Understanding continuing professional development in work situations: the case of supernumerary teachers in French primary schools

ABSTRACT

This article examines collaboration between teachers in the ‘more teachers than classes’ (PMQC) French scheme implemented from 2013 in primary schools receiving a high number of pupils with learning difficulties. Based on concepts of teacher professional learning, teachers’ shared-work and the learning community, the research aims to highlight the continuing professional development (CPD) the teachers can set up within this scheme which constrains them to collaborate. In an ethnographic survey, the study focuses on three supernumerary teachers (ST) in three similar schools. From the collection of their time schedule, interviews about their experiences over two years in this ST’s function and the opinions of teachers in charge of classes in each school about the mandated collaborative work, the findings reveal three modes of work sharing. The analysis of these modes of work help to deepen the multi-causal processes of CPD that, in the PMQC scheme, are contrasted between teacher communities in schools. Finally, the discussion focuses on the relationship between STs’ experiences and CPD and then on the possible adaptations to be made to the scheme for practical implications.

KEYWORDS:

• Collaboration
• continuing professional development
• primary school
• supernumerary teacher

Disclosure statement

The author declares that he has no links of interest.

Notes

1. In France, the public-school director is in charge of organising teaching team and running the school administration. He is not the teachers’ hierarchical superior. It is The National EducationInspector (NEI) who is their hierarchical superior. This NEI is responsible for the management of several primary schools in the same district.

2. In France, schooling is divided into learning cycles. Cycle 1 is intended for pre-school children aged 2 to 5 years. Cycle 2 covers pupils aged 6 to 8 years, cycle 3 those aged 9 to 11 years and cycle 4 those aged 12 to 15 years. Cycles 2 to 4 run for the duration of compulsory schooling.

3. Vincent (1980) and Lahire et al. (1994) formalised the concept of ‘school structure’ to designate the way in which the school has been organised since the 16th century: the School establishes a specific space-time in which students, distributed in regularly progressive age groups, receive instruction in which knowledge is divided and arranged into distinct subjects.

4. In terms of education, the French territory is divided into 13 academic regions.

5. Pupils from the same grade levels were first grouped together and then they were split into groups according to their academic performance.