Who do teachers want to learn from? Other teachers.

Jo Facer, our head of NPQ faculty, takes a deep-dive into our masterclasses, explaining how we developed them, and what we learned by doing it.

One of my favourite elements to work on this year has been our online masterclasses.

We took a long time to think about what we meant by “masterclass.” Initially, we had thought we would get experts recognised in their field to come and share their wisdom. Then a chance conversation with my oldest friend made me think again.

Mentioning a recent NPQSL day she had attended with her provider, she said: “The facilitator shared all this amazing research. We then asked her: but how does that work in a school like mine? Or any school? And she couldn’t answer.” My friend was frustrated, understandably so. What is the point of great research if you can’t make it work in an actual school setting?

At the NIoT, we prioritise current experience from successful leaders over almost every other factor when thinking about the delivery of our courses: our aim is to have every session facilitated by a serving school leader, and we’re working hard to get there. With our national masterclasses, where every NPQ participant of the various courses comes together in a huge online room, we had a real opportunity to showcase the school-based expertise that could put school-based practice front and centre.

There are many colleagues who are not school-based who I learn a tremendous amount from – no question. I don’t know where I would be if it weren’t for the brilliance and wisdom of the Becky Allens and Tom Bennetts of this world. There are some education superstars who you can’t not learn from, they are so effective at what they do. Indeed, we run national webinars with big names for our ECF programme, and they are a big draw.

But NPQs feel different. Our participants have been in school longer; they know the theory, and they’ve had deep and broad classroom experience.

Instead, for our NPQs, we decided that the thing we wanted to facilitate access to was the expert in the school – the kind of career-defining person some people get to work shoulder-to-shoulder with, but most people don’t. When I listened to our speakers, I was blown away by their knowledge, expertise and flexibility of thought – because they live and breathe this stuff, the excellent questions that were thrown at them were answered in a way that participants could take and use in their setting.

This hunch, that our participants would love to learn from in-school colleagues, was borne out by the anonymous feedback we collected, some of which I’ll share here:

• Inspirational to hear from two positive and driven leaders with proven success.
• Fabulous speakers - very inspiring. Powerful ideas! Really useful models and approaches. Some lovely ideas to take back to class and share with my team.
• The honesty and simplicity of the two speakers was refreshing. From the heart and practical. Refreshing.
• Knowledgeable, enthusiastic speakers who could call upon their own experience, provide context to thought processes and elaborate on examples.
• Inspirational leaders sharing their expertise. Incredibly motivational.
• Really useful, tangible advice on specific strategies and methods of how to share these more widely across school.
• Really interactive where we got to chat about scenarios to other professionals and colleagues. Great to hear about real experiences and how their strategies have created lasting impact.
• The delivery and the information was great and I enjoyed how the deliverers focused on their personal experience.
• I have been blown away with this session. It was really insightful and inspiring.

Who do teachers want to learn from? Other teachers.

“This is a good idea” is not nearly as compelling or useful as: “here is how I made this good idea work in my school”. Colleagues who are school based are the obvious individuals to navigate the knotty realities of schools, and share their experiences. Our organisation is founded by four of the most impressive Multi-Academy Trusts in the country, and they and our Associate Colleges are brimming with expertise. Who wouldn’t want to find out more about what makes these schools so brilliant?

If you like the sound of this, you can sign up for one of our NPQs here