The Chartered College of Teaching is the professional body for teachers in England. Our mission is to empower a knowledgeable and respected teaching profession through membership and accreditation. As a professional body, we sit on the intersection between research, policy and practice and offer a range of professional learning opportunities to teachers, including a peer-reviewed, termly practitioner journal, online courses and events. Our Research and Policy department focuses on improving the links between research, policy and practice through the publication of reports, internally and externally funded research projects and our thought leadership work, which includes responding to open government consultations.
The aim of this project is to study the impact of a professional body of teaching on teachers’ feelings of professionalism, agency and belonging in the profession. The project will sit under the umbrella of our work into teacher professionalism and alongside our cross-sector working group on teacher agency, which placement students will be invited to attend as observers. Agency is an important component of professionalism and has been shown to positively impact teacher recruitment and retention. It is crucial to consider its role in curriculum reform implementation and its impact on teacher shortages at a time of rapid educational reform. This project is hugely important for us as a professional body and the sector more widely as it will help us to understand how teacher professionalism can be fostered through our work and help us to shape future activities.