The Teachers and Teaching Research Centre Launch

Teachers’ labour, intellectual and emotional, shapes young people’s lives. What are the optimal conditions – in policy and workplace terms – in enabling teachers’ work to make a difference to the young people in their care? To address this question the IOE has established the TTRC as a specialist research centre offering world-leading research and scholarship in the areas of teachers’ work, teaching and teacher education. Directed by Professor Martin Mills, it is intended that the TTRC’s research will: 

• • enhance the status and conditions of teachers’ work, contributing to workforce recruitment and retention; 
• • identify curricular, pedagogical and assessment practices that contribute to high quality educational experiences for all students; and 
• • address the educational needs of pre-service and practising teachers in the context of changing policy, curricular and societal expectations. 

A commitment to social justice will sit at the heart of the TTRC’s work, which will both critique unjust practices in education and promote viable alternatives for reducing educational inequalities and enhancing student and teacher well-being. This will include creative research that speculates about the possible, that trials and evaluates innovative practices and challenges ‘conventional wisdoms’, and that works across disciplinary and professional fields.