What do we know about successfully harnessing student voice in schools

1
What do we know about successfully harnessing
student voice in schools?

• Cass Unit Seminar DCSF, Sanctuary Buildings,
  Great Smith Street, London
• October 23rd, 2007
• 2.00pm 4.00pm
• Professor Michael Fielding
• Institute of Education, University of London
• Dr Bethan Morgan
• Teaching Associate
• Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge

2
Presentation Structure

• Section 1
• Overview Michael Fielding
• Section 2
• Findings from the TLRP Network and Related
  Projects Donald McIntyre Bethan Morgan
• Section 3
• The Way Forward all presenters

3
Recent Contexts

• Changing view of childhood
• UN Convention on Rights of the Child 1989
• School improvement
• OfSTED Inspection framework
• Citizenship Healthy Schools
• Consumerism
• Childrens Commissioner
• Work of Professor Jean Rudduck
• 19-21C educational imaginary (David Hargreaves)?
• Factory ? personalised education for all
• Segregated roles ? overlapping roles
• Producer led ? user led

4
Immediate Contexts

• Government Legalisation / Initiatives / Research
• Every Child Matters
• Personalised Learning The East Sussex Project
• Real Decision Making? School Councils in Action
• Working Together Giving children and young
  people a say
• NGOs / Foundations
• Esmée Fairbairn / Carnegie YPI
• Academic Research Publications
• ESRC TLRP Consulting Pupils about TL
• ESRC Seminars Engaging Critically with PV
• Cumulative work of e.g. Fielding, McIntyre,
  Rudduck, Thomson
• Journal Special Issues e.g. Discourse,
  Educational Action Research, Forum, Improving
  Schools, International Journal for Leadership in
  Education 2007 International Handbook (Thiessen
  Cook-Sather)

5
Personalised Learning Charles Leadbeater

• The foundation of a personalised education
  system
• would be to encourage children, from an early age
  and
• across all backgrounds, to become more involved
  in
• making decisions about what they would like to
• learn and how.
• Choice users as consumers within institutions,
  not just between them e.g. how you learn, what
  you learn, how you are assessed
• Voice users as citizens and co-designers of
  services e.g. Students as Researchers
• Professionals as advisers, advocates, solution
  assemblers, brokers

6
Requests for evidence of impact of consultation
on pupil achievement ...

• These requests cannot be responsibly met
  before we are sure that schools understand the
  rationale for developing pupil voice and are
  implementing it in reasonable ways i.e. not
  just quick fix surveys in the last few seconds of
  the lesson
• There is evidence of the potential of
  consultation to strengthen pupils commitment to
  learning, but not the kind of proof i.e. a direct
  cause and effect link that government has
  wanted it is clear that successful
  implementation depends very much on the culture
  of the classroom and school and that the approach
  to consultation and its impact are, therefore,
  likely to show considerable variation across
  schools.
• Nevertheless, in settings where consultation is
  thoughtfully developed the signs are
  encouraging.
• Chapter 13 Rudduck McIntyre (2007 forthcoming)

7
Range of Student Voice Activities

• Peer support
• ? Buddying systems ? Peer tutoring
• ? Peer teaching ? Circle time
• Organisational change structures
• ? School councils ? Student governors
• ? Students on appointment panels
• ? School Improvement Plans e.g. draw-and-write
• ? Healthy Schools ? OfSTED ? ECM
• Engagement with T L
• ? Lead-learners ? Classroom observation ?
  AfL
• ? Student co-researchers ? student-led learning
  walks
• ?Students-as-researchers ? Dept development
  plans
• ? Evaluating work units ? Classroom consultation

8
5 perspectives on education
9
Student Involvement Typology(1)?
10
Student Involvement Typology (2)?
11
Student / pupil voice Students

• Develop capacity to reflect on learning ? greater
  control over how you learn how to improve it
• Respected, listened to taken seriously ?
  positive sense of self
• Views make a difference to how things are done in
  school classroom ? change agentry
• New capacity to take on roles responsibilities
• Sense of belonging - more positive membership of
  class school
• See teachers differently

12
Student / pupil voice Teachers

• Being positively surprised by students ? more
  open perception of young peoples capabilities
  and attitudes
• Experiencing enjoying a different way of
  working with students ? renewed sense of
  excitement in teaching
• Positive agenda for improvement ? insights that
  help their professional development
• Seeing positive changes as a result of student
  voice engagement

13
Student / pupil voice Schools

• A practical agenda for change that teachers
  pupils can identify with
• Better engagement with school and school learning
  (students staff)?
• Enhanced mutual respect, trust recognition
  between pupils and teachers
• Improved teaching learning
• Developing a distinct ethos and identity for the
  school
• Developing the school as a learning organisation
  / community

14
Ongoing challenges (1)

• Current context - teacher tensions
• Conflict between responsiveness to pupils and the
  nationally imposed agenda
• Pressures of time curriculum coverage
• Lack of institutional support
• Beyond pockets of isolated practice (role of LA
  national international networks)?
• Consumerism or democratic agency? e.g. Youre no
  good, no bullet points, too much thinking, not
  thick enough files

15
Ongoing challenges (2)

• Using students?
• Refusing the role of quality assurance donkeys
• Ventriloquising predictable outcomes / teacher
  approved ideas
• Beating up teachers?
• National context over time
• Class, race, gender, inclusion
• Ability grouping labelling (inc. institutional)?

