researchED do the best education conferences
If you are a teacher, go to researchED.
researchED is an organisation that runs conferences in the UK and around the world. These conferences are inexpensive and aimed at teachers.
For a few years now, I've been speaking about permanent exclusions at researchED conferences, several times a year. This is partly an effort to present the evidence-based arguments for a school's right to exclude, but it's also a chance to challenge the many myths about exclusions that have been promoted in the press and online. There is something of a consensus among pundits that schools are at fault for permanently excluding pupils. However, much of this is based on falsehoods, such as claims that ethnic minority pupils are more likely to be excluded, or that exclusions are at record highs.
There are a couple of individuals (Mark Lehain and Tom Bennett1) who occasionally pop up in the media defending a school's right to exclude. Nevertheless, most people, including teachers, only hear from those campaigning against exclusions. And often, untruths become accepted as facts through repetition. This even happens among those who oppose the positions the untruths are being used to support. Generally, there is a sympathetic hearing for those claiming that exclusions could be avoided if more were spent on interventions and for those claiming that exclusions show unconscious bias. Pundits show little interest or sympathy for the notion that certain young individuals are simply dangerous, and mainstream schools cannot ensure safety and learning with them around.
The evidence about permanent exclusions shows there are fewer now than there used to be; that teachers believe schools do not overuse them, and that the risk factors for permanent exclusion are not what they are often reported to be. However, even sharing the facts is close to heresy among many of those who have desk jobs in education, not to mention activists and those paid to tell the profession what to think. No matter how much I stick to the facts, I don’t expect anyone to invite me in to speak to trainee teachers, LA heads, politicians or school governors about exclusions. There is only one significant audience who will listen to me, and that's teachers.
And that's where researchED comes in. While many organisations claim to speak for teachers, researchED is the only organisation I know of in education that is genuinely for teachers2. researchED is an organisation that organises conferences aimed at ordinary teachers, focused on evidence in teaching. This is very popular with the profession. The most recent national conference sold all of its 1500 tickets in next to no time. It's the biggest education event outside the control of the education establishment, salespeople and pundits. Its events are even held on Saturdays which allows teachers to attend without needing permission from their employers.
What difference does it make when a conference is so focused on teachers? It gives rise to freedom of speech. We can say what we believe as long as teachers will listen. If you know your stuff, and as long as teachers are interested, researchED will allow you to share what you know and give you the opportunity to learn from your audience. That doesn't mean that you will be safe lying to teachers like you can when working as a consultant. Nor does it mean that nobody cares what you say. It means that you cannot be cancelled by eminent non-teachers demanding those on the “wrong side” of a debate be denied a platform. Such a level of freedom of speech is very rare in education.
The greatest expertise in teaching comes from teachers. You can tell a lot about the credibility of an education expert by their willingness to talk to teachers. You can also learn a huge amount about teaching by listening to teachers, far more than by listening to people who have a theory about teaching. researchED has a different philosophy from most education conferences: what matters is what you know, not your personal authority.
Another feature of researchED that results from its focus on teachers is that disciplinary boundaries are unimportant. Teachers will learn from anyone with the relevant knowledge whether they are looking at statistics, psychology, history, anthropology, political science or philosophy. I've enjoyed talks involving all those areas. And talks where the main source of research is simply looking at schools with no perspective beyond that of a teacher.
Attempts to make education an academic discipline in its own right have largely failed. With no minimum academic standards, any old rubbish (provided it fits with the dominant ideology) can be presented as "education research" in universities and academic journals. Simply by sticking to what is of interest to teachers, and teachers with the commitment and curiosity to learn in their own time, researchED provides you with knowledge about learning that cannot be found anywhere else. It provides a route around the gatekeepers who wish to perpetuate ignorance and indoctrination within the profession, and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone.
By coincidence, Tom is also the founder of researchED.
I suspect the possible exception to this is some of the subject-based groups that have popped up in recent years. But I can’t claim to be familiar with them.