Fran Payne

Beliefs, Attitudes and Practices in Mathematics Teaching: Perceptions of Scottish primary school student teachers

Attitudes towards and feelings about mathematics and mathematics teaching of first and final year primary student teachers in Scotland are reported. While overall reasonably confident and positive towards teaching mathematics, they tend to be relatively unadventurous in their teaching, lack strong personal views of their own, think of mathematics teaching as unexciting and in relation to other curricular areas difficult and worrying. They may have an over-optimistic view of their mathematical abilities and understanding. It is suggested that the mathematical component of teacher education courses in Scotland may not be fully adequate for its task.

Building capacity through teacher enquiry: the Scottish Schools of Ambition

There has been much recent interest in collaboration and networking within and between schools to promote innovation, school improvement, and professional development. This paper starts with a brief review of the recent history of teacher research in the UK in order to consider how pre‐ and in‐service teachers are currently positioned in relation to research. Drawing on the case of the Scottish Schools of Ambition, a network of 52 schools receiving additional resource for targeted school improvement, the paper identifies some of the challenges and opportunities presented by sponsored research engagement. Tensions between evaluating and being supportive when engaged in an externally sponsored initiative with the specific goal of demonstrating school improvement are highlighted. The perception that any change in modes of working tends to be more visible in the institutional context of school rather than the university is also noted. Based on the experience of this Scottish case and a review of current research into school–university partnerships, we argue that effective collaborations need to address questions of power to ensure mutual benefits, reciprocity, and a genuine coalition of interest amongst partners. The paper suggests that teacher educators may have an important contribution to make to building capacity through teacher enquiry given their position as mediators between schools and university faculties of education.

Introducing ICT in secondary schools: a context for reflection on management and professional norms

Within the Scottish educational system there have recently been significant moves towards devolution of decision taking and the expressed intention that schools must be more responsive to changing community requirements and expectations. We focus on two aspects of those organizations considered successful within changing external contexts: their processes for the effective acquisition, generation and flow of novel information; and their internal mechanisms for informed decision taking and complex communal problem solving. We use data from two studies on the introduction of ICT as the vehicle for exploring the characteristics of the professional activities and organizational features within secondary schools that appear to be barriers to the effective operation of devolved management and empowered professionalism. We interpret the data on the identified nodes of decision taking—the central and local government, the different levels of the secondary school management, and the individual teacher—in terms of aspects of the cultural norms within secondary schools and indicate the multi-level action taken by the Scottish government which may ultimately ‘reculture’ the schools.