16
Taking student voice seriously (1)?

• Purposes Values
• Why is this work being encouraged / resisted?
• In whose interests?
• How does it connect with policy contexts?
• Power Control
• Who is allowed to speak? About what?
• Who gets heard? By whom?
• Who is listening? Why?
• Capacities Attitudes
• How are the appropriate skills developed?
• How do people regard / care for each other?
• Are they taking it seriously?
• Do some people feel threatened?

17
Taking student voice seriously (2)?

• Systems structures
• Appropriate systems and structures?
• Public /communal, as well as smaller, more
  intimate spaces to make meaning of
  recommendations and decide what should be done?
• Action Responsibilities
• What actually happens?
• Who decides?
• Who has responsibility for embedding the change?
• How do we hold ourselves / each other to account?
• How is the change monitored and evaluated? By
  whom?

18
Section 2

• Findings from the TLRP Network
• and
• Related Projects
• Professor Donald McIntyre
• Dr Bethan Morgan

19
Strategies for Classroom Consultation

• The seductive attractiveness of informal or
  embedded consultation
• Developing the conditions for trusting dialogue
• Economy and power
• Direct consultation, indirect consultation, or
  pupils as researchers
• The importance of focusing on the particular
• The danger of working with selected pupils
• Guiding principles

20
What kinds of teachers and teaching do pupils
want?

• Research studies reveal a very high degree of
  consensus across pupils, irrespective of
  age-group, previous success in school, subject or
  research study
• the centrality of teacher-pupil relationships
• humanity, fairness, consistency
• respect and sensitivity
• positive attitude and enthusiasm

21
What kinds of teachers and teaching do pupils
want?

• Four central and consistent characteristics of
  pupils preferred teaching approaches
• meaningful learning, making connections
• avoiding tedium
• togetherness
• a measure of autonomy

22
What do pupils say about their own teachers?

• Pupils take consultation very seriously
• They tend to accentuate the positive
• They are also ready to identify unhelpful
  practices
• They suggest modifications, use contrasts, and
  suggest constructive alternatives

23
What do pupils say about the social conditions
for their classroom learning?

• A cacophony of competing voices
• Sharp contrast between the consensus about
  preferred teaching approaches and the strong
  differences in classroom experiences, even in the
  same classrooms differentiation and
  polarisation
• The destructive impact of ability labelling and
  social class differentiation
• Gender differences
• Peer-group relations
• Lack of control
• Arnot Reay (2004)

24
What do pupils say about being consulted?

• The great potential of pupil consultation
• The central importance of teachers authentic
  engagement
• Thoughts on different methods of consultation
• The contribution of consultation to learning
• teaching practices that really help learning
• greater enjoyment leading to better learning
• improved teacher-pupil relationships

25
Teachers responses to what pupils say

• Why have teachers not consulted pupils
  previously?
• Teachers impressed by seriousness,
  insightfulness and constructive nature of pupil
  comments
• Teacher criteria in assessing pupil comments
• educational effectiveness
• validity
• practicality
• representativeness

26
Teachers responses to what pupils say

• Teachers found little difficulty in identifying
  a package of pupil ideas that they could use
• In practice, teachers varied
• in attitudes
• in their practical situations
• in their confidence and expertise
• The most powerful constraint seems to be
  perceived conflict between
• responsiveness to pupils and
• the nationally imposed agenda

27
The potential impact of consultation on pupils
and teachers

• Pupils
• Changed attitudes to school and to learning
• Changed perceptions of teachers
• Stronger sense of school and class membership
• Developing capacity to reflect on learning
• New capacity to take on new roles and
  responsibilities
• Positive impact on sense of self

28
The potential impact of consultation on pupils
and teachers

• Teachers
• More open perception of young peoples
  capabilities and attitudes
• Readiness to change thinking
• Renewed sense of excitement in teaching
• Practical agenda for improvement
• Teacher - pupil relationships
• Enhanced mutual respect, trust and recognition

29
Reservations, anxieties and constraints

• From the teacher perspective
• Pressures of time and curriculum coverage
• Lack of institutional support
• Varied views of the pupils being taught
• Concerns about possible criticism
• Balancing individual and group perspectives
• From the pupil perspective
• Uncertainty about the acceptability of
  criticising teachers
• Believing that consultation is for all pupils

30
Conditions for Developing Classroom Consultation

• Conditions in the classroom
• trust, respect, recognition
• Conditions in the school
• An explicit policy commitment within the School
• Advocacy by institutional leader
• Enabling structures and practices
• A school culture that values and listens to all
  staff
• A culture of enquiry among teachers
• A tradition of pupil involvement in decisions

31
Section 3

• Ways Forward . . .

