Thread by @DrRLofthouse

Nice to be at @drmattoleary inaugural lecture this evening. ‘Faith over fear: investing in professional responsibility & trust as a basis for improving teaching’. Introduced by his colleague @alexckendall

Sounds like a great theme for those interested in @CollectivED1 too.

We are waiting for his erudite & professorial thinking! Or maybe just some ‘Dad jokes’.

There’s a strong sense from @drmattoleary of the significance of teaching & teachers & gives some of his personal biography as a teacher in both the UK & internationally. And there are some cracking photos from the 90s to accompany it.

There’s also strong sense that teaching is a privilege. But we have to recognise the crisis in current teacher recruitment & retention in England. This is the context within which @drmattoleary undertakes his research.

The daily lives of teachers are driven by performance measures and stress. @drmattoleary understands how the values held by many teachers now often clash with policy makers priorities.

The problems exist across all education sectors. Huge workloads & excessive accountability are significant problems. Two-sides of the same coin. @drmattoleary is interested in knowing more & what can be done.

@drmattoleary argues that excessive workload & accountability obstruct school improvement. His work on observation as a vehicle for problematising wider issues in education.

Observation of lessons is a microcosm of issues such as professional autonomy, trust, governance, accountability and control. @drmattoleary

Many of our current management and accountability systems are not education based. They’ve drifted in from other industries. Spreadsheets are an example of managerialist positivism. The data drives comparisons & education as a market. @drmattoleary

@drmattoleary reminds us that quantitative values are applied to aspects of education regardless of whether they are actually valid measures. Metrics have distorted our understanding of the relationships between teaching & learning because there are no genuine units of account.

The managerialism rife in education undermines the perceived value & confidence in teachers’ professional judgements. There is a reasonable frustration and sense of powerlessness felt by teachers in this context @drmattoleary

It’s important to ask at what point the systems of accountability encroach on the quality of education. @drmattoleary

@drmattoleary reflects on the impacts of omnipresent influence of Ofsted. Ofsted is a cog in the metrics machine. Viscous circle created by measuring T&L without making a tangible impact on the quality of T&L.

In the 2nd half of his lecture @drmattoleary focuses on trust & how it has been jeopardised in education despite the qualification & recognition of teachers as professionals.

A case study of ‘structured autonomy’ created at an FE college highlights how decisions can be made to enable teachers to gain agency over their own professional learning. Achieved by creating a cultures of the collective, placing practitioners at the forefront @drmattoleary

Importance of colleagues collaborating, experiencing reciprocal professional learning. Sustained focus by leadership on engaging teachers’ responsibility. This stresses the need for ethical professional behaviour with democratic behaviours of working with others @drmattoleary

Responsibility is a contextualised process which is undertaken with and for others. @drmattoleary @HEreflections1

@drmattoleary suggests we need to learn to rely on professionals. He cites @HargreavesBC on the relationship between responsibility & accountability & trust.

Schools have had nearly 30yrs of @Ofstednews & @drmattoleary argues that it’s time for a change. Ofsted strips away time from teachers which should be used for developing practice.

There is time to abandon the neo-liberal agenda. Change needs to start from the inside out. We can’t rely on policy-makers. @drmattoleary

We need to build in the awareness amongst the profession of how we can improve T&L. We need time and space and less policing @drmattoleary

Professional learning is a vital ingredient to teachers’ professional competence. It needs to be incorporated within our regular work. We need more intelligent systems to allow this. @drmattoleary

We (teachers) need a system that allows peer review, more creative and teams & the opportunity to take more responsibility for professional learning. We need more faith in our profession @drmattoleary

@drmattoleary finishes his lecture by thanking past and present colleagues as well as his Mum, his wife & his daughters (wonderful women in his life). What a lovely way to end.