Schoolreaders is a Bedford based charity now 10 years old that has developed into a nationwide organisation placing adult volunteers into primary schools to support individual children in improving their reading capabilities. Professor Goodwyn has worked closely with the charity over six years to support their research into their impact on readers and the benefits to schools. Supported by a grant from Universities UK and investment from Schoolreaders, this project will undertake a qualitative investigation into a large number of case study schools to develop an understanding of how their relationship with Schoolreaders has benefited their students and staff over time.

This project is being undertaken by IREd researcher Prof Uvanney Maylor. The Associate Teachers Group study seeks to understand from art teachers and senior leaders from minority ethnic backgrounds who are interested in/have previously interacted with the Schools and Teachers Team (STT) at Tate Gallery, factors which contribute to their engagement and issues which positively/negatively influence and/or affect their participation in the STTs programme activities. The research is also keen to explore what (if any) the support needs of art teachers, senior leaders and schools are if their engagement and interaction with the STT is to increase. The overarching aim is to inform the STT’s goal of embedding inclusivity and anti-racism in their practice to better welcome and include minority ethnic teachers in the national programmes they offer to art teachers and schools.

This qualitative study seeks to answer three key questions:

• Who does the programmes offered by the STT currently attract and why?
• Who do the STT reach out to and how?
• How can the STT take and prioritise positive action to be more ethnically inclusive?

Through interviews and focus group discussions participants will be asked to critically reflect on their experiences of accessing the arts cultural sector and their experiences within the cultural sector from their professional perspective of working in schools supporting young people to engage with art and ideas which encourage young people to think of themselves as being in/of the global world, and as part of their experiences of accessing and working with the STT.

This project is being undertaken by IREd researchers Prof Uvanney Maylor, Prof Andy Goodwyn, Dr Cathal Butler, Dr Neil Hopkins and Dr Carol Thomson along with Anglia Ruskin University researchers Dr Steve Connolly and Dr Samson Tsegay. The project aims to investigate the career paths and experiences of BAME teachers and senior leaders, including the views and aspirations of BAME Teacher Education students. Focus groups have now been completed with University of Bedfordshire ITE students and a number of Teaching Assistants as well as interviews with local teachers and senior leaders and a joint networking event held with Anglia Ruskin University.  The data is currently being analysed with the intention of producing one or more publications and developing a substantial research proposal. A symposium on the project has been submitted to the British Educational Research Association (BERA) 2023 conference committee for review. The project received £5,000 of funding from UKRI in January 2022.

This project, led by Dr Steve Connolly and Dr Oliver Belas is working to create "better moderation spaces" to aid teachers with their assessment and moderation of Primary level writing work. The project aims to assess the viability and effectiveness of online moderation spaces by developing virtual working environments within which teachers can assess pupil writing for both its technical and creative value and improve their practice in this vital area of literacy and English.

This project, following on from Contested Territories (see under Concluded Projects) has investigated ‘What is life like, personally and professionally, as an English teacher in the middle years: what are its pleasures and its pains and what view do its teachers have of the future of being an English teacher?’

This is an international project with researchers from the UK (Prof Andy Goodwyn - University of Bedfordshire and Dr Rachel Roberts - University of Reading) the US (Dr Melanie Shoffner - James Madison University, Dr Marshall George - Hunter College of the City University of New York, Dr Lisa Scherff - Community School of Naples, Dr Judi Franzak - Salisbury University) and Australia (Prof Jackie Manuel - University of Sydney and Dr Kerry-Ann O’Sullivan -Macquarie University).

There is increasing evidence that teaching is becoming an unattractive career in 'high performing jurisdictions' in the English speaking world; unattractive to graduates who might choose teaching and also to its current workforce. Recruitment is difficult, retention even more so. The early years in teaching (Years 1-5) have a huge drop-out rate, experienced teachers are leaving and/or changing careers.

The subject 'English', especially in high schools, is a contested territory becoming highly prescribed in terms of curriculum and assessment and dominated by high stakes testing outcomes. Such prescription has changed a subject previously characterised by teacher agency, autonomy and creativity into a tightly controlled, externally determined and formulaic mode of pedagogy. Some teachers adapt to these conditions, maintain professional integrity, sustain a strong professional identity, and retain their belief in English as a student-centred subject.

