27th November,  5 - 7pm

'Adolescent Well-being and School Experiences: a problematic relationship?'

Professor John Gray, Professor of Education, University of Cambridge Faculty of Education

The Nuffield Foundation currently has a major initiative on 'Adolescent Mental Health'. Teams from a number of British universities are involved. Professor John Gray is leading a research team in the Cambridge Faculty of Education charged with looking at the world-wide evidence on the links between adolescent well-being and 10-14 year olds’ school experiences. How can schools make a difference in this area? What matters? And what does a 'supportive school' look like?

John is Professor of Education in the Cambridge Faculty of Education. He is an international authority on issues connected with school effectiveness and improvement. Over the course of his career he has led some sixty externally-funded research projects as well as a number of school improvement initiatives with a strong practical focus.

Thursday October 16th, 5 - 7pm

'Beyond Mode 2 Knowledge: Professional Knowledge Building in the New Millennium'

Professor Susan Groundwater-Smith, Honorary Professor University of Sydney
(Convener of the Practitioner Research Special Interest Group and the Coalition of Knowledge Building Schools)

When we speak of ‘knowing’ something in Education, it can be bewildering. To what are we referring? Is it knowing how young people in our schools learn about civics and citizenship? Or is it knowing of the ways in which the historical circumstances of schooling have developed in different contexts or economies? Or perhaps, is it knowing how to structure school education to meet the new demands of Web2.0 technologies? When we start to scope the nature of professional knowledge-building in as diverse and widespread a practice of education it becomes clear that the field is governed by so many variables as to be vast, with some corners immensely fertile and well cultivated while others are virtually uncharted. I am interested, in this presentation, to explore how knowledge beyond academic knowledge and what has become known as Mode 2 Knowledge has been accumulated, evaluated and subjected to critique and debate. I shall seek to blur the boundaries between those who are understood to be the producers and those who are the users of professional knowledge in terms of their functions and the esteem that is attached to them.

This seminar was hosted by the following groups at the Faculty of Education:

SUPER - School University Partnership in Educational Research
LLSI - Leading Learning for School Improvement
eed - Education, Equality and Development Group

Thursday 26th June,  5 - 7pm

'Towards Core Principles of Pedagogy'

Dr Lesley Saunders, Senior Policy Adviser for Research, General Teaching Council for England
Visiting Professor, Institute of Education, London

Lesley Saunders is working with Professor Andrew Pollard (Director of TLRP) to develop a set of draft pedagogical principles, to be widely discussed with teachers and other educators.  The aim is to offer some enduring and values-based principles that will support, and be informed by, teachers’ professional knowledge and practice.  No easy task!  In this seminar, Lesley will present a brief overview of the work so far and why it is needed; and then submit to keen questioning, first from Professor John MacBeath and then from participants.

Thursday 24th April,  4-5.30pm

'Higher Education in America and Britain: Trans-Atlantic Lessons from the New York Commission on Higher Education'

Dr. John B. Clark, Interim Chancellor, State University of New York
Discussant: Dr. Bruce Leslie, Professor of History, SUNY-Brockport and Visiting Scholar

This seminar is an opportunity to hear from the Chancellor of one of the three largest universities in the world, and to have the opportunity to discuss emerging issues that affect teaching, research, resourcing and funding on both sides of the Atlantic.

Dr. Clark is Interim Chancellor of the State University of New York (aka ‘SUNY’), the largest university system in the U.S., with over 420,000 students across 64 campuses.  He is also a member of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s ‘Blue Ribbon’ Commission on Higher Education, charged with designing New York State’s approach to public and private higher education in the coming decades.  The Commission published its Preliminary Report in December.

Chancellor Clark (in America the ‘Chancellor’ is de facto as well as titular leader) will outline the findings of the Report (with copies available before his visit) and provide a commentary on some of its salient issues.  Professor Leslie, who is an expert on comparative higher education, will briefly draw out some of the connections with higher education in the U.K.

A number of the issues in the Report will resonate on this side of the Atlantic.  Among them are: the demands on universities for research prestige and cutting-edge, economically beneficial research; access from secondary schools and non-baccalaureate colleges; the demographic composition (i.e., “diversity”) of students and faculty; the role of teaching universities; and the balance of public and private funding.  As Britain comes to grips with mass higher education in general and the aftermath of the 2003 White Paper specifically, issues for discussion may include international research rankings, Foundation Courses, access, student ‘diversity’, transfer among institutions, and the fate of non-Russell Group institutions after the next RAE.

A contrasting state of affairs

The scope of higher education in New York State provides fascinating parallels and contrasts with the Britain scene. In addition to the public SUNY and CUNY (City University of New York) systems, there are nearly 150 private colleges and universities in New York State, ranging from small liberal arts colleges to two (Columbia and Cornell) ‘Ivy League’ universities. In addition to four research universities and 32 community colleges, SUNY includes 12 non-doctoral ‘university colleges’, two medical centres, 8 technical colleges, and public-private partnerships in fields such as ceramics, forestry, optometry, veterinary medicine, and industrial relations.

Thursday 6th March, 5-7pm

'The Thomas Deacon Academy'  

Dr Alan McMurdo, Principal of the Thomas Deacon Academy, Peterborough

The Leadership for Learning group will be hosting a supper seminar led by Dr Alan McMurdo, the Principal of the Thomas Deacon Academy, Peterborough. He has overseen the construction of a new building and the inauguration of a new school from the amalgamation of three other schools in Peterborough.
 
The building design and curriculum initiatives have created opportunities for radical and exciting approaches to restructuring and re-culturing schooling. This is an opportunity to engage in discussion and debate the issues with this school leader in the first year of this endeavour.