The question of how we can improve our profession to the benefit of students and wider society is of international concern. In Scotland, we are faced with two particularly pressing concerns: how do we support pupils as they move from primary to secondary school - a time when children at risk of disengaging from education are particularly vulnerable? And how do we ensure that every child, regardless of background and personal history, is supported to succeed?
If teachers and schools can directly tackle these seemingly eternal challenges, then we will be going some way towards addressing one of the most enduring challenges of our time: breaking the cycle of deprivation.
I have been given the opportunity to lead the development of a groundbreaking initial teacher education (ITE) programme at the University of Edinburgh’s Moray House School of Education, which is designed to deal directly with these crucial issues. Together with colleagues, we have created Scotland’s first full-master’s graduate ITE programme: an MSc in transformative learning and teaching.
The programme focuses overtly on social justice through transformative learning and draws on cutting-edge international research and practice. It builds on our close partnership working with neighbouring local authorities and is unique in many ways.
‘Professional authenticity’
In a nutshell, as well as offering a full master’s, the MSc qualifies teachers to work across the primary-secondary transition. It aspires to give all students a deep grounding in numeracy and literacy. It views university-based and site-based learning in schools as equally important, with groups of students working in clusters of schools throughout the two-year programme, spending at least two days a week in these schools. It values professional authenticity; the final assessment is a “professional viva” where students are required to provide master’s-level evidence that they meet the Standard for Provisional Registration.
But what of the two questions posed at the start - how will this MSc tackle them?
We know that the transition from primary to secondary has been a longstanding challenge for our education system. This is recognised in the very philosophy and design of Curriculum for Excellence. Yet existing school structures make this a difficult problem to tackle. The MSc will enable graduates to teach across the primary-secondary transition, qualifying them to work either as nursery-S3 generalist teachers or as P5-S6 subject specialist teachers. In the first instance, we are offering subject specialist pathways in computing science, English, maths and physics, reflecting national recruitment priorities.
Our approach will, we believe, go some way towards addressing the issue of pupils disengaging and falling through the cracks
Our approach will, we believe, go some way towards addressing the issue of pupils disengaging and falling through the cracks. Not only will we provide suitably qualified teachers to work across upper primary and lower secondary, enabling schools to deploy staff more flexibly, but all our graduates will also have a deep knowledge and understanding of more than one sector. We hope, in due course, that this will help to break down unhelpful but enduring stereotypes about the differences between primary and secondary teachers.
And how does the MSc aim to ensure that students are supported to succeed, regardless of their background? In short, how do we plan to tackle society’s most stubborn socio-economic inequalities?
Students will actively subscribe to a philosophy that views teaching as an “activist” role with social, political and educational importance. We will support our trainees to see themselves as agents of change.
At Moray House, we focus from the outset on student teachers understanding their own personal histories and cultures, and appreciating the need for “culturally responsive teaching” - teaching that not only recognises learners come with their own unique personal histories and biographies but also celebrates diversity and works with rather than against it.
Sense of self
It is so important for teachers to have the space to develop their own understanding of self before they can truly appreciate the “selves” of the young people they work with. We also aim to recruit ever-more diverse students, including those for whom English is not their first language.
In this rapidly changing world, it is crucial for teachers to develop a wide range of literacies, whether pedagogical, statistical, digital, linguistic or political. We aim to help students understand more deeply the contexts in which these literacies will be deployed, not only in the classroom with their pupils but also with colleagues, parents and the wider community. Teaching is not simply about delivering knowledge, and we want this message to be clear to prospective candidates at the outset.
Our MSc is the first full-master’s ITE route in Scotland and the only one of its kind in the UK. This is hugely important in policy and professional terms; it helps to elevate the status of teaching, and reflects what’s happening in those countries that already have forward-looking teacher education policies. It is a privilege for us to develop a programme that has the capacity to change not only individual leaners’ lives but also policy and professional culture.
We can’t wait to get started with our first cohort of 50 students in September of this year, and we look forward to sharing the stories of our students and their work as the programme develops.
Dr Aileen Kennedy is programme director for the University of Edinburgh’s MSc in transformative learning and teaching