This study is investigating English teachers in the middle years of teaching: that is, teachers with between approximately 6 and 20 years of teaching experience, to attempt to understand what has sustained them and what has challenged them and what professional wisdom they have gained over this prolonged experience, allowing for fine grained comparison with previous research.

Following a period of disruption due to the Covid pandemic, the data collection is now complete. This was a qualitative study involving semi-structured teacher interviews conducted by skype/zoom (etc.) As well as questions the teachers were asked to reflect on both professional artefacts, (1) an example of their planning, (2) a favourite text and actual experiences and (3) a representative lesson.

Participants were volunteers invited to take part. Researchers used local knowledge, teacher education and professional networks and snowball sampling.

This research was the first such transnational study of English teachers and the findings will have great value for subject associations and for influence on policy in each country.

Initial data analysis has been completed with papers presented at AERA (The American Education Research Association) in April 2022 and ARLE (The International association for Research in L1 Education) in Nicosia in June 2022 – with further presentations planned.

This project undertaken by Prof Andy Goodwyn aims to investigate the emergence of the Lead Practitioner role across schools in England and the nature and characteristics it is developing as it evolves. 

Phase 1: Focus on English Teachers

Who is leading English? Investigating the emergence of the Lead Practitioners (LP) of English phenomenon. NATE and IREd (2019-21)

In this phase 10 LPs of English were interviewed about their roles and their concept of Expert teaching. The findings revealed a very marked division between those LPs who saw their role as to design and control the delivery of a very exam orientated, results driven curriculum and those who wanted to support the agency and autonomy of English teachers.

Phase 2: A comparison between the Lead Practitioner Role and the Chartered teacher (2022-24)

The project continues to gather data through interviews with teachers and senior colleagues, most recently with participants from the Harris Foundation.  One strand is looking at the development of the Chartered Teacher (with the support of The Chartered College of Teaching) to gauge its significance, partly in comparison with the LP role in order to evaluate what conceptions of expert teacher roles are gaining status with the profession and the public.  Are such ‘expert’ roles adding to the status of teaching as such roles do in other professions?

Papers were presented at AERA (The American Education Research Association) in April 2022 and ARLE (The International association for Research in L1 Education) in Nicosia in June 2022, The Festival of Education, July 2022, Wellington College and BERA (The British Educational Research Association) Liverpool in September 2022.  The following paper has been published with further publications planned.

Goodwyn, A. [November, 2022], ‘The attrition of the Expertise of teachers of English: from the rich pedagogy of Personal and Social Agency to the poverty of the Powerful Knowledge Heritage model’.  In, Goodwyn, A., Roberts, R., Durrant, C., Sawyer, W., Manuel, J., Zancanella, D. & Scherff, E. (2022). (Eds.). International Perspectives on English Teacher Development: From Initial Teacher Education to Highly Accomplished Professional: [IFTE Volume Four], London, Routledge.

This project was undertaken from 2021 to 2022 by Prof Janice Wearmouth and Dr Karen Lindley (IREd), Helen Baker and Kelly Jacob (King Edmund School) and Anthony Kemp (Calibre Audio).

Achievement in reading literacy is not only a foundation for achievement in other subject areas within the educational system, but also a prerequisite for successful participation in most areas of adult life’ (OECD, 2016, p.5). Those who fail to learn to read at school can be disadvantaged lifelong.

At secondary level it is important to find ways to inspire learners to re-engage in the learning process after years of failure in learning to read. Currently there is some research evaluating the efficacy of using audiobooks to stimulate enjoyment of reading and support reading gains at secondary level. Best (2020, p.2) from a literature review concludes that engagement with audiobooks can have a strong positive influence on reading skills and enjoyment. The National Literacy Trust’s report on children, young people and digital reading (Best, 2020) indicates that disengaged boy readers are more than twice as likely to say they read fiction on screen compared with more engaged peers (25.4% vs 9.8%) (Clark and Picton, 2019). Audiobooks can be a private experience. If a learner wants to ‘read’ a lower-ability or -aged book they can do so without peers’ scrutiny (Wearmouth, 2021).

