Effective collaboration

Session 3 – Professional learningcommunities: workingacross schools

Working collaboratively across schools

• Welcome to Session 3, where we are going to build on the work of Session 2 in working with professional learning communities (PLCs).

• The previous session explored practitioners in PLCs working together within a school. In this session we are going to be looking at practitioners working collaboratively across schools.

• In this session we are going to ask you to design a cross-school collaborative project, and to either trial some of the ideas, or interview a colleague on their response to your project.

• The theme for this session is ‘Professional learning’.

Schools as larger communities• We are going to be thinking about the transition phase

from primary to secondary education, although you could also design this project around any stage of transition in a learner’s life. As we are working across schools however we are going to focus on the primary–secondary stage.

• Transition is a time in many learners’ school lives when learning can seem to decline. Research has suggested this might be an emotional response to the stress of transition, or it may be that the two cultures are so different that adapting to secondary school for learners requires a ‘relearning’ of what school is about and how to be successful there.

Schools as larger communities (continued)

• A report from Evangelou et al. (2008) also highlights that children from low social economic backgrounds find the transition period particularly stressful. You can read this report on the DERA website.

Schools as larger communities (continued)

Activity 1

Explore the data in your school relating to transition and achievement. Using the learning journal, note down what you think are the major issues in transition that need to be addressed. These will be the starting point for thinking about your action enquiry.

Primary and secondary schools as learning communities

• The problem is national and long-standing, and although there are many remedial programmes (see for example Box of ideas – ‘Transition from primary to secondary school’) the root problem – a shared vision of learning and success between primary staff, secondary staff and the learners – has not been successfully addressed in any major way. In this session, we are going to explore using a PLC to bring about this shared vision. In this context, ‘staff’ includes learning support assistants (LSAs) and other support professionals.

• The following slides will illustrate the types of discussions that might take place in building a primary/secondary PLC. You will then be invited to design your own PLC for your school and its primary/secondary partner.

A shared vision• In beginning with the PLC Stages 1 and 2, detailed in

Session 2, you might remember that both a focus and a team need to be established. While we have a focus – the transition (in our example) from primary to secondary school – bringing practitioners together who may not have worked as a team before will require some preparatory work.

A shared vision (continued)

Activity 2

• Using your learning journal, consider two or three activities that might be helpful in establishing a team ‘shared vision’ when thinking about transition.

• It might be useful, for example, to set ‘finding out’ tasks which both the primary and the secondary practitioners can undertake independently but will then need to come together to discuss. Using a shared document such as the issue analysis grid, e.g. through Hwb, will mean the tasks are structured and available to read for all participants.

A shared vision (continued)

Activity 2 (continued)

• For example, what do both sets of staff feel are the key obstacles to transition from their perspective? Discussing the independently produced outcomes is a very good place to begin, particularly if you can also introduce a document that has researched the same area so that you all have an opportunity to map your findings against those.

• For transition you might use the following NFER report.

Strategies• Stage 3 of the PLC is about devising the action enquiry –

what strategies do you know about, and what might you learn from other schools?

• Again, this might be a shared discussion. Consider whether you might build in the use of programmes such as Skype (www.skype.com) or FaceTime (www.facetime.org.uk) to make meetings efficient and to allow frequent exchange which does not have to be lengthy or formalised.

• When gathering together strategies and ideas, pool your own experiences as well as looking further afield. The internet is rich with examples of others’ work in this area. Try watching this 14-minute video for ideas.

Strategies (continued)

Activity 3

Using the learning journal, record any strategies that you encounter which might be useful to bring to the attention of the wider PLC.

Stages 4 and 5: Innovation and trialling

• As a PLC across primary and secondary schools, once you have selected your strategy or strategies you want to trial, consider the extent to which you can also use this as professional learning for all staff involved. Are there opportunities to do some cross-phase teaching? Can you invite parents/carers to be part of the project so that they too are involved? Remember, you are trying to establish a shared vision for success.

• As you plan the project, you might consider trialling some of the elements and reporting back to the PLC on the impact observed. You could, for example, invite staff to spend some time in one another’s schools to observe teaching styles, and then compare approaches. How useful was this in informing approaches for continuity of experience for learners?

Stage 6: Refining

• Part of the work of the PLC is to continuously review and reflect on the strategies you have chosen, with opportunity to adapt and amend approaches if needed. Such changes should be seen as a sign of success rather than failure. In thinking deeply about, and collecting information on your strategies, confirming aspects and changing others demonstrates a responsive and active engagement with the action enquiry.

