Conference Agenda

Objectives Of The Session

- Discuss what we might affirm and refine about our current practices related to gathering and responding to student voice.

- Examine potentially impactful practices for increasing student agency in creating more equitable, inclusive, and supportive classrooms, schools and systems.

- Share practical and powerful approaches for elevating student generated data as a central element of our school and system improvement planning.

Educational importance for Theory, Policy, Research, and/or Practice

The demands on teachers, principals, and senior administrators to engage with data are significant and are often seen as unwelcome accountability measures causing resistance or mere compliance. However, by redefining data as guidance, we can adopt a powerful approach that encourages every member to actively seek, gather, and comprehend data, empowering them to feel confident and competent in critically analyzing their own practices. In these efforts, engaging with student-generated guidance and feedback is key.

As schools and educational systems face increased expectations to use data as part of intentional improvement planning, student voice data is often sought but practices to thoughtfully gather, analyze, interpret and respond to the data collected remain limited in scope and impact.

Research has pointed to approaches that connect student voice with curriculum development, agency, and student leadership (Biddulph, 2011; Quinn & Owen, 2016), and focus on student voice participation and the knowledge they carry as researchers at schools and broader communities (Bahou, 2011). The general agreement in the literature is that young people have unique perspectives on learning, teaching, and schooling and should have the right to shape their education actively (Cook-Sather, 2006). However, many questions are yet to be answered about their level of involvement, authenticity, the extent of co-creation of data gathering and analysis methodologies, and which student voices are being listened to. Engaging genuine student voice is work that centers students to identify, analyze, and inform action about issues in their schools and learning that are considered relevant to students (Cook-Sather, 2020). It is crucial to deepen the examination of the spectrum of practices that involve student voices and their role in school and educational system change.

Format and approach

In this interactive session, participants will engage with the critical inquiry question: How might we meaningfully centre student experience and effectively use their guidance for our planning? They will examine a powerful approach to engaging students in providing feedback and guidance to inform school and system improvement and consider connections to their own contexts.

Connection to the conference theme

We connect to the conference theme: “Leading schools and education systems that promote equity, inclusion, belonging, diversity, social justice, global citizenship and/ or environmental sustainability”. Data can act as both a window, providing insight into the lives of students and their school experiences, and as mirror, helping us to see ourselves and the impact of our practices more clearly through students’ eyes. Meaningful efforts to promote more equitable and inclusive environments will require us to find ways to investigate both the window and the mirror provided by student voices.

The General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTC Scotland) is the teaching profession’s independent registration and regulation body in Scotland. GTC Scotland works to maintain and enhance trust in teaching, through teaching standards and registering and regulating the teaching profession. The Standard for Provisional Registration (GTC Scotland, 2021), the Standard for Full Registration (GTC Scotland, 2021) and the Code of Professionalism and Conduct (COPAC) (GTC Scotland, 2012), together, provide the framework for teacher professionalism. Becoming a teacher, including mandatory teacher education is underpinned by this framework.

This paper highlights work undertaken with the teaching profession to prepare for policy review, highlighting strengths of the approach alongside the need to divert initial plans in light of feedback about current implementation. Consideration is given to the tensions between individual policy content and policy use as well as relationships with existing policy with regard to professional ethics.

A refreshed suite of Professional Standards for teachers in Scotland was published in 2021.The current version of COPAC has been in place since 2012. Its revision in 2012 was not a detailed review and it did not significantly amend what had been in place before. Along with the work to refresh professional standards for teachers, a revised professional code was subject to public consultation in late 2019. The outcome of this was that further review should be considered.

The 2012 version of COPAC, with much of it seen as exemplary at the time, received international recognition(1). However, GTC Scotland believed that revision should be considered to ensure that the messages and the tone articulated well with the refreshed 2021professional standards.

A new two-year strategy was devised. A systems approach was adopted in recognition of the complexity involved in any meaningful consideration of a contemporary professional code. During the first year all teachers and college lecturers were offered the opportunity to engage with professional learning opportunities and discussion sessions. In the second year, all would be included in the wide consultation on the first draft of any revised/new policy produced. Notably, time and space were to be devoted to collaborative learning before attempting to revise or replace the existing COPAC.

However, the data gathered showed that there was no consensus about the need and scale of required change. This led to a decision to retain COPAC in its current form, republished in a modern digital format reflecting up to date terminology. At the same time, planned year two work was refocused to allow education about and engagement with COPAC through GTC Scotland’s Education and Standards work. This work to support the embedding of COPAC and its effective use, aims to support the creation of conditions that will benefit future exploration of a more significant revision to COPAC alongside greater consideration of how it works along with the professional standards to define what it means to become, be and grow as a teacher in Scotland.

(1) Recognition from both Committee on Standards in Public Life (2013) and Council of Europe (2016) ETINED Council of Europe Platform on Ethics