About The Bridge

The Bridge is Wellington College’s new centre for Teaching, Learning and Educational Research.

It will help to bridge:

• between research and practice
• between not knowing and knowing
• between novice and expert
• between educational cultures and places
• between phases
• between Wellington and its international family
• between us and all of our local partner schools
• between EdFest and day-to-day excellence in education

The Bridge will do three main things:

• Make available the best, most inspiring and formative Professional Development opportunities to Wellington, to the Wellington Family of Schools, to our partner schools locally, and eventually to the wider educational world
• Engage in, utilise and disseminate useful educational research in order for Wellington to be near the forefront of the best in current educational thinking
• Integrate with the expertise and engagement in the growing number of Festivals of Education around the world, both to benefit from the best in current educational thinking and to provide a platform

EBE is an educational research, professional development and consultancy business based in Sunderland. They have been operating since 2015 and have a team of 16 people. EBE is well-known for an evidence review of education research that was released in 2020, which formed the basis of the Great Teaching Toolkit (GTT).

The evidence review evidencebased.education/great-teaching-toolkit-evidence-review/ and GTT have both been well received and EBE is an extremely well respected contributor in the sector. Professor Dr. Stuart Kime is co-founder of EBE, and is our direct link from EBE to The Bridge.

The GTT is an online resource and platform, developed by Evidence Based Education, and extremely highly regarded in the sector, that offers evidence-based strategies and techniques for teachers to enhance their classroom teaching and student outcomes in an individualised way.

For many reasons, but these three are to the fore:

1. It is based on the most robust and real evaluation of evidence, and pragmatic application to practice, that the sector has available – The GTT Evidence Review a) Nuanced understanding of provenance, validity, significance and extent of transferability of the research b) No cherry-picking or confirmation bias. c) No extrapolation of weak correlations into strong causations.
2. It is based on ZERO judgement. Feeling judged leads to defensiveness, and a much decreased chance that someone can be authentic in seeking improvement.
3. It requires teachers to have agency and informed choice over what will be their focus. In addition, Evidence Based Education has a very strong alignment with Wellington values:

Respect and Kindness

The GTT is founded on zero judgement, but instead on a belief that all teachers can get better, and, as mentioned above, one very good reason for this is to improve the chance of genuine engagement. In addition, respecting professional autonomy, individual perspectives and needs, is a foundation of belonging in a school community.

Courage

The GTT requires teachers to have the courage to ask for and relish feedback, and to welcome learning and growth.

Integrity

The GTT is based on the most balanced, realistic and authoritative review of the evidence about what works in teaching. Evidence Based Education published the GTT Evidence Review in 2020 to widespread positive reaction. The GTT therefore entirely avoids the pitfalls of cherry-picking research to suit a particular ideology or methodology.

Responsibility

Wellington enjoys a reputation for being one of the very best schools, a reputation shared by each Wellington family school in region. Wellington’s purpose of Pioneering education to serve and help shape a better world creates an imperative for all Wellington teachers to take responsibility to be the best that they can be, and a responsibility for Wellington to do something good for them.

Areas of focus initially will certainly include the impact of AI in education, and this has already begun. Other research areas will be developed in due course as they become key current topics, and as we have the capacity to do this effectively.

Because much great work has already been done in the sector, and it makes no sense to spend several years reinventing that work while the pace of change is so rapid.

The Bridge will eventually be a new development of Green Quad as seen in the picture, but for now is based in the offices in the centre of that quad.

To an extent that is up to you. You can derive as much benefit as your efforts warrant. You can use your PDR to shape your Professional Development to your needs. But one reason that many people are attracted to teach is the investment in people, and it is an inherent expectation that staff are motivated to improve and grow.