Policy and Advocacy

As the professional body for teachers, we sit at the intersection of research, policy and practice. As such, an important aspect of our work is to ensure that teacher voices are represented in research and policy, grounded in our working definition of Teacher Professionalism.

In addition to publishing reports on issues relating to teaching and learning, we submit evidence to open calls such as the curriculum review, representing the teaching profession on committees, advisory boards and expert panels and facilitate dialogue between policy and practice.

If you would like one of our staff members to join your advisory board, working group or commission, please contact us on research@chartered.college. We would be happy to discuss how we can support your work.

Calls for evidence

The government regularly publishes calls for evidence to inform policy making. In addition to sharing these calls with our membership and encouraging our members to submit their experiences, we also run our own consultations and submit evidence as an organisation. To inform our responses, we run focus groups and surveys, the results of which we combine with existing research evidence, either from previous consultations or the wider research literature. This allows us to triangulate the data we collect and ensures that a wide range of issues are raised.

Fellow roundtables

Stakeholder engagement is an essential part of policymaking and being policy-active is generally considered an important aspect of professionalism. As the professional body for teachers, we therefore see it as our responsibility to facilitate dialogue between policy and practice.

As part of this work, we regularly host Fellow roundtables that bring together policymakers and practitioners to discuss current issues in teaching and learning. We also host roundtables to inform our responses to calls for evidence.

Examples include:

a roundtable at the House of Lords on the topic of Professionalism and Ethical Leadership
an online roundtable with representatives from DfE on the topic of SEND
an online roundtable with representatives from DfE on the topic of community engagement
a series of roundtables to feed into the work of the Teaching Commission.

Committees, expert panels and advisory boards

Chartered College of Teaching staff are regularly called upon to represent the teaching profession on advisory boards, committees and expert panels. A selection of these are presented below. This work also allows us to further strengthen the position of the Chartered College in the sector.

Commissions

Teaching Commission (UCL & NEU) is a joint endeavour with a remit to make both policy and practical suggestions that can make going into teaching more attractive, and to make teaching a job that’s worthwhile and doable.
Commission addressing conspiracy belief, misinformation and disinformation amongst young people (Public First).

Alliances

Dame Alison Peacock chairs the Ethical Leadership Alliance that meets termly to debate issues of ethical importance for the teaching profession. Membership of this group comprises a representative from each teaching union, YST, Church of England, nasen, CST, Institute of School Business Leadership (ISBL)
UNESCO Global Alliance for the Science of Learning.

Steering groups

DfE – NPQ Framework Review expert steering group
DfE Recruitment and Retention
DfE Early Years Research
National Play steering group
Art UK Education steering panel
Nature Premium steering group.

Advisory/working groups, expert panels, research and working groups

NFER Teacher Recruitment and Retention advisory group
UCL Centre for Teachers and Teaching Research advisory group
Fair Education Alliance advisory board
Headteachers’ Round Table
National Consortium for Languages Education (NCLE) Research & Innovation Board
Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy (0-11) advisory board
Early Years Neuroscience working group
Eton Research Group
PISA OECD Foreign Language Measure expert panel
Well Schools Collective advisory group
Sustainability education advisory board
Creative culture and education advisory board
Rethinking assessment and accountability advisory group.