Programme & speakers

Sue Rossiter, Chief Executive of NFER, opened the conference with a short welcoming address about how research can be used to pin-point problems and what can be done to solve those problems. She emphasised, too, how important research is for evidence-based practice.
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Professor Peter Earley, Head of Education Leadership and Management Programmes at the London Centre for Leadership in Learning at the Institute of Education, University of London, gave a warmly-received keynote speech about why he considers research to be important. Preferring the term ‘enquiry’ to ‘research’, Peter covered the purposes of research, how these are connected to school leadership and learning, why teachers and schools should engage in research and how research can be seen as professional development. He concluded by saying that school leaders need to be up to date and demonstrate a commitment to professional development, to be ‘lead learners’ promoting a learning climate or culture and evaluating the progress of teachers’ development. He believes that this is the essence of learning-centred leadership, and that it is important to create a culture where learning is seen as central to everything that is done, where there is a community of learners or a learning-centred school. Engaging in research and enquiry is a key part of such a school community.
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Andrew Morris, education consultant to the CfBT Education Trust, drew on his own experience in education to discuss the key role research should play in informing policy, rather than being used to evaluate policies that have been implemented with little or no reference to evidence. Andrew pointed out that Britain is better than most countries at using evidence to transform education. He noted that to effect change, research needs to have tangible outcomes, and questioned whether one of the barriers to the use of research in education might be that research is seen as a science and teaching as an art. If research is seen as ‘teacher-led development’ it may be better received and better understood.
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Marian Sainsbury, Head of Literacy at NFER, gave a presentation about the impact of e-assessment on schools. Marian took the delegates through the various stages of the research about the development of new e-assessment techniques, explaining the benefits and pitfalls for students and teachers. The results of an e-assessment used in the research has helped to identify different kinds of reader, e.g. involved readers. This sort of information about students will be very useful to teachers who are trying to adapt their teaching to different groups in their class.
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See video clip of interview (Flash required).

Parallel workshop – Session 1
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Parallel workshop – Session 2
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