University of East London (Docklands Campus) Listening to Learners: Partnerships in Action Wednesday 22 April, 2009 Student voice, democracy and the necessity of radical education Michael Fielding Institute of Education, University of London

Recent Contexts  Changing view of childhood  UN Convention on Rights of the Child 1989  School improvement  OfSTED Inspection framework  Citizenship + Healthy Schools  Consumerism  Public service ‘reform’  Children’s Commissioner  Work of Professor Jean Rudduck

Youth: tracing conceptual renewal Industrial (modernity ) Post-industrial (late modernity )  Youth as transitional period to adulthood  Blurring lines between youth and adult  Adulthood – a point of arrival  Adulthood – a state of re- invention & improvement  Youth as future of society: both hope & threat  Youth as decision-makers + entrepreneurs in the present  Youth as deficit (pupils, patients)  Youth as partners (co-learners, self-managing)  Youth as responsibility of the state (student)  Youth as consumer (client, choice-maker)  Mainstream and at-risk  Diversity Source: Wyn, 2009.

Immediate Contexts Government Legalisation / Initiatives / Research  Every Child Matters  Personalised Learning  Specialist Schools & Academies Trust  NCSL  ‘Real Decision Making? School Councils in Action’  ‘Working Together: Giving children and young people a say’ NGOs / Foundations  Esmée Fairbairn / Carnegie YPI  Futurelab Academic Research + Publications  ESRC TLRP ‘Consulting Pupils about T&L’

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Range of Student Voice Activities (1) Peer support  Buddying systems  Peer tutoring / listening  Peer teaching  Peer mediator  Circle time (same year / mixed age)

Range of Student Voice Activities (2) Organisational reflection + renewal  ‘School’ / student councils  Student teams e.g. Mulberry School for Girls, Tower Hamlets / Blue School, Wells / Ringwood School, Hampshire  Working party reps  Student governors  Student ambassadors  Tour guides  Appointment panels  Junior Leadership Team e.g. Greenford High School, Ealing  School Improvement Plans / policy writing  Mixed-age Circle Time e.g. Wroxham School, Potters Bar  Healthy Schools  OfSTED  ECM

Range of Student Voice Activities (3) Teaching & Learning  AfL  Lead-learners  Students as Learning Partners  Students-as-co-researchers  Students-as-researchers  Student-led learning walks  Evaluating work units  Dept / Unit development plans

Range of Student Voice Activities (4) Classroom consultation (with your own class)  Classroom observation (including SaLPs)  Video recording  Questionnaires  ‘Transforming learning’  Focus groups  Interviews  Suggestion boxes  Diaries  Photos  Collage  Learning Review Meetings

From audience to author, from data to dialogue (1) how adults listen to and learn with students in schools ClassroomDept / TeamSchool Students as Data Source Individual performance data Samples of student work Student attitude surveys Students as Active Respondents AfL lead learners Team agenda + student perceptions Students on staff appointment panels Students as Co- Researchers Developing independent learning ‘History Dudettes’ (History Dept review team) Joint review of rewards system

From audience to author, from data to dialogue (2) how adults listen to and learn with students in schools ClassroomDept / TeamSchool Students as Knowledge Creators What Makes a Good Lesson? Evaluate playground buddying system Low level bullying YP + Adult Co-authors Joint Enquiry Stantonbury Day 10 on e.g. poetry writing Develop unit /department research lesson Staff + student Learning Walks YP + Adults in search of the Common Good Participatory Democracy Y6 + museum staff + teacher co-plan visit for Y3 Classes as critical friends in thematic exploration Whole school forum e.g. Alex Bloom, St George-in-the- East, Stepney

Ongoing practical challenges (1) Inclusion Which students? Whose voices?  race  gender  social class  ability labelling  An unusual, elite activity? or an inclusive commitment that involves all students in all aspects of their lives at school?

30% decline in sense of being "listened to" around teaching + learning between Y3 + Y11  Despite 2004 Children Act and OfSTED's 2005 framework, Antidote’s recent School Emotional Environment for Learning Survey (SEELS) survey of 23,000 students shows that, between Y3 and Y11, they experience a 30% decline in their sense of being "listened to" around teaching and learning.  ‘Students say the structures + systems set up to collect their views involve too few people + have little chance of making meaningful changes to school life. The students taking part are often the most articulate, intelligent + well-behaved. The rest then feel there is little point in even being interested.’ Source Antidote e-News, November 2008

Ongoing practical challenges (2) Teacher tensions  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. “You’re no good, no bullet points, too much thinking, not thick enough files” Using students?  Refusing the role of ‘quality assurance donkeys’  ‘Beating up’ teachers? e.g excesses of covert observation

Ongoing intellectual challenges (1) 1 Becoming a person  no real account of how we become persons 2 Exploitation or fulfilment?  no way of distinguishing between new forms of exploitation / intensification + approaches that are genuinely concerned for the whole person 3 Democracy  little sustained or confident reference to democracy as a way of living and learning

Ongoing intellectual challenges (2) 4 History  no sense of historical location + the glib dismissal of anything prior to 1988  Countering ‘the enormous condescension of posterity’ E. P. Thompson

Thinking back and thinking at all Society remembers less and less faster and faster. The sign of the times is thought that has succumbed to fashion; it scorns the past as antiquated while touting the present as the best. Society has lost its memory, and with it, its mind. The inability or refusal to think back takes its toll in the inability to think. Source Social Amnesia: a critique of conformist psychology Russell Jacoby 1996

Ongoing intellectual challenges (3) 5 Educational Values  presumption of sameness, domestication of ‘moral purpose’, + denial of radical traditions 6 Political Fundamentals  no attempt to distinguish between the demands of global capitalism and the possibility of a different kind of society

