‘Very positive’ or ‘vague and detached’? Unpacking ambiguities in further education teachers’ responses to professional standards in England

Considering the mystery of professionalism: Further education in the UK

“…In a similar vein, Tummons [27] supports the earlier work of Gray and Whitty [46] who argue that the notion of professionalism has been diminished through too much power in the hands of the state, concentration on compliance and a focus on competence and training rather than on knowledge. Tummons [27] places that lack of professionalism at the feet of the training mechanism for those teaching within the FE sector. He suggests that the lack of professional standards for those training to teach in the FE sector compared to the schools se.…”

“…Reflecting on this, Atkins and Tummons [26] highlighted the notion of professional standards as an outcome of the managerial perspective of professionalism and as such leads the perspective of professionalism that manifests within managerialist organisations that are commonplace within the FE sector. Tummons [27] points to the ETF (Education and Training Foundation) standards (2014) as a move towards dressing many of the key issues, however suggests that need for this to be better embedded into working cultures before any real judgment can be made. Significantly it remains to be acknowledged, the continued voluntary bases of the implementation of them.…”

“…Significantly it remains to be acknowledged, the continued voluntary bases of the implementation of them. Tummons [27] does however note the compulsory nature of inspection and audit processes and measures, and as such suggests this as a major issue. The nature of audit and inspection manifests both in terms of individual managerial approaches to staffing through the observation of teaching and learning (OTL) processes and also at college level through the College inspection framework creates a culture of mistrust and checking throughout all levels.…”

“…He notes that most FE lectures are on a 'second career' when they move into teaching and undertake their teaching qualification (or training) as an in-service qualification. In addition, Tummons [27] also points to the lack of effective mentoring within the FE College as a second key issue. Significantly, Tummons [27] suggests that if professionalisation is needed to produce professionalism, it needs to be practitioner led, with an argument from a bottom-up process rather than an employer-led top down approach determining it.…”

Reassembling teachers’ professional practice: an ethnography of intertextual hierarchies in primary mathematics

“…Localisation has a transforming effect on global-domain initiatives (Hamilton, 2011). We can see this vulnerability and interpretability of wider initiatives in studies of attempts to determine professional practice through texts (Mulcahy, 2011;Tummons, 2016). This transformation is clearly seen in the case of the mastery approach, with the approach continually disassembled and reassembled into new material representations.…”