Changing adult behaviour in schools

Where are the examples of successful culture change amongst adults in Kent schools?

Background...

The Kent Secondary Strategy (KSS) has made clear that schools need to develop strategies which nurture "Autonomous and Creative Learners". It aims to ensure that "no child or school will fail". Since we have clear evidence that a significant percentage of learners are continuing to fail in our current education system, it stands to reason that we therefore have to find new ways of reaching those learners. The KSS lays out for us the vision and the strategic direction for schools to move in, and there are some fundamental changes to make.

One of them centres on the relationship between the adults who work in the schools and the learners for whom they are responsible. If we are serious about learners taking responsibility for their own learning - something which every school prospectus has stated as a central aim for the past two decades - then we have to recognise that the relationship between adults and learner has to change.

This change of relationship seems to me to be at the very heart of almost all the significant moves we need to make to ensure that learners become "autonomous and creative". Schools have been developing their vision for C21st learning in the first waves of BSF within the newly forming Local Education Partnership (LEP 1). It remains crucial that they continue to focus on what learning looks like, how the relationships in the school can change and adapt to ensure that learners are given the language and the permission to take increased responsibility for their learning. In some cases they have less than three years to make this significant change in  culture before they move into their new facilities.

The change management skills of the school leaders will be critical if this process is going to be successful. It is hardly surprising that school leaders are becoming increasingly taxed by the task!

Unsurprisingly, however, the magnitude of the task is not one facing Kent alone. At a meeting of the 17 schools taking a national lead in the Innovation Unit's " Next Practice in Resourcing Personalisation" field study trials at Bridgemary School in Gosport on 14th November 2007, it become clear that the issue of changing adult behaviour in schools is the central issue facing schools - and these schools are amongst the leaders in their field!

So...

Please join this blog and provide us with

- comments about the above - do you agree or disagree and why?

- what successes you have had with this agenda

- what mistakes you have made or lessons you have learned along the way

 

Jerry Owens

Published Thursday, November 15, 2007 9:10 AM by Sophie

Comments

# re: Changing adult behaviour in schools

A prosaic piece! You are of course being slightly evasive, as you leave no doubt that you are indirectly referring to teachers, ('educators' if we include the shift towards the use of teaching assistants who seem to work just as hard, are just as professonal and are paid considerably less!).

Are teachers not the progeny of an education system that has delivered them personal success? Is it then a surprise that some may consequently be conservative in their outlook to changing the system that gave them their success? The recent whiteboard report by Becta made indicates that it typically takes between 18 months and two years of 'practice' for a classroom teacher to embed a simple and relatively evolutionary technology and start to explore it further, ... something of an indictment? I think not. The real issue is that technology plays little part in formal assessment, and it is that by which schools are measured and compared.

http://clusterweb.org.uk/CS/community/kcc_digital_curriculum/archive/2007/10/25/i-whiteboards-the-benefits-are-clear.aspx

Children form social networks, and teachers will never be part of their network, so we need peer review and authentic audience as motivators. As long as assessment of learning is based on teachers as sole arbiters, little will change. Worse still, autonomy in these circumstances will be seized by children as an opportunity for laziness and avoidance.

The Kent Secondary Strategy is brave; to succeed educators have to change the nature of their interaction and provide genuine audience and meaningful assessment based on inclusive moderated real world activities and good quality simulations. The web provides opportunities in abundance, connecting people, countries, issues, and ethics.

We also need to get out of the misery of assessment by paper. How can an ICT rich curriculum be left at the door of the exam hall, and revert to paper and memory. Many of the 'vocational' portfolio based courses of recent years have been a sham exploited by schools to raise results. I am heartened by places like the Thanet Skills Studio though ... real vocational courses delivered by experts, not a 2D represntation of how to file vocational sounding statements and exercises.

Saturday, November 17, 2007 3:52 PM by AlanDay

# re: Changing adult behaviour in schools

Actually I am not necessarily thinking of just teachers when I refer to "adults". It is clear that adults other than teacerhs are and will play an increasingly important part in the learning that happens in schools.

However some teachers will prove to be some of the more tricky hurdles to overcome and carry forward in our process towards a focus on learning and learners in the personalised world, rather than - as has been the case to a great extent, the teaching and teachers.

Monday, November 19, 2007 12:53 PM by owensj01

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