Daniel Gregson of the University of Sunderland’s Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training (SUNCETT) and Tom Mudd from Barking and Dagenham College, London, look back at what has been achieved by the ETF-SUNCETT Practitioner Research Programme over the past seven years and the legacy it has created for individuals, institutions and the wider sector, both in the UK and internationally.
For the last seven years the University of Sunderland’s Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training (SUNCETT) has consistently and successfully delivered the Practitioner Research Programme (PRP), a capstone ETF programme of CPD which combines intensive research training with research supervision, mentorship and scholarship. The PRP, open to teachers from across the Further Adult Vocational and Technical Education (FAVTE) sector in England, has increased progression opportunities for sector professionals; improved educational outcomes for students; changed practice and culture across organisations; raised performance in OFSTED inspections; re-energised sector professionals and enhanced perceptions of research in the FAVTE sector.
Since the inception of the PRP, members of the SUNCETT team have enabled hundreds of practitioners to make real and sustainable improvements in educational practice ‘from the inside’ through SUNCETT-supported practitioner research. To date, the PRP has enabled over 350 practitioners representing 94 organisations with a population of over 80,000 students to complete a 30-credit MA Short Course in Advancing Pedagogy or an MPhil Research Degree.
Some PRP participants progress to MPhil from the MA Short Course, with a smaller number moving on to complete their studies at PhD level. In one case, a former PRP participant was awarded a full Professorship by her organisatation within a few years of completing her PhD when she moved from Further Education (FE) to Higher Education (HE).
The PRP has encouraged teachers in the FAVTE sector to develop their own practice (and the practices of their colleagues) through systematic educational research, achieving high levels of academic and scholarly credentials while also raising the sector’s research profile and increasing its credibility and capacity for self-improvement. Teachers from backgrounds and disciplines as diverse as English, Plumbing, Drama, the Arts, Blacksmith and Iron trades, Photography, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Engineering have successfully completed the PRP. The programme has also supported teachers working in other sectors such as the NHS, Military and Prison Education Services. All PRP practitioners are using their research to deepen understanding of the relationship between theory and practice in vocational education contexts in order to improve educational practice. Most recently, sector practitioners have worked alongside the SUNCETT Team to move research in the field of joint curriculum planning and multimodal assessment forward in evidence-informed and creative ways as they implement the findings of their research in T Level contexts including Digital Production Design and Development, Construction (Plumbing and Electrical) and Health.
Through a wide and varied body of research and scholarly work, members of the PRP Research Community are bringing about whole institutional change and educational improvement across the FAVTE sector.
The PRP leaves behind a legacy to the sector of: one full Professor, 13 PhD graduates, 19 PhDs in progress, six MPhils awarded, and a further 12 MPhil students nearing the end of their studies. This marks a milestone increase in the scale, scope, profile, impact and quality of research conducted in the FAVTE sector. The ETF-SUNCETT Research Community is now contributing in unprecedented numbers to the improvement of vocational education and training across England, raising the profiile and strengthening the credibility and use of educational research across the sector, including the capacity of its workforce for self-improvement.
A substantial number of PRP participants have subsequently published their work in peer-reviewed books and national and international research journals. Working alongside research-active staff from the University of Sunderland, several former PRP participants have returned to offer their valuable experience and expertise and are now contributing research degree supervision and teaching as members of the SUNCETT team, thereby building valuable links between FE and HE.
PRP research projects have often brought about change on an institutional level by influencing policy change in light of their research. Through work conducted in the PRP, FE practitioners have formed and extended professional friendships and established networks that have evolved into local research hubs, small-scale regional conferences, collaborative articles, and a widely received podcast with hundreds of listeners each month, as well as contributing to research conferences at both a national and international level.
Every year, practitioners engaged in the PRP have showcased their research at the ETF National conference in the form of research posters and papers as they take part in debates and workshops inviting and responding to questions from renowned and highly-respected, researchers, education leaders and teachers. During 2021 – in the height of the Covid-19 lockdown – practitioners were able to present their work not only to a national but also a global audience as they engaged in the first Online International Practice Focused Research in Education Conference (IPFREC) where they were able to share their work with colleagues in Ireland, Myanmar, the USA and India. Most recently, the reach and impact of PRP research has enabled Special Interest Groups (SiGs) to be established. In these SIGs PRP supported students and research active teachers in HE and FE are working alongside researchers and education leaders at South East Technical University (SETU) in Waterford, Ireland and ArtEZ University in the Netherlands. These international SiGs are currently making it possible for practitioner-research to continue to grow and develop in new ways that are already having an impact on a departmental, institutional and cross-institutional level. Through research conducted by PRP Practitioners, the second IPFREC Conference in July 2023 will extend, synergize and harness contributions to research from these new SiGs as sector practitioners share their collaborative research on a larger international stage.
The SUNCETT Team
February 2023
Professor Maggie Gregson, with all of the SUNCETT Team, would like to thank Dr Paul Kessell-Holland and his colleagues at ETF for their unstinting, inspiring and far-sighted support of the PRP. We could not have achieved any of the above without the sponsorship, advice and assistance of ETF and sector staff at all levels. In closing, we would also like to extend our thanks to all of the teachers, education leaders, internationally renowned academics, scholars, educational researchers and the PRP participants themselves who have worked with us in supporting the development of educational research and the collaborative improvement of educational practice across the sector. Following in the footsteps of Horton and Freire (1987) we have made the road together by walking. It has been a privilege to work for the past seven years alongside such talented and committed scholars, education leaders, teachers and policy professionals, at the forefront of research and educational improvement in the FAVTE sector. Although the funding for the PRP in its current form comes to an end in March 2023, SUNCETT continues to support the research of FAVTE practitioners across the UK, in Ireland and in the Netherlands and we hope to be able to offer a successor to the PRP sometime in the near future.