Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Building our CollectivED community and sharing our knowledge base; the legacy of postgraduate study
CollectivED The Centre for Mentoring, Coaching & Professional Learning is a research and practice centre based in The Carnegie School of Education. We form a community of professionals, academics and students with shared interests. Our aims are to:
• Encourage and enable collaborative conversations which create powerful professional learning
• Build capacity of educators to create contexts which support inclusive career-long and profession-wide learning
• Remove barriers to professional development
• Increase opportunities for educational change through enhanced professional agency and well-being
One of the ways that we contribute to the education sector is through our Postgraduate Certificate in Coaching and Mentoring for Education Practitioners. Over the first three cohorts our students have included teachers, school leaders, coaches, mentors, consultants, career changers, lecturers and tutors. They have expertise and roles from early years to higher education, and all share a commitment to supporting the professional learning and flourishing of colleagues and students. Their postgraduate journey is shared through our taught sessions but also individualised through the contexts and positions that they occupy in their work.
One part of their assessed portfolio is a proposal for a working paper, and they are subsequently invited to write that paper for publication (this is the optional rather than obligatory part). It is with great pleasure that we now publish our first issue of the postgraduate legacy papers. In CollectivED Issue 16 we have gathered together papers that represent the legacy of practice and thinking from postgraduate study. Ashok, Cathy, Suzanne, Gemma, Melanie, Daniel and Paula are all alumni of the Leeds Beckett University PGCert in Coaching and Mentoring for Education Practitioners. Sarah undertook coaching and mentoring modules as part of her Masters in Practitioner Enquiry at Newcastle University. It is wonderful to share their papers on how their practice and thinking were impacted by their study.
Their published working papers are listed here:
• Ashok Venkatesh ‘Support for School Leaders: Thoughts and Proposals. A think piece working paper.’
• Gemma Short ‘Making space: Facilitating collaborative and critical talk amongst early-careers teachers and their mentor/coaches. A practice insight paper.’
• Melanie Chambers ‘The Cultivation, Germination and Propagation of the Professional Learning Ecosystem. A practice insight paper.’
• Sarah Martin-Denham’15 years on: My reflections of the influence of a master's module, ‘Coaching for Change’, on leading research on child and adult adversities. A think piece working paper.’
• Paula Ayliffe ‘Using Hargreaves and O’Connor’s 10 Tenets of Collaborative Professionalism as an audit tool for school improvement. A practice insight paper.’
• Suzanne Culshaw ‘Conscious Coaching: Bringing a Beginner’s Mind to Coaching. A practice insight paper.’
• Daniel Duke ‘Corvinus, Coronavirus and Cerebral Cortices. A think piece working paper.
• Cathy Gunning ‘“The space to do this never happens.” Enabling thinking room to grow teacher confidence in the Early Years Foundation Stage. A practice insight paper.’
CollectivED Issue 16 can be found here.
You can also join us for our next free CollectivED CPD event on 28th April from 7-8pm during which some of the contributors listed above will be sharing insights from their work. Details and booking can be found here.
Professor Rachel Lofthouse
Rachel Lofthouse is Professor of Teacher Education in the Carnegie School of Education. She has a specific research interest in professional learning, exploring how teachers learn and how they can be supported to put that learning into practice.