New developments in student voice: shaping schools for the future part funded by Esmee Fairbairn Foundation 1 Radical inclusion involving those whose voices are seldom heard 2 Reversing roles students as agents of adult professional learning 3 Co-constructing the common good remaking public spaces in schools where adults + young people can have an open dialogue

Personalized learning Person centred education Student consultation Participatory democracy Instrumental (solitary) Communal (individual) Instrumental (plural) Communal (mutual) Voice Individual voice Voice Relational conversation Voice Representative voice Voice Restless dialogue Main concern Instrumental outcomes Main concern Lead a good life Main concern Utilise all perspectives to improve results Main concern Co-create a good society / better world Energiser Individual ambition Energiser Personal development Energiser Full informed accountability Energiser Shared responsibility for a better future Dominant model Consumer choice Dominant model Family / friendship Dominant model Learning organisation Dominant model Learning community Key question What job do I wish to do / course do I wish to take? Key question What kind of person do I wish to become? Key question How can we learn from everyone to achieve better outcomes? Key question How do we develop an inclusive, creative society together?

What it means to live a good and meaningful life ‘In our short-term and disposable society there need to be spaces where young people can discuss what it means to live a good and meaningful life and the kinds of people they wish to become’ ‘Living in “X Factor” Britain: Neo-liberalism and “Educated” Publics’ Nick Stevenson Soundings ‘Class and Culture debate’ (2008)

Spaces for dialogue and discussion Within the school  Where are the spaces, both formal and informal for dialogue and discussion  for students?  for staff?  for students and staff?  Where are the spaces for the exploration and articulation of a life narrative?  Where are the spaces for restless encounter where we come to re-see each other and open up a new possibilities ?

Spaces for restless encounter (1) Affirm engage Re-see (Restless encounter) Celebration  Challenge Renew replace  Approach communal events in ways which enable a range of people to contribute  Pedagogy  Self-managed learning groups  Pair / group /project work + communal presentations  Critical pedagogy  Teacher as co-learner (Michael Armstrong)  Apply insights to develop earlier / new practices  Department / integrated teams  Department A Level residentials  Field trips  Dept / course review (students) CPD  Students as Learning Partners  MSO ( Mutual Support + Observation )

Spaces for restless encounter (2) Affirm engage Re-see (Restless encounter) Celebration  Challenge Renew replace  Approach communal events in ways which enable a range of people to contribute  Curriculum structures  Day / Week 10 (Stantonbury)  Mixed age, thematic conferences (St George’s)  Tartan curriculum (Bishops Park College)  apply insights to develop earlier / new practices School  USSR (Sbor)  Countesthorpe (Moot)  Stantonbury (Hall Meeting)  St George's (School Meeting)  apply insights to develop earlier / new practices System  Prefigurative practice  Progressive networks / alliances  Radical traditions  Draw strength from depth of thinking and counter examples

DEMOCRATIC STRUCTURES St George-in-the-East Secondary School, Stepney, London (1953) StaffStudentsSchool Staff Panel  All staff (about 10) Pupil Panel  Head Boy / Girl  Deputy HB/G  Form Reps  Secretary  Headteacher Joint Panel  Staff Panel Member  Head Boy / Girl  Chairs of Pupil Committees  Headteacher Weekly Meeting Schedule Form Meeting Pupil Committees Monday Morning Ongoing  dance  meals  sport  tidy  social Pupil Panel Friday Morning Staff Panel Monday lunchtime Monthly Meeting Schedule Pupil Panel Staff Panel ▼ ▼ Joint Panel Last Friday of the month ▼ School Council [whole school: students + staff] Monday following Joint Panel Meeting

DEMOCRATIC RELATIONSHIPS St George-in-the-East Secondary School, London (1953) Individual significance + communal contribution  ‘the child must feel that … he does count, that he is wanted, that he has a contribution to make to the common good’ The community’s capacity to inspire commitment  ‘the child must feel the school community is worthwhile’ From fear  ‘Fear of authority, fear of failure, fear of punishment’  To friendship ‘Friendship, security and the recognition of each child’s worth’ From exclusion   No competition  No marks / prizes  No streaming / setting  No punishment  To inclusion emulation / ipsative striving intrinsic motivation + communal recognition all ability, sometimes mixed-age grouping restorative, communal response

DEMOCRATIC LEARNING St George-in-the-East Secondary School, London (1953) Communal frameworks for individual + group learning School study (agreed theme) e.g Man’s Dependence on Man Thematic day conference where work is shared Residential camps Learning in the community Negotiate what you learn Mixed age Electives (choose what to study after taster session)  Art  Book-binding  Creative writing  Debates  Drama  Dramatic reading  Fabric printing  French  Housecraft  Italic writing  Literature  Music  Mythology  Needlecraft  Poetry  Puppetry  Recorder playing  Weaving  What’s on?  Woodwork Student initiated  Extra Maths  Extra English Non-groups group  absorb into existing group  include in new activity Each class approaches School Study differently – internal negotiation Learn with + from each other (students + staff) Relationships with class teacher Individual Weekly reviews Form meetings (Whole) School Council / School Meeting

A vision of what the new form of Secondary School can be ‘The pioneering and missionary work which has been carried out over the past two and a half years, always in a spirit of confident adventure, has attained not only the goal which the school set itself from the beginning, but also something much more – it has given a vision of what the new form of Secondary School can be.’ Report by H.M. Inspectors St, George-in-the East County Secondary School, Stepney, London Inspected 25 th -27th February, 1948

Why Alex Bloom is important  Caring relationships  Freedom in the context of community  Significance and identity - contribute to common good  Worthwhile, inclusive community  Live the future now (radical tradition)  Democracy as a way of living + learning  insistent affirmation of possibility