32
Positive developments (1)?

• Evidence of reciprocal benefits to students
  staff at classroom / team / dept / school levels
• Emerging synergy of national policies across
  departments and sectors driven by
• (a) public service reform
• (b) need to engage wide range of young people in
  political social renewal
• Broadly positive response of professionals,
  though concerns about other antagonistic aspects
  of policy (test performance culture, time
  demands, curriculum pressure )?

33
Positive developments (2)?

• Building momentum across the country with certain
  areas developing significant expertise
• A number of universities involved in high
  quality development research work with
  schools, LAs and government organisations
• NGOs, Foundations and NFP organisations
  supporting a range of work
• Fledgling evidence of radical, prefigurative work
  against the grain ? practical conscience of
  democratic way of life

34
Creative Renewal and Radical Changewithin the
same educational system

• Creative renewal
• ? SSAT work on Student Voice
• Inspiring schools network
• Radical change ? future practice now
• e.g. Centre for Radical State Education, London
  Institute
• Current practice e.g. ? The Wroxham School,
  Potters Bar, Hertfordshire ? Bishops Park
  College, Clacton, Essex
• Rich legacy of our radical state traditions e.g.
• ? Alex Bloom - St George-in-the-East, Stepney,
  London
• ? Teddy ONeill - Prestolee Elementary School,
  Stoneclough
• Key role of HEI e.g.
• Universities of Birmingham, Cambridge, East
  Anglia, Leicester, London, Manchester,
  Nottingham, and Sussex Manchester Metropolitan
  and Open Universities

35
Support sustainabilityClassrooms Departments

• Classrooms
• Support Sustainability through
• Staff (including TAs) pairing / mutual support
  observation network within dept and / or within
  the school
• Support from TL / SV post-holder
• Department / Team / Unit
• Departmental commitment through e.g. space at
  Dept meetings / dept publicity bulletins /
  internal cover arrangements
• Depts encouraged resourced centrally

36
Support sustainabilitySchool

• SLT member with SV responsibility
• SV embedded at multiple levels and sites of
  formal and informal learning
• SV systemically integrated into ongoing
  development and review processes
• Advocacy modelling by school leaders
• School culture that values listens to all staff
• Culture of enquiry / research amongst teachers

37
Support sustainabilityLocal Authority
Networks

• LA development plan
• Involvement of advisers who can make connections
  with other agendas priorities
• AST for SV link teachers in schools
• Emergent structures cultures
• Good admin communication infrastructure
• Co-constructed SV strategy capacity-building
  approach
• Link to research base external practice
• Explicit synergy inclusive coherence

38
Support sustainabilityNational policy

• Replace debilitating performance pressure with
  enabling, inclusive accountability e.g. Bishops
  Park College, Clacton Research Forum model
• Begin to encourage more emergent models of
  curriculum
• Teacher voices - treat teachers as agents, not
  just objects, of public service reform
• Value and support the role of prefigurative
  practice (future practice now)?

39
Future research (1) Classroom practice student
voiceteaching realities, teacher capacities

• Building on earlier, small scale research
• (e.g. McIntyre Pedder, Arnot Reay)?
• How do teachers incorporate, sustain and make
  effective use of high-quality organic approaches
  to SV in their own classrooms?
• Teachers need to listen to all pupils. How do
  these approaches address issues of social class,
  gender, race and inclusion?

40
Future research (2) Leadership, SV and the
systemic revisioning renewal of schools

• Working with a range of volunteer
• Senior Leadership Teams
• What is the nature and development of high
  quality systemic support for SV that operates
  organically at multiple levels in diverse
  contexts?

41
Future research (3) External support for student
voice

• Given the increasing importance of schools
  external networks and support systems in
  developing and sustaining creative approaches to
  education
• What can we learn from successful
• LA practice (e.g. Bedfordshire, Portsmouth)?
• University engagement (e.g. Cambridge, Sussex)?
• Voluntary sector (e.g. SCUK)?
• that will enable SV to be embedded and
  sustained in regional national networks?

42
Future research (4) Future practice now

• Researching past and current examples of
  prefigurative practice, i.e. highly creative
  practice significantly ahead of their time
• What can be learned from these inevitably small
  number of instances about
• different ways of working
• the role and effect of such exemplars on
  mainstream educational practice?

43
Selected References

• Arnot, M., McIntyre, D., Pedder, D. Reay, D.
  (2004) Consultation in the classroom Developing
  dialogue about teaching and learning, (Cambridge,
  Pearson).
• Fielding, M. (2004) New Wave student voice and
  the renewal
• of civic society London Review of Education
  Vol.2 No.3 pp 197-217.
• Morgan, B. (2007) Consulting Pupils about
  Classroom Teaching and Learning policy, practice
  and response in one school. Unpublished PhD
  dissertation, University of Cambridge.
• Rudduck, J. McIntyre, D. (2007 forthcoming)
  Improving Learning through Consulting Pupils.
  London Routledge.

44
Contact Details

• Professor Michael Fielding
• mfielding_at_ioe.ac.uk
• Dr Bethan Morgan
• bm247_at_cam.ac.uk