Professor Rachel Lofthouse
Professor | Leeds Beckett University
Leeds, West Yorkshire, UNITED KINGDOM
Professor Rachel Lofthouse's interest is in exploring how teachers learn and how they can be supported to put that learning into practice.
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Biography
Rachel Lofthouse is Professor of Teacher Education in the Carnegie School of Education. She has a specific research interest in professional learning, exploring how teachers learn and how they can be supported to put that learning into practice.
Rachel joined Leeds Beckett University in July 2017, and has established the Research and Practice Centre ‘CollectivED: The Mentoring and Coaching Hub’.
Rachel is a teaching educator and researcher. Her interest starts with student teachers, but extends to teachers and educators at all career stages and in all sectors. Ensuring that teachers keep learning is critical when the policy and practice landscapes of education keep shifting. Rachel has a particular interest in how teachers learn through approaches such as coaching, mentoring, lesson study, professional enquiry and inter-professional practice. She marries these interests with a concern for the development of innovative pedagogies and curriculum design. Key to all of these are the opportunities for that professionals at all stages of their career and in all roles have for dialogue and creative and critical thinking.
Rachel works with student teachers and their school-based mentors, teacher coaches, postgraduate students and school leaders as well as a range of educational practitioners, including those interested in community curriculum development and professional coaching for speech and language support in multicultural early years and primary settings. She encourages professionals to find practices through which they can build their workplace expertise while developing critical reflection and their ability to contribute to, and draw productively on, the knowledge base for teaching and learning. Rachel has published in peer-reviewed journals on the subjects of coaching and mentoring, the innovative use of video to support practice development, practitioner enquiry and professional learning. She also writes regularly for professional publications and websites. Through these diverse roles she supports individuals to make a positive impact on the educational outcomes for their own learners and communities.
Prior to taking up her current role in July 2017 Rachel was senior lecturer at Newcastle University, and co-director for the Research Centre for Learning and Teaching (CfLaT).
Industry Expertise (3)
Writing and Editing
Education/Learning
Research
Areas of Expertise (5)
Self-Determination
Professional Learning
Teacher Training
Teacher Learning
Professional Collaboration
Links (5)
- University Profile
- CollectivED: The Mentoring and Coaching Hub Website
- Building our CollectivED community and sharing our knowledge base; the legacy of postgraduate study – Carnegie Education Blog
- Dilemmas in teacher education: sharing our English policy context with European colleagues – Carnegie Education Blog
- What do staffrooms mean to you? – Carnegie Education Blog
Languages (1)
- English
Media Appearances (3)
Why 2021 Will Be The Year Of Hybridization
Forbes online
2021-01-08
You can join the launch of this survey, chaired by Hattie, to discuss these aspects and help shape the narrative. Each organization that does will receive a free school level analysis report. Hattie, who undertook the largest ever synthesis of meta-analyses of quantitative measures of the effect of different factors on educational outcomes, is well placed to oversee this latest seminal study, which has grown from the Trusts for Impact movement, formed from a core group of Trust leaders with supporters including Viviane Robinson, Dylan Wiliam, Philippa Cordingley, Peter DeWitt, Rachel Lofthouse, and Sir David Carter, who want to shape and value what we measure and not solely rely on examination performance and knowledge acquisition.
Fancy a teaching podcast? Then look right here...
Tes online
2020-09-05
Professor Rachel Lofthouse on mentoring
Learning on the job: how to take your teaching career to the next level
The Guardian online
2018-03-23
My first thought is to ensure that teachers develop themselves to be the best teachers they can be, acquiring skills, knowledge and experiences before they think about moving into management and leadership. Rachel Lofthouse, professor of teacher education at the Carnegie School of Education, Leeds Beckett University
Event Appearances (5)
Metacognition: supporting teachers and learners as thinkers
Metacognition in Action Scotch Corner Hotel
2019-04-05
Narratives of collaboration in practice; discourses, dimensions and diversity in collaborative professional development
TEPE; Teacher Education Policy in Europe Krakow, Poland
2019-05-16
Coaching: catching the zeitgeist and making it work to improve learning at all levels in your school
Whole Education 9th Annual Conference London
2019-02-26
Using coaching and mentoring to focus on the curriculum in action
ritish Curriculum Forum; Re-imagining a curriculum for teacher knowledge Holborn, London
2019-02-23
Mentoring, coaching and collaborative dialogue to support professional learning throughout teachers’ career paths; exploring roles, responsibilities, tensions and opportunities
ICSEI Congress 2019 Stavanger, Norway
2019-01-08
Articles (5)
Valuing knowledge exchange and professional learning for educational inclusion: understanding professional dilemmas in policy and practice contexts
Pedagógusképzés2021 Recent international and national legislation demonstrates a trend towards inclusive education which aspires to ensure the participation of all young people in educational provision. However, research indicates that implementation of these visionary and aspirational policies into the different national, historical and cultural contexts across Europe remains challenging with teachers articulating that they do not feel prepared or supported to work with the diversity of students in classrooms.
Understanding coaching efficacy in education through activity systems: privileging the nuances of provision
International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education2021 The research demonstrates the role of activity systems based in Cultural Historical Activity Theory as a means of analysing characteristics and efficacy of specific provisions of coaching in education.
Creating the engine room for professional learning: Explaining a research-based model
Impact Journal of The Chartered College of Teaching2021 Teachers are also learners. They learn through their engagement with a knowledge base, through their immersion in practice contexts and through their relationships with others. Teachers’ learning determines how their practice develops over time and what impact their work has on students, colleagues and the settings in which they work. Working with a mentor, for example, might help an early career teacher to engage positively with real behaviour challenges by connecting training content, reading, gaining experience through trialling new approaches and reflecting on them with support.
Contextual coaching: levering and leading school improvement through collaborative professionalism
International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education2021 The research examines how contextual coaching (Gorrell and Hoover, 2009; Valentine, 2019) can act as a lever to build collaborative professionalism (Hargreaves and O'Connor, 2018) and lead to school improvement.
Conceptualising Teacher Education for Inclusion: Lessons for the Professional Learning of Educators from Transnational and Cross-Sector Perspectives
Sustainability2021 Despite policy calling for enhanced inclusive practice within all schools and colleges, educators across Europe are facing increasing challenges when providing effective inclusive education for all students as a result of increased diversity within European society. This paper focuses on the development of our understanding of how to support educators’ professional learning around issues of diversity and inclusion. Specifically, it aims to explore what diversity looks like across countries, sectors, and roles, what challenges and dilemmas are posed for educators, and how new approaches to professional learning can support the educators across all sectors.
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