Support for members 0116 2991122 ASCL Professional Development Join Us Log In About ASCL Membership Help And Advice Our View News Home News Blog November 2019 ASCL collaborates with the IoE on a new project to improve teachers' job satisfaction and retention Blog ASCL collaborates with the IoE on a new project to improve teachers' job satisfaction and retention The urbanist Edward Glaeser argues that we often fall into the trap of thinking about cities as collections of skyscrapers, bridges and famous landmarks when, in reality, they are concentrations of people. Cities are “made of flesh, not concrete”. We make the same mistake with schools, where policymakers regularly fall into Glaeser’s trap by spending too much time and resource advocating for different ‘types’ of schools, changing their legal status or rebuilding them. These policies tend to have little or no impact because schools, like cities, are best thought of as collections of people. That should be our overriding focus. Indeed, research consistently shows that teachers have a powerful influence on their pupils’ exam results, soft skills and even earnings in adulthood. Good schools are built on good teachers. But despite what we know about the importance of teachers, the profession is not in good shape. Research shows that job satisfaction is low relative to other countries and that retention is declining. Research also points to some solutions. In particular, the quality of teachers’ working environment – the way in which colleagues, policies and norms help or hinder teachers’ ability to do their job – is strongly related to retention. Important aspects of working environment include workload, collaboration and supportive leadership. But improving the working environment in a school is not straightforward. Where should leaders focus their efforts? How can schools take an evidence-based approach? And how can leaders verify whether meaningful improvements are being made? New joint project ASCL is collaborating with researchers from UCL Institute of Education (IoE) on an innovative new project that can help. The IoE researchers have developed a questionnaire which carefully measures the aspects of teachers’ working environment known to improve teacher job satisfaction and retention. Thirteen ASCL schools have already taken part in a pilot and we are now opening up the opportunity to all ASCL members. How does it work? Schools sign up on a specially designed website and provide the email addresses for their teachers. The anonymous questionnaire is then distributed to teachers, along with targeted reminders. The questionnaire takes just 11 minutes to complete. We then confidentially provide heads with the results, broken down across four areas: collegiality, workload, behaviour and leadership. Leaders can also look at a detailed breakdown of responses to each individual question. Crucially, participating schools can view their results compared to other (anonymised) schools with similar intakes or locations, allowing for meaningful, contextualised comparisons. Coming next spring Our plan is to run the ASCL/IoE survey in spring 2020, and again in the following two spring terms. This will allow schools to track progress and collect compelling evidence of improvement, including on workload – which is now part of the Ofsted framework. We will also host meetings each year at ASCL Annual Conference so that schools can ask questions, discuss the findings and compare notes on how they are responding. The anonymous data collected through the project will also be used in academic research, helping to shed new light on the drivers of teacher job satisfaction and retention. In return, we are asking for two things: Schools help us cover the costs of administering the survey (£100 per school, per year). This goes toward the cost of website hosting, survey software and providing any necessary technical support to schools. Headteachers ensure a good response rate from their teachers. Our website allows heads to track response rates in real time, in order to make this as easy as possible. Schools are built on teachers. Our survey can help school leaders ensure that theirs are built on a solid foundation of engaged and committed staff. But, to make it a success, we need schools to get involved. To register your interest in taking part, please contact s.sims@ucl.ac.uk Sam Sims, Research Fellow at UCL Institute of Education Posted: 27/11/2019 14:20:59 Post archive November 2021 (4) October 2021 (3) September 2021 (1) August 2021 (2) July 2021 (2) May 2021 (1) April 2021 (3) March 2021 (1) February 2021 (5) January 2021 (3) December 2020 (1) November 2020 (4) October 2020 (2) August 2020 (3) July 2020 (2) June 2020 (2) May 2020 (4) April 2020 (6) March 2020 (2) February 2020 (4) January 2020 (4) December 2019 (5) November 2019 (3) October 2019 (3) September 2019 (2) March 2018 (6) About ASCL Who we are Organisation and Governance People Membership Join Us Member benefits ASCL Associates Help and Advice Support for Members ASCL Benevolent Fund Our View Consultation responses Campaigns Contact ASCL Contact us and enquiries Cookies policy Constitution and rules ASCL Legal and Member Support Policy ASCL Privacy Notice ASCL Professional Development privacy notice Subject access request policy Terms and Conditions Contact ASCL © Copyright 2021 - Association of School and College Leaders, 2nd Floor, Peat House, 1 Waterloo Way, Leicester, LE1 6LP. 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