P-05-1133 Adapt the teacher training syllabus to include Transformational Coaching and Emotional Intelligence, Correspondence – Petitioner to Committee, 07.03.21
- What are your thoughts on the attached document?
We are slowly moving in the right direction, however the document doesn’t provide enough evidence of how much the key points below will be addressed within the Universities. My concern is that a ‘module’ might only slightly touch on these subjects.
o Wellbeing – overview of resources
o Modelling approaches to whole school and cluster level engagement with well-being
o Emotional and mental well-being
o Leadership for teacher well-being
As an ex teacher myself with over 20 years in the profession, I believe that we can often stick a band aid on topics or just lightly cover them which doesn’t give us enough depth on the learning.
As most of the World has come to recognise through Covid, building a resilient society will be key in moving forward, this cannot be done within a few modules during a three-year Curriculum. There is no accountability to how much the Universities need to invest in these modules.
Moving into the 21st century we need to look at what Neuroscience, Emotional Intelligence, Transpersonal and Language Alchemy Coaching can teach us. Teacher practice needs to be diverse enough to support this evolution of change within our society – never has it been more important to learn about human behaviour to reinforce the notion that:
‘thoughts create our behaviour which in turn impacts productivity’
Enabling Psychologists, Neuro-scientists, Language Alchemy and Transpersonal Coaching specialists into our field to support with this key area of the ITE programme will assist us in being at the leading edge of teacher practice. Having been through the process myself can see that this is one of the main key components that’s missing from our Curriculum in firstly: retaining our staff and secondly: reducing staff sickness.
We need to be working at the level of thoughts to improve the quality and consistency of ITE provision and introduce a new approach to initial teacher education.
If this is essential to the government in achieving its wider ambitions for Educational reform in Wales, focusing in depth on the Human Behaviour, Emotional Literacy, Transpersonal and Language Alchemy coaching will be key. We could be the first Teaching Practice of its kind to invest in this area, this change will develop us as global leading-edge specialists.
To develop this I propose:
These areas to be placed into QTS status with a minimum of 20% of the full Teaching Practice to include:
· Human behaviour - learning about ‘me’ who am I? How can I understand my behaviours, my triggers and my personal language, learning the dynamics of my mind (Emotional Intelligence)
· Psychology and Neuroscience of the ‘adult’ not the child.
· Transpersonal and Language Alchemy coaching (the internal and external coach)
Does it adequately address the issues that you raised?
It touches on these issues in a manner that’s unclear. It mentions modules. If the module for example is 4 weeks long and only one hour a week. That’s only 4 hours over 3 years. That’s not adequate enough time to change people’s unhealthy habits and enable them to learn how to reframe these habits and learn how to become robust teachers. It does need to include Emotional Literacy and Coaching.
In the document ‘teaching-tomorrows- teachers’ states:
If Wales was to achieve the school system that it needs and wants in the future, then it seemed clear to us that the teaching profession needs to provide a lead. Wales, needs a new form of professionalism amongst its teachers. It needs teachers who:
· accept and respond to demands for their accountability;
· take personal and collective responsibility for professional development;
Out of the 9 key points within the document only the above two lightly touch on our topics. To enable a teacher to fully embrace these two key areas they also need to have the emotional literacy to respond to various demands within the role and hold themselves accountable. Equipping our teacher students with emotional literacy will enable them to take FULL responsibility over their roles. Equipping them to be forward thinkers and practitioners that are able to focus on the solution and not the problem.
- Do you have further questions in response?
How will we hold Universities accountable to the depth of Emotional Literacy that needs to be taught within the teaching practice?
Can these skills be included in the QTS status?
How do we develop a mentally strong and robust group of teachers without these key components?
How will we connect adult human behaviour into our ITE programme?
- Is there anything additional that you would like the Committee to know at this stage, either in response to this document or as an update to the Committee?
My thoughts are that we are slowly moving in the right direction, however I don’t believe that
our petition has been fully addressed. Since September 2020 to March 3rd 2021 I have personally coached over 130 Head Teachers and trained over 600 Senior Leaders and staff on resilience competency skills, Alchemy Coaching and our Advanced Leadership Programme here in Wales. The aim: supporting them to understand their behaviours, values, thought process and triggers. With many stating that they wished they had learned this within teaching practice.
Many of our heads have stated without this training they would have left the profession. We recently held a brief questionnaire with the below questions with 162 people.
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yes |
no |
Possibly |
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1.If we were to include 'Emotional Intelligence', 'Human Behavior' (Psychology), Transpersonal and Language Alchemy Coaching(TM) within our teaching practice do you believe we would create a more resilient and robust practitioner that could better cope with the pressures of the role? |
148 |
2 |
12 |
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2. Do you believe that these skills are needed within the profession?
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151 |
2 |
9 |
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3.Would you like to see these skills being added to the teacher practice curriculum?
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149 |
2 |
11 |
In the document ‘Teaching tomorrow Teachers’ it states:
If Wales was to achieve the school system that it needs and wants in the future, then it seemed clear to us that the teaching profession needs to provide a lead. Wales, needs a new form of professionalism amongst its teachers.
To achieve this we need highly self aware individuals coming though the profession individuals who are robust to the system and can manage through pressured times. Teachers need to fully understand who they are to manage these situations well. Its their health and wellbing at stake, if we had a robust teaching system we would, as previously stated:
· Reduce Staff sickness
· Retain teachers within the profession
The document also states:
Without effective leadership there will be little chance of the sector responding to the many challenges posed by the recommendations of the Donaldson Review. And without effective leadership there is little opportunity for the sector benchmark its current work nationally and internationally and to become a self-improving system. Given the current lack of leadership of the sector it is perhaps not surprising that the quality of the programmes is not as strong as it should be.
Global corporate companies are shifting into emotionally intelligence led leadership, we are moving into a very different era of Leadership- the employee is the centre of the business, you want strategic visioning?you need Emotionaly literate staff members on board. Your top CEO’s and Entreprenuers work at this level, it accounts for 90/95% of leadership.
Option 15.2 – A single university centre At the other end of the scale, it would be possible for Wales to develop a single national centre for teacher education.
This can be seen as one of the top national centres in Europe – combined with it being a 4 year course – you could have the best ITE provision. This could become a leadership training hub and centre for excellence, moving into the 21st century we need to better equip our teachers and future generation of children with the appropriate tools enabling them to be better prepared for our future.
Teacher practice needs to be diverse enough to support this evolution of change within our society. Creating a national centre could potentially attract:
· Neuro science specialists into our field, enabling us to be on the leading edge of teacher practice.
· Professors within Psychology to take an interest within our culture
Having the 3 centres instead of 5 can also have a similar impact
Thank you for taking the time in reading and listening to my points.