Author: Kathryn Graham, City of Edinburgh Council
Practitioners across the South East Improvement Collaborative (SEIC) were invited to attend the online launch of Toolkit for Improvement in Languages Education South-East (TILES) on 9 September 2021. This launch was the culmination of a cross-sector project that aimed to provide a research-based toolkit to inform and support ongoing self-evaluation and improvement in language learning for practitioners and schools.
This collaborative project took place over three academic sessions (2019-2021) and it was led by language leads from the five SEIC local authorities (City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Fife, Midlothian and Scottish Borders Councils) and researchers from the University of Edinburgh and Moray House School of Education. The development and evaluation stages of TILES also involved practitioners including primary and secondary teachers and leaders, local authority leaders and key external partners (GTCS, SCILT and Education Scotland). The result of this collaboration and the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders is a web-based self-evaluation toolkit that empowers practitioners and schools in their practice and supports them to drive forward innovation and improvement in language teaching and learning.
TILES is designed to support the development of high-quality language learning experiences in primary and secondary schools. It comprises of six TILES themes (leadership, language learning, curriculum, learner experience, contexts and culture and professional learning). Each theme includes a research summary and a series of subsection tiles. All sub-sections are structured around three key, ‘How are we doing?’ self-evaluation statements. The text within each subsection then explores these in detail and includes exemplification as to how they can be developed in practice. Each subsection also includes an editable PDF improvement planning template which is framed around the ‘How are we doing?’ statements and references the HGIOS six-point scale. To support professional learning, text references and examples of further reading and resources are also available in each subsection.
The launch event was the first time that the TILES website was shared with colleagues across the SEIC. A general introduction and overview of the project was given before primary and secondary colleagues split into more focussed workshops. Each of the workshops provided guidance on how to navigate the toolkit and modelled how TILES could be used in practice to respond to key challenges in language learning in different sectors. Feedback from the event was overwhelmingly positive with many practitioners eager to start using the toolkit.
Following on from the successful launch event, the TILES working group has identified a number of next steps for the toolkit. TILES is being embedded in the professional learning offer from SEIC local authority leads and improvement planning for languages. Local authority leads will also support practitioners and schools to engage in practitioner enquiry using TILES. The website will be updated to include further exemplification of TILES in action and to show the impact of TILES on the learning and teaching of languages for practitioners and schools. Additionally, the working group plans to explore opportunities to share the toolkit with practitioners to encourage wider engagement on a local, regional and national level.
