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How the Chartered Teacher Programme benefited me

HOW THE CHARTERED TEACHER PROGRAMME BENEFITED ME

Sandra Clinton

Head of Chemistry and Physics, Brighton Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College

 

Sandra Clinton writes about her CTeach experience and why you should join the Chartered Teacher Programme programme

Chartered Teacher Status is a new way of recognising the importance of the teaching profession. It enables practicing teachers to reflect on their practice, evaluate their own performance and gain a cross-phase perspective.  By becoming Chartered we show a commitment to being up to date with best practice and are able to understand and apply the research evidence which supports this practice. It’s a status conferred on classroom practitioners which is about classroom practice.

 

Participating in the programme has helped me get up to date on recent developments in pedagogy, encouraged me to read more broadly about education and helped me learn more about varying assessment models.

 

Chartered teachers are part of a growing cross phase national network of professionals who share a common goal of making their teaching as good as it can be. Their practice is rooted in evidence, their behaviors are linked to the evidence and they engage with pedagogy regularly. As the number of Chartered Teachers grows, the teaching profession will become more united with classroom teachers armed with the evidence required to obtain the best outcomes for the young people they work with.

 

I’ve always been a reflective practitioner, but I now reflect more formally with students completing surveys and participating in small focus groups as a much more routine part of my classroom practice.  As a teacher in a sixth form college, we are able to engage our students with the reasons for particular teaching strategies. Rather than just saying we are using a method because it’s the best one, I now share the research evidence with them. For example, I’ve always started lessons with short quizzes but now I deliberately show the students the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve and explain the evidence behind a spaced retrieval approach. Students have fed back that they now feel they have the strategies to take with them beyond the chemistry classroom.  They have become more metacognitive. One of them sent me a thank you email the night before their A level results (!) to say whatever the outcome, they now had a better understanding of how to learn that would help them throughout the rest of their life.

 

The Chartered Teacher programme is challenging but very rewarding. Participants who complete it have been through a robust and thorough assessment process.  You will be expected to objectively analyse your teaching practice and its impact, and to engage with assignments and reading that will push you professionally and intellectually.

 

Assignments have been developed that allow a clever combination of common material with choice around your own professional development priorities. You will set a professional development plan with your mentor at the start of the course based on a set of professional principles.  Through keeping a reflective journal during the course you will reflect on progress made against the targets you have set yourself.

 

I embarked on the Chartered Teacher Programme to re-invigorate my enthusiasm for pedagogy and evidence-informed practice. I’ve more than achieved that aim and recommend that teachers in all sectors at all stages of their career consider completing the programme, you won’t regret it!

Visit the Chartered Teacher page to find out more or email charteredteacher@chartered.college with any questions. Early-bird rate for the programme closes 2nd December