The evidence base is very small, however. The current project was designed to begin to fill that gap. Read more about An investigation into the potential of audiobooks

This was a three-year project looking at pedagogy and professional identities across schools in Bedford, Copenhagen and Helsinki. The research required a ‘set of round robin’ visits of each locality to observe teaching practice and interview teachers on their views on autonomy and professional identity. Seminars were held during each visit to share information on the observations and generate discussion on the similarities and differences across the respective countries. Teachers also reflected upon and reported on changes they made to their teaching practices after the visits. A final report was compiled and submitted to the British Council and ERASMUS+ on the research methodology and detailed findings from the project. Read more about Time, Technology and Talent

Dr Steve Connolly and his team were commissioned to evaluate the success of the RADY (Raising Attainment for Disadvantaged Youth) project which ran in the Central Bedfordshire Council education authority for 18 months. RADY is a programme which uses a wide range of measures and strategies to improve the attainment of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The IREd team interviewed staff and students from a number of different schools involved in the project in order to evaluate its efficacy. The finished report has now been published online, with the permission of Central Bedfordshire Council and Challenging Education, both of whom are responsible for running the RADY programme. View the report on the RADY Project Evaluation

Conducted by Andy Goodwyn as NATE Research Officer and Director of IRED.

As a National Association which seeks to represent the views of English teachers, NATE decided to introduce an annual survey in 2019 to gather together those views and to build a picture of trends and developments over time. This first survey was aimed at collecting the views of NATE members and other English teachers about the state of English as a school subject and the views and feelings of English teachers about its current status and value in the school system. It should be noted that the main focus of the survey was English in England; the other UK countries now have quite different education systems and curricula.

The survey was initially designed by NATE’s research officer and the management team, then trialled with serving teachers who provided feedback to help modify and improve it, then it was made available electronically; the survey was live between May 2018 and October 2019. It was distributed to all NATE members and more widely to other English teachers. A strategic decision was made to make the survey a detailed document with maximum opportunity for teacher comments, and this has provided remarkably rich data not all of which can be captured in the summary report. The raw results contain a remarkable number of varied and insightful comments that defy neat summary. However, wherever possible the qualitative elements were offered as thematic findings. Read more about The state of English teaching

This was an 18 month project [2017-19] commissioned by the College to evaluate their new Chartered Teacher programme. The IRED team was led by Professor Andy Goodwyn and consisted of Dr Cathal Butler, Dr Neil Hopkins, Dr Karen Lindley and Dr Carol Thompson and also from the University of Reading. The team conducted interviews with key stakeholders of the College, teachers participating in the Pilot programme, Head Teachers and other relevant educational professionals. The findings were reported to the College and have been disseminated at several major conferences including The American Educational Research Association, The British Educational Research Association and The European Educational Research Association. Read more about the Independent Evaluation of The Chartered College of Teaching Pilot Chartered Teacher Programme

Kerry-Ann O’Sullivan, Macquarie University & Andy Goodwyn, University of Bedfordshire.

Globally teachers are experiencing reductions to their autonomy and constraints on their professional practice through legislative impositions of limiting standards, external testing and narrowing curricula. This study [2017-19] explores the ways English educators find a balance between external expectations, contemporary pressures, professional aspirations, and personal values in times of change. The purpose of this research was to create new understandings about the impact of educational reform on teachers’ professionalism, their pedagogies, and their beliefs about their subject of English. It was a qualitative investigation into the perceptions shared by thirty-three English teachers from New South Wales, Australia and across England. We set out the contexts for English teachers in both countries, with an indicative history of the intensification of regulation. A significant gap now exists between the ways English teachers conceive their subject, their purposes and the nature of their work, and that determined by regulation, formalised curriculum and accreditation requirements. The enduring resilience of these teachers is revealed but also the corrosive structural effects produced by narrowly focused, neoliberal policies especially in relation to high stakes testing. However, the research demonstrates how certain English teachers remain remarkably resilient – retaining autonomy where they can – and we define this attribute as ‘adaptive agency’. Read more about Contested territories