Teacher and Student Voices: Perspectives from 'Inspiring' Classrooms

This paper presents selected findings from a small-scale mixed methods study of ‘inspiring’ teaching, commissioned and funded by CfBT. The overall aims of the study were to explore what inspiring teachers say about their practice, what they do in their classrooms, and the views of their students. The present paper focuses specifically on teacher and student voices in the project, with the aim of understanding how the perspectives and understandings of these groups align, what they prioritize about teachers and lessons, and in what ways their opinions and experiences might differ with respect to their classroom relationships, activities and interactions.

Sources of data relevant to teachers’ voices include face-to-face individual teacher interviews and an exercise in which teachers ranked 17 teacher attributes in perceived order of importance. Students’ views were accessed through questionnaire surveys with a combination of Likert-scale items and one open response question. The sample included 17 teachers from English primary and secondary schools. 203 students, from classes corresponding to 11 of the teachers, were surveyed.

Findings showed that both teachers and students prioritized positive relationships and enthusiasm or enjoyment as key teacher and lesson characteristics; this was supported by both qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative data elaborated upon some more specific relationship dynamics and lesson activities connected to these dominant themes.

These results contribute to a previously unclear definition of ‘inspirational’ teaching, and also have the potential to guide practice and development for teachers.