Education Leadership and Professional Learning Subgroup - minutes: October 2021

Attendees and apologies

Present

• Carol Young, Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER)
• Mélina Valdelièvre, Education Scotland
• Lesley Whelan, Education Scotland
• Tara Lillis, NASUWT
• Charlotte Dwyer, ScotDec (Scottish Development Centre)
• Pauline Stephen representing the GTCS while Victoria Smith is on annual leave
• Olwen Fraser, Northern Alliance Regional Improvement Collaborative
• Emamezi Obi-Baron, Education Scotland
• Rhona Jay, Association of Directors of Education Scotland (ADES)

Apologies

• Khadija Mohammed, Scottish Association of Minority Ethnic Educators (SAMEE)
• Samir Sharma, Quality Improvement Officer, Glasgow City Council
• Mark Langdon, Glasgow Life
• David Smith, Association of Directors of Education Scotland (ADES)

Items and actions

Welcome and introductions

The fifth meeting of the sub-group took place on Tuesday 5 October.

The subgroup extended a warm welcome to their new member, Rhona Jay, representing ADES.

Note of the last  meeting

The group agreed that this was an accurate note of the meeting with one change to correctly record Pauline Stephen’s attendance. It was also helpfully clarified that that any new post that would be based at GTCS to support the work of the REAREP would focus on Teaching Staff due to the remit of the GTCS.

Group membership and chairing

Chair and Vice Chair was discussed and members proposed an appointed chair and vice chair will not be required. The group agreed that members would act as Chair on a rotational basis. 

Action point:
One member of this workstream will be invited to update at the Stakeholder Network Group Meeting which is currently the last Thursday of every month. As not everyone is a member of the Stakeholder Network Group, it will be good to have members of the group other than ES colleagues give an update from the Workstream. There is the potential for whoever is the Chair to provide the update.

Draft Chair rota to be developed and shared with members in advance of the next meeting.

REAREP workstream updates

Building literacy meetings

Mélina Valdelièvre gave brief overview of the Building Literacy Meetings.

Three meetings held so far. More details will be provided later on. As for the context:

• detailed discussion about who is to be involved in the development of this new Professional Learning Programme. The sub-group aim is to have different types of partners and different stages of engagement to allow focused engagements and best use of time especially for young people and people of colour
• remuneration for different partners is planned, although the budget has yet to be agreed by the Board
• in terms of design partners, Intercultural Youth Scotland representatives were keen to have youth groups involved in the development of the programme and the group committed to inviting groups they suggested at different stages of the programme development for more focused engagement. The target audience of this Professional Learning Programme is adults and perhaps this is not the right place to be getting young people involved in the design
• other members suggested inviting Show Racism the Red Card since they have some influence in anti-racism in Scottish Education. They have successfully engaged with a lot of schools and they have the experience of evaluation which we could learn from. At the same time this collaborative design is an opportunity to influence such key stakeholders who already deliver anti-racist training by inviting them in as a learning opportunity not only for us but also for them

Stakeholder Network Group (SNG)

Mélina Valdelièvre gave a brief overview of the SNG and REAREP workstreams. The SNG meets every month with the last meeting held on 23rd September.

• discussion centred around Evaluations considering how do we evaluate this whole programme of work. Members agreed to commission an external partner to create a change evaluation model which will work closely with the group. It will be important to ensure the researcher has the anti-racist experience and knowledge required
• the meeting also included a discussion on system reform with Prof. Ken Muir
• the next meeting, will include members of the TIE campaign who will share their experience, their approach to implementing a programme for LGBT inclusive for Education. It will be good to see what we can learn from them and also see where there are some differences
• Next Meeting of the SNG is on the 28th October 1500-1700

Diversity in the Teaching Profession and Education Workforce

The Diversity in the Teaching Profession and the Education Workforce last met on the 14th of September.

• there was an update on positive actions that have been taking place in Glasgow City Council. The one year placement for the five minority ethnic principal Teachers were successfully filled and one of the Teachers has now been successful in securing a full time permanent post as a Principal Teacher
• EIS Union is undertaking research into recruitment practises and we will find out a bit more in the next meeting
• there was a presentation on the recommendations of the Race Equality and Employment Skills Making Progress inquiry reports
• the last part of the meeting focused on the GTCS National post remit hosted by the GTCS. Feedback was provided and the next meeting we will have an outline of this remit

This week is the curriculum meeting and feedback will be provided next time.

Building Racial Literacy programme updates

Three meetings held so far and members have been identified to get involved in the design stage. A draft terms of reference was shared and agreed to clarify how the group would engage different groups and people at different stages.

• the group agreed the need for design partners, content creation partners, content review partners and delivery partners to help structure the process of developing this professional learning programme and also reviewing it to increase the sustainability by building capacity early on
• the REAREP Board have positively responded to the project that was proposed and we are just waiting for further guidance on funding. Budget would need to be spent by the end of March so we are considering running the programme up to end of March
• currently planning on starting the programme in January with two full days with about 50 participants. One Induction day in January and a closing day in March with twilight sessions in between
• the plan will be to include train the trainer sessions to really upskill those who are part of the initial cohort to potentially support future iterations of the programme but also support leading anti-racist professional learning for example in schools
• also looking at protecting spaces for Black Minority ethnic Teachers, ELC and CLD practitioners

Action point:

• the key hurdle that the group is working towards getting over is how we can make a programme like this work for everyone. Finding ways to create safe spaces but at the same time using that to deflect white fragility is a real challenge
• clear communications and targeting to make sure people are clear in what they are signing up to
• make provision for drop offs. Considering over-recruitment, having reserve lists as well as building in more participant support potentially with Local Authority officers signed up on the programme alongside participants

Communications and awareness raising including supporting educators to engage with new resources

Comms and awareness raising was discussed, particularly around some of the resources that have been developed, highlighted and launched recently in the system.

• how can we use our networks to support broader engagement with those resources, awareness of those resources that are already available? 
• are there particular ways we can work with our various organisations or networks to promote the opportunities of those resources?
• it will be important to support people to feel more comfortable and confident to engage in and use the resources. For example, the Northern Alliance will be organising a session on the resources for a Deputy Head Network
• more political presence, encouragement at Government Level in order to have more buy-in would be helpful. More central messaging and potentially making it mandatory and expected would make a difference. Members wondered if there was learning to be gained from those involved in the leading the Time for Inclusive Education work

Discussion to continue next meeting.

Professional learning activities

To be discussed next meeting.