The government has commissioned Sheffield Hallam University to review and develop a “theory of change” for teacher development delivered by teaching school hubs (TSHs).
Details of what this might entail, or the context behind it, are sparse.
But Richard Gill, chair of the Teaching School Hubs Council, a sector body set up to oversee the network, described it as an evaluation of the teaching school hub programme.
Some 87 teaching school hubs are accredited to deliver training and development including the early career framework and national professional qualifications.
The Department for Education said the project will build on the existing evaluations already completed into the ECF and NPQs.
The DfE has awarded the university a £38,797 contract for work until March next year. It will involve engaging with a range of stakeholders.
James Noble-Rogers, executive director of the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers, said a review of the role of TSHs, “as we move into a new policy environment, might be timely”.
The DfE has previously described theory of change as a method that helps people designing policy and services to assess what impact they may have, based on the available evidence.
They are often “used to assess different ideas before implementing them”, it previously explained.
The last government spent nearly £700 million funding 13 hubs as part of its push for a schools-led system to share best practice.
But independent evaluations of just four have been published.
Hubs ‘supportive of an evaluation’
Hubs previously also provided additional CPD, but Schools Week reported in March that they would no longer do so from this autumn.
Gill said they are “supportive of an evaluation” and “look forward to working collaboratively” with Sheffield around “what this theory of change might look like”.
Schools Week previously revealed the DfE was ending funding for the body from September.
But Gill said it will continue its work this year.
Labour was elected on manifesto pledge to update the ECF, while maintaining “its grounding in evidence”.
Another Labour manifesto pledge was to introduce a teacher training entitlement to “ensure teachers stay up to date on best practice with continuing professional development”. But it’s unclear if there is a link with the new review.
Theory of change could just be “another rushed policy, a remnant of the previous government”, said David Spendlove, professor of education and associate dean of the faculty of humanities at the University of Manchester.
Or it might signal the “start of something new and a rethinking of disastrous policy-making over the last decade and a half”.
But “more than a quick and cheap theory of change summary” was needed to bring “coherence and progression” into teacher development.
