and learning, even though they might not be in the classroom,” Overbury says. “It’s always been a college where everybody learns, but we’re now adding that sense where it’s about research, too.”
One of Sing’s tasks will be to make sure that teachers can effectively share the research work they are doing; she’s planning to create a college-wide research bulletin. The college has already held a TeachMeet, in which several teachers presented their findings to the whole staff body.
Christ the King also wants to find a way to evaluate the impact of its commitment to research on staff and students.
Head of English Natasha Hockridge chose to research feedback and assessment for learning in her A-level classes. She found herself writing reams of feedback, which didn’t seem to have an impact on students’ improvement, and wondered if there was a better way.
She set up an experimental workshop with seven students, who would write an exam-style essay before each week’s session and then discuss it with the rest of the group.
Hockridge found that the students built up their physical ability to write more, chose to practice their essays in timed conditions and became more confident about analysing their weaknesses. The experiment worked, with several students improving by one or two grades. And seeing their teacher engage in research and experiment with her methods also opened students’ minds to the idea that learning could be a lifelong process.
Lifelong learning
Hockridge says: “I actually start every September now telling my classes that you should never stop learning, that I’m always reading things about my job and education - just to try and tell them that this is the process for them.”
“I tell them, ‘You never stop learning in a job you love, and if you ever find yourself in a job where you’re not learning anything, you need to change jobs.’ They think you get to an end point; they don’t see life as being a process - but they’re 16 and 17.
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