• What is of most importance is that the changes are made by the whole PLC after discussion based on the available data.

Stage 7: Sharing outcomes• Once the PLC is at a stage where strategies have been

developed and trialled, and results discussed, it is a useful activity to capture more formally what you have found out and recommendations you might make to others.

• You might consider an audience of colleagues from all schools involved, governors, parents/carers and other interested potential partners.

• Looking back to Session 2, consider a poster presentation, a website or perhaps building sharing results into shared professional learning days as a presentation/workshop.

Stage 7: Sharing outcomes (continued)

Activity 4

Using the learning journal, consider both the audiences and types of dissemination activities you would want to plan for in your project. What is the ultimate aim? Is it to share information/invite others to try out some of the strategies you have designed? Is it to develop your own network further?

A small-scale action enquiry

• We are now going to invite you to design and trial, or seek evaluation of, an action enquiry project on transition between a primary and a secondary school.

• Using the PLC model as described in this session, and using the issues analysis grid (available through the ‘Facilitators’ handbook’), we would like you to plan a transition action enquiry involving your school and another partner school, either secondary or primary, that you link with for transition.

PLC, transition and evaluation• Ideally, the PLC you create in your issues analysis grid

would emerge as a real community which would undertake the activities you design. If, however, it is not appropriate at this stage, we would suggest that you ask colleagues from both your schools to comment on and evaluate the activities and approaches you have designed. Stage 7 then becomes an opportunity to share more widely your planned approach and invite further comment from colleagues.

PLC, transition and evaluation (continued)

Activity 5

Using the learning journal, evaluate your transition project, either from data collected as you trial it, or from colleague comment and guidance. Please add your own response to this evidence base.

PLCs and professional learning

• You will remember that in Session 1 we spoke about the building of a PLC as a powerful form of personal professional learning. The Annenberg Institute for School Reform based at Brown University states that:

In our work, we support and encourage the use of professional learning communities … as a

central element for effective professional development.

PLCs and professional learning (continued)

The Annenberg Institute for School Reform further claims that PLCs support professional learning because of the alignment of this approach with adult learning theory.

‘Understanding what motivates adults to grow and learn enhances professional development and helps the school or district become a community of learners (Zepeda 1999). The [collaborative learning] approach is grounded in adult learning theory and evidences several characteristics important to adult learners. For example, as autonomous and self-directed adults, professional educators need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction, and they often reject prescription by others for their learning. In addition, adults have accumulated a foundation of experiences, knowledge, skills, interests, and competence; they are most interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance to their jobs or personal lives. Like learners of all ages, adults need to see the results of their efforts and to get feedback about progress toward their goals.’

(Lieb 1991; Dalellew and Martinez 1988; Zemke and Zemke 1995)

Professional learning

• Looking back at the issues analysis grid you completed for the transition project, go back and highlight or asterisk the areas where you feel that your own professional learning has been enhanced by belonging to the PLC.

Professional learning (continued)

Activity 6

• Using the learning journal, reflect on what learning you have identified, where your learning has taken place, and why it is significant for you.

• Consider the following areas in particular.– Knowledge about transition.

– Exploring research about the area.– Developing new strategies.

– Working with colleagues from your own and other schools.– Leadership experiences.– Uses of data.

• Then consider how has involvement in a PLC enhanced your professional learning.

Professional learning(continued)

As Vega shows, working in a PLC is productive professionally and addresses the issues in transition.

PLCs go a step beyond professional development by providing teachers with not just skills and

knowledge to improve their teaching practices but also an ongoing community that values each teacher’s experiences in their own classrooms and uses those experiences to guide teaching practices and improve student learning.

(Vescio et al., 2008) (Vega, 2013)

PLCs between schools• The opportunity to work with colleagues in other schools

as well as your own is invaluable in developing a professional overview of key issues in education, such as transition.

• Using data to help define the area, and working collegiately to devise and test out strategies is both an energising and productive way to begin to solve a problem and learn from that situation in transferring expertise and engaging in positive professional learning.

Summary

• In this session you have explored taking part in a between-schools PLC which has addressed the issue of transition between primary and secondary schools.

• You have considered how working with another school might best be managed, and how your own professional learning has been enhanced by taking part in a

cross-school PLC. • In the next session we will be exploring opportunity for

collaborative teaching using resources between schools and other institutions.