Teacher Network – education scholarship: Jackie Flaherty
Published: 7 May 2020
I am completing an MSc in Teacher Education which is a professional development course for both new and experienced teacher educators who are involved in pre-service and in-service training. It is a two year part-time course and consists of two week-long residentials blended with online support.
As the Teaching and Learning Lead for The Ogden Trust, a large proportion of my time is spent both developing and delivering CPD to practicing teachers. In my role at my school I am also involved in designing and delivering the DfE funded TSST course and the Physics Pathways workshops for our local ITT course.
My MSc focuses on developing teacher educators’ day-to-day practice as well as developing the design of teacher education programmes. The opportunity to discuss my work with like-minded and highly experienced colleagues has been invaluable and each of our assignments has had an action research aspect which I have found hugely beneficial.
I have loved engaging with the academic research, and I am currently working on my own research and development project which is looking into supporting early career teachers with a particular focus on supporting non-specialists who are teaching physics.
Although it is challenging juggling part-time study with a full-time job, the benefits have outweighed the time-pressure and it has been reassuring to find that the academic literature confirms what is good about my practice. Equally I have enjoyed improving aspects of my practice when the literature has made me rethink my approach!
The course has been part-funded by the Trust in partnership with my school. With school budgets becoming increasingly stretched it would not have been possible without the support of the Trust.