Student Action Teams C: Practice 1 Part C: Student Action Teams: In Practice… Local initiatives Choosing a topic Curriculum placement Common steps and elements

Student Action Teams C: Practice 2 Local implementation 1: Darebin: northern Melbourne suburbs - Preston to Reservoir Working class, cultural diversity - concern about ‘low aspirations’ Cluster of primary and secondary schools around SRC/JSC issues since about 1989 (10-15 schools) Traffic Safety (2003); Environment (2005-6)

Student Action Teams C: Practice 3 Local implementation 2: Manningham: outer NE Melbourne suburbs - Bulleen-Doncaster-Templestowe-Donvale Relatively well-off area; fairly mono-cultural Cluster of six Catholic primary schools with some recent history of working together around SRC support Values Education grant from Australian Government (2005-6)

Student Action Teams C: Practice 4 Value of a cluster … Increases shared resources Provides external events that are exciting and ‘special’ Enables students to summarise and present to other students Persuades community groups: extends impact Forums can ‘drive’ in-school work both in terms of ideas and in deadlines Professional development of staff

Student Action Teams C: Practice 5 Problems of a cluster … Cluster priority - an extra layer of work Commitment needed to cluster self- management Extra funding required for student travel Need for trust and shared vision Competition, ownership, egos …

Student Action Teams C: Practice 6 Choosing a topic Traffic Safety: approach from TSE consultants to schools Environment: initiative of schools Values: cluster application to Australian Government program Possibilities for initiatives: –From community: approach schools with issue; –From schools: identify issue and set up team; –From students: concern (eg SRC) or ‘search’ process within broad program constraints

Student Action Teams C: Practice 7 One teacher’s view … “If there’s a community issue to be tackled, our normal approach is now to set up a Student Action Team to deal with it.” Secondary school teacher, Melbourne, 2001

Student Action Teams C: Practice 8 Location within school Increasingly within a class versus cross- school, ad hoc or SRC Identification of interested teacher/s and appropriate subjects Reasons: –Time: provides students and teachers with timetabled space; –Recognition: as curriculum - a way of meeting curriculum objectives; –Sustainability.

Student Action Teams C: Practice 9 Overall Structure Engagement Event (Forum 1) Research Phase: what is the issue? what do we know about it? Research Reporting Event (Forum 2) Action Phase: what will we change? what will we do? Action Reporting Event (Forum 3)

Student Action Teams C: Practice 10 SAT Flow Chart… RESEARCH PHASE ACTION PHASE Engagement Event Research Reporting Event Action Reporting Event

Student Action Teams C: Practice 11 Role of community or external body Challenging: commissioning real work Resourcing: providing ideas, material, people Partnership: working on common issues together Audience: receiving student reports

Student Action Teams C: Practice 12 Step 1: Teacher Preparation Development of a shared commitment to the approach, definition of a broad topic, constraints, funding, management structures, partnerships What issue? What are the external expectations? What are our views of students’ roles? Who will be involved?

Student Action Teams C: Practice 13 Step 2: Engagement First investigation of the issue by students Students acknowledge that the topic is important to them and to others What is this issue all about? Is it important? Why? To whom? Do we want to do this? Why?

Student Action Teams C: Practice 14 One Student’s Response… “When I saw these figures, I was first of all surprised, then angry, then determined to do something about them!” Primary school student, Preston, 2003

Student Action Teams C: Practice 15 Step 3: Research Questions Usually two areas for research: –What is the important issue in our community? –What do we know about it and want to know about it? What do we know already about this? What do we need to find out? How will we do this?

Student Action Teams C: Practice 16 Step 4: Research Planning Setting up a structure for data collection and defining methods such as interviews, surveys, observations, measurements etc What sort of research? Who? How? How many? When? What instruments? What questions?

Student Action Teams C: Practice 17 Step 5: Conducting Research Carrying out the research; reflecting on its progress How is it going? Are we keeping to the timeline? What gaps in our research? What changes are needed in our approach?

Student Action Teams C: Practice 18 Step 6: Analysing Research Looking at the research results and asking what they mean; analysing by population groups, location etc What is it like now? (describe) What are we finding? What differences/diversity exists within our results?

Student Action Teams C: Practice 19 Step 7: Presenting Research Results Reporting on findings - often to an external audience, including commissioning body What did we do (summary)? What did we find out? Who do we need to tell?

Student Action Teams C: Practice 20 Step 8: Need for Action Reflection on research and a comparison of ‘what is’ with ‘what should be’; possibilities for ‘dreaming’ or ‘visioning’ What surprises us? What concerns us? (makes us angry, annoyed, worried?) Why? Do we all agree on this?

Student Action Teams C: Practice 21 Step 9: Setting Goals From the vision, specifying some outcomes or objectives: What should it look like? What do we want to see happening? What needs to change to make it like that? What are the barriers to change? What is needed to overcome these? To bring about change?

Student Action Teams C: Practice 22 Step 10: Defining Action Needed With the objectives in mind, designing the forms of action that will be appropriate, achievable and effective What can we do to bring about these changes? What forms of action can we take?

Student Action Teams C: Practice 23 Forms of Action: Education: providing information, telling or training people Encouragement: rewarding positive behaviour, praising, good examples Enforcement: punishing negative behaviour Engineering: building things, structural changes

Student Action Teams C: Practice 24 Ways in which students take action: Taking action themselves: things that student can do directly Asking others to act: demands or requests Sharing in decisions about action: collaboration and partnerships in decisions and implementation

Student Action Teams C: Practice 25 Step 11: Planning Action Details of the action: developing an action plan with timelines and commitments What to do? When? Who will do it? How? What is needed?

Student Action Teams C: Practice 26 Step 12: Taking Action Carrying out the action plan, but also monitoring it and adapting it where necessary How is it going? What do we learn as we do this?

Student Action Teams C: Practice 27 Step 13: Assessing Action Comparing the situation before and after the action; this might involve more data collection What has changed? Why? How do we know we’ve made any difference?

Student Action Teams C: Practice 28 Step 14: Presenting Outcomes Reporting on the action taken, including accountability to the body commissioning this work; effective means of presentation Who do we need to tell? How?

Student Action Teams C: Practice 29 Step 15: Celebrating & Reviewing Reflection on the journey and celebration of achievements; evaluation; also setting new tasks What have we achieved? Where to now? Why? How? What did we learn? How could we improve next time?

Student Action Teams C: Practice 30 Resources Connect magazine - several issues reporting on these Student Action Teams Student Action Teams: Implementing Productive Practices in Primary and Secondary School Classrooms - forthcoming, available from Connect (approx. $30)

Student Action Teams C: Practice 31 Changing teachers too… “I have always held as sacrosanct the need to put students at the centre of all I do: that I must ensure I don’t teach them just knowledge, but teach them the skills to understand the knowledge; that good curriculum allows for this to happen while superficial curriculum allows students to regurgitate facts… I know [involvement in the Student Action Team project] has made me a better teacher. It has made the students believe they have a valid and important voice.” Leesa Duncan, St Clement of Rome School, Bundoora

Student Action Teams C: Practice 32 Changing teachers too… “Children who were not achieving started to really shine… The children now really believe that they have a voice and can make a difference. I now believe that too.” Geraldine Butler, St Charles Borromeo School, Templestowe