Changing schools: more than a lick of paint and a well-orchestrated performance?

Thomson, Patricia; McGregor, Jane; Sanders, Ethel; Alexiadou, Nafsika

doi:10.1177/1365480208100245

Cited by 11 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Hayes (2010) wrote about how cross-curricular approaches emphasise a fusion of ideas and concepts within and across subject areas and broader life experiences in an attempt to make education more relevant and meaningful for children. Such approaches are often seen as a way to support the transfer of learning and skills from one situation to another, teaching pupils to think and reason, and provide a more relevant curriculum to engage their interest (see also Thomson, McGregor, and Sanders 2009).…”

Section: Arguments In Favour Of CCmentioning

confidence: 98%

Subject-based and cross-curricular approaches within the revised primary curriculum in Northern Ireland: teachers' concerns and preferred approaches

Greenwood

2013

Education 3-13

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A revision of the Northern Ireland Primary Curriculum took place in 2007. It promotes strongly a cross-curricular or thematic approach to planning and teaching and has an 'Area of Learning' structure which includes geography alongside history and science and technology in an area called 'The World Around Us'. Responses from teacher questionnaires and interviews with teachers and 'stakeholders' reveal wide-ranging opinions, mostly positive, about the effectiveness of this approach in improving pupil learning. A significant number of teachers have adopted a pragmatic, balanced and reflective approach to their planning, something which requires a high skill level in 'curriculum-making' which, in turn, can be enhanced by effective in-service training.

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Section: Arguments In Favour Of CCmentioning

confidence: 98%

Subject-based and cross-curricular approaches within the revised primary curriculum in Northern Ireland: teachers' concerns and preferred approaches

Greenwood

2013

Education 3-13

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“…Priestley 2011;Hargreaves 2002) and driven by within-school initiatives (e.g. Ouston et al 1991;Thomson et al 2009). The consistent finding is that change is hard, time-consuming and frequently fails to occur: the ''paradox of innovation without change'' (Priestley et al 2011, p. 266).…”

Section: Introduction Change In Schoolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural change from physical foundations: The role of the environment in enacting school change

2018

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Educational change is known to be challenging and therefore research exploring the conditions that seem to facilitate change is important. The literature relating to school level change shows some awareness of the part played by the physical school environment, but the role of the school premises in change is rarely the focus of research rooted within this literature. This is a notable omission. The history of innovation in school design parallels the recognised challenges of school reform and change. Educational leadership practice and certain historic policy initiatives suggest awareness of how the physical environment may encourage or constrain, and so is potentially an important part of a change process, but this understanding is not developed. This paper brings together our research concerning school environments and our work with schools attempting pedagogical change to develop such an understanding of the place of the physical setting in initiating, supporting and sustaining school level change. It is a conceptual exploration of the role of the physical environment in enacting change using an empirical base to illustrate our argument. We present a narrative account of two schools' approaches to change and use the theoretical framework of culture, structure and individual action, where the physical environment is part of the structure within which change is attempted. It becomes clear that although the physical setting is intimately related to other school structures, particularly certain organisational features, there is a qualitative difference in the way the physical setting, as a tangible and visible entity, contributes to change processes. As well as contributing to the development of conceptualisations of educational change, our exploration has implications for the wider understanding of structures within human society, and their relationship to culture and individual agency.

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“…Although some recent government initiatives in the United States and United Kingdom appear cognisant of this necessity (e.g. Scottish curriculum reform; see Priestley, Millera, Barrett, & Wallace, 2011), it has been argued that there is inequity in the enabling of school-led development (Thomson, McGregor, Sanders, & Alexiadou, 2009), offering 'freedom to change to the affluent and fear of failure to the rest' (Hargreaves, 2002, p. 206).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A school tries to change: How leaders and teachers understand changes to space and practices in a UK secondary school

et al. 2014

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This article considers a school community initiating change in pedagogical practices to complement newbuild premises in the context of demands for school improvement, but constraints on autonomy. We investigate how school leaders planned the change towards enquiry-based learning in flexible spaces, and how teaching staff prepared for the coming change. We worked with teachers to explore current experiences of teaching and learning in self-contained classrooms where teachers mainly teach alone, and anticipations for the new building, where there will be large, shared spaces, facilitating movement and different groupings of students, encouraging student autonomy and teacher teamwork. Preparation for change was centred on an 'experimental week' of enquiry learning that took place in an existing large space (a school hall). Here we explore the experiences of the teachers involved, particularly their ideas about the potential for changing practices, considering these in light of the plans of the school leaders and of wider understandings of school change. We met the teachers before and after the experimental week, observed the week and conducted interviews mediated by photographs of the week. The tensions and stresses of attempting to make extensive changes to teaching practices were evident, together with suggestions that the school leaders were failing to appreciate the complexity of the change they were planning or to communicate the ideas about it that they had developed. The probable consequences for the school, given the uneven distribution of autonomy in UK schools, are briefly considered.

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Changing schools: more than a lick of paint and a well-orchestrated performance?

Cited by 11 publications

References 22 publications

Subject-based and cross-curricular approaches within the revised primary curriculum in Northern Ireland: teachers' concerns and preferred approaches

Subject-based and cross-curricular approaches within the revised primary curriculum in Northern Ireland: teachers' concerns and preferred approaches

Structural change from physical foundations: The role of the environment in enacting school change

A school tries to change: How leaders and teachers understand changes to space and practices in a UK secondary school

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