Episode description

Today Femi and Matt discuss an article by Dylan Wiliam titled ‘Teacher Quality: why it matters, and how to get more of it’.  In addition to this central theme the pair touch on the failures of policy initiatives to raise standards, teacher learning communities, considerations of the alignment of personal professional development with the school priorities, the learning cycle of teacher improvement, the common failings of school leaders to be strategic and to prioritise effectively, and the forces that incline us all towards initiative central.  They also talk about alternative approaches to professional development (including coaching), the need for initial teacher training to deliver both high quality training and to instil attitudes of a career long commitment to professional learning, creating a culture of improvement as a leader and what it means to ‘fail better’, amongst other things.