What are TLCs and how do they work?
TLC stands for teacher learning community. The idea behind TLCs is fairly simple; namely that the people best placed to develop learning and teaching in schools are teachers. Consultants come and go, suggest ideas of varying quality, they may even inspire us to try something new, but by and large they do not really fundamentally improve our practice because we don’t own the ideas being proposed. Therefore, as we return to our lessons after a nice training day we tend to return to our old habits because we are so busy that we just jump back on the treadmill. Hopefully TLCs can have a greater impact on improving the teaching of all colleagues because TLCs offer us the opportunity to personalise the development of our practice. For example; I am encouraged to identify any techniques, activities or actions that I want to develop. I can discuss these with my colleagues (people that inhabit the same teaching world that I do), try new ideas out and refine them. I could ask a colleague to observe part of, or a whole lesson. I decide what I would like feedback on; and the greatest consequence of something going wrong will be that I get a change to talk about what happened so I can decide what I need to do to make that activity better. I like the philosophy behind TLCs because it says; “we have excellent practitioners in this school, there is a wealth of knowledge and experience here and I have colleagues that are supportive and will help me to develop professionally”.
TLCs are a group of ten or 12 colleagues from different disciplines; within each TLC we are further divided into twos or threes. The idea is that each small group can support each other with our personal development. The larger group is there to help provide some accountability, to ensure that we do commit to trying
What prompted the decision to bring TLCs in at Cheney? How are they intended to benefit staff and students?
I attended a training course on Embedding Formative Assessment with Sylvia. We were both really impressed with not only the pedagogy but also the principles behind it. I also feel quite passionately that teaching is a profession and that as such we should be responsible for our own continuing professional development; both as individuals and as a teaching body. I get quite angry about the way the National Strategy tried to impose particular approaches on teachers such as the three part lesson or the literacy and numeracy hours. I don’t think there is any way that medicine would have allowed such high levels of government interference. I also think that TLCs give us an opportunity to talk about what we think we do well in our teaching and to celebrate this with colleagues. It gives us a chance to feel good about what we do and find out what others are doing. Teaching in many ways can be quite lonely, and we are not always aware of what is happening in the classroom next to us. This gives us a chance to demystify what happens in successful classrooms.
I hope that TLCs allow us to share best practice and to take a few risks in our teaching. I believe that we can all develop and try new things and that by having the confidence to try something new we can further improve the service we give to our students. I hope our students will benefit by getting the best learning and teaching that we can deliver.
What do colleagues have to do in order to get the benefit from the TLC programme?
Different people will get different things from the TLC programme. I think the more you put into it the more you will get out. TLCs are merely a platform that gives colleagues an opportunity to discuss what they currently do and what they might like to try in the future. Each individual sets their own areas for development and is responsible for their own development. Their colleagues are purely there to offer ideas and to respond to what is asked of them. Ideally, colleagues are asked to find the time to reflect on what they do and what they would like to do more of. If they can reflect honestly on what works well and what works less well and why that is, then I think they will benefit. If someone can go a little further and do some reading around their area of development or conduct a small research activity, then I think they will be even more informed and be better positioned to develop. We all know that it’s difficult to find time for reflection because we are all so busy; TLCs are in part an attempt to create a bit of time, a supportive environment and provide encouragement for reflection to take place.
What are the concerns about TLCs? What could go wrong and how can we avoid this?
I’m hopeful that TLCs will be well-received; with all new ideas it will take a bit of time before everyone feels entirely comfortable, but I hope that early anxieties, teething problems or worries about the process won’t translate into cynicism. It’s obvious from speaking to colleagues that we all want the best for their students and that teachers are keen to develop. As such I am confident that Cheney staff will be positive in their approach to TLCs. I suppose my real concern is that we all work so hard and give so much, (particularly as we often put the students’ needs before our own), that we don’t make time to plan for reflection and introducing new ideas.
The conundrum is; if we really want to put our students first, we have to put a little bit of time aside to put ourselves first.
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