Network Learning in the Context of Practice

Christopher Day, Mark Hadfield, Marion Kellow

University of Nottingham, UK

Paper presented at the BERA Conference 2003 "Teachers' Workplace as Context for Learning", Herriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, 11-13 September, 2003.

Network Learning in the Context of Practice

Christopher Day, Mark Hadfield, Marion Kellow

Abstract

This paper is a reflective account of the principles and school based inquiry practices of a network of fifteen primary schools in partnership with their Local Education Authority (School District) and the Centre for Research on Teacher and School Development, The University of Nottingham, England. Within each school of the Primary Schools Learning Network (PSLN) there is a core group of teachers who lead the classroom and school based action research projects. Monthly meetings take place between the school co-ordinators and strategy group (headteachers) and each term all participants come together for a development day. Support of different kinds is provided by the University. The network is now in the second year and has an initial five-year life span. The PSLN is founded upon a number of learning principles and based upon notions of trust, democracy and activist professionalism. The paper will discuss these and provide examples of learning and change.

Introduction

The Primary Schools Learning Network (Milton Keynes) was established through a partnership between the Milton Keynes City District Education Department, the Centre for Research on Teacher and School Development at the University of Nottingham and twelve primary schools. At the centre of the principles and practices which formed the basis for its work is collaborative action research. Milton Keynes is a new and vibrant town with a mobile school population that has diverse range of needs. It’s uniqueness as an LEA is recognised by Ofsted (the national schools inspection service managed by the Office for Standards in Education, a government body) which has no close statistical neighbours. Some of the key contextual factors that affect the schools are:

·  High pupil mobility, 87% of middle and combined schools have levels of mobility higher than the national median figure

·  A significant turnover of headteachers, 37% of schools, and deputy headteachers, 33% of schools, in the last three years.

·  Significant recruitment of teachers difficulties, many teachers leaving after 3 to five years in teaching.

·  Standards of attainment as demonstrated by end of Key Stage SATs are lower than the national averages

·  Lack of overall improvement in standards in English and Mathematics since 1999.

High pupil mobility combined with high teacher turnover, which is in some schools combined with change of leadership, has put considerable ‘stress’ on the school system. These problems were recognised by Milton Keynes LEA and by some local primary schools as becoming overwhelming. It was felt, therefore, that there was a need to support the development of teachers through research into practice which would help them to define and conceptualise their own 'felt needs' or problems, provide space for systematic reflection, and produce new knowledge about learning and teaching which was relevant to the learning needs of schools and pupils in the local context.

In a very real sense, then, the PSLN aims to provide a sustained learning experience in which choice and individual and collective responsibilities play key roles, through collaborative action research in schools and shared practical inquiry between schools. It is based upon a view of teacher professionalism in which teachers are not only recipients of policy change initiated from outside their schools and classrooms but are also themselves, initiators of change who have educative purposes which go beyond these. In other words, teachers have an essentially moral commitment, ‘to serve the interests of students by reflecting on their well-being and their progress and deciding how best in can be fostered or promoted’ (Eraut 1995, p232).

The origins of the PSLN project lie in a professional relationship built over time between an Advisor from Milton Keynes and two tutors from the University who themselves had established, again over time, a close working relationship. The ‘connections’ between the three were, significantly, based also upon shared values. We all believed, for example, in the notion of schools as learning communities for all, and, in relation to this, the need to provide opportunities which would enable teachers, who were already hard pressed in existing contexts of accountability and performativity which appears to limit teacher development to those activities which promote the 'agenda' of the DfES, to re-discover the power of choice upon motivation, commitment and new learning challenges alongside others within and without the school.

Unlike the Dutch network described by Veuglers and Zijlstra (1995), the PSLN was, therefore, not concerned with interpreting or implementing government policy. On the contrary, our experience had taught us the importance in learning not only of choice but of ownership, active participation in decision making and collaborative interdependence rather than independence in learning. The core set of guiding principles is different, also, from those of networks in England which ally their work directly to that of the current reform agenda and which claim systemic change as their aim (Hopkins et al, 2000). One of the dangers of the growth in ‘Network Learning’ which involves partnerships between schools, Local Education Authorities (school districts) and Universities is that this important means of learning, development and achievement will become associated exclusively with the implementation of centrally initiated reform. In other words, it will become another means by which teachers are seen as conduits or technicians rather than as activist professionals (Sachs 2001) whose responsibilities encompass a wider, more profound educative change agenda and whose purposes are moral (focusing upon the betterment of the whole person) and not simply instrumental (with the focus upon increasing the expertise of the individual in a limited number of areas of the curriculum designated by the government of the day as being of particular importance). Much has been written of the importance of combining ‘internal’ with ‘external’ pressures for change (Earl and Lee 1998) in order to achieve, ‘systemic change’ (Hopkins 2001). Less research has been conducted into the relationship between ‘systemic’ (organisationally controlled) and ‘individual’ (personally empowered) change. It seems to have been assumed that the peer pressure exerted explicitly or implicitly by those directly involved in active participation through what are often called ‘School Improvement Groups’ or ‘Cadres’ will somehow move the school further in the desired change direction. This is a key issue, which needs to be addressed if the effectiveness of network learning upon the system in which the work of individuals who are already committed to its success (and thus likely to benefit) is to be evaluated.

This network learning partnership therefore aims to: i) provide synergy of the knowledge which university, school and LEA based educators possess; ii) encourage an explicit personal and professional connection among the fifty participants in the participating schools to their own learning by giving value and shape to their ideas through setting up appropriate organisational structures in response; iii) promote collaborative action research as the central (though not exclusive) mode of inquiry into practice as a means of improvement; iv) build broad based leadership through individual school co-ordinators whose roles extend to those of teacher, scholar, proposal writer and facilitator of meetings; v) acknowledge the need for headteacher (principal) support through the formation of a network strategy group on which they and the co-ordinators sit; vi) engage headteachers themselves, as a cohort, in network learning; vii) ensure collaboration at all levels among the network members; viii) provide opportunities for the regular formal celebration of achievement through ‘milestone’ meetings of the network twice each year and dissemination among all schools in the district of any news of work in progress and plans for further developments through a newsletter and website; ix) ensure end products in the form of classroom and school improvements; and x) create and support a continuing learning community by building and sustaining trust through a movement from 'private' knowledge to 'common' knowledge.

The Learning Network.

Growing evidence from research points towards the development of democratic action inquiry learning networks or 'federations' of schools as a vehicles for addressing the tensions between the individual, school, and broader policy agendas.

‘Knowledge networks will enable staff inside schools to become plugged in to the world of ideas outside their professional contexts, as well as offering them the chance to explore their work with the help of others situated outside their schools. These networks will be highly interactive thereby making them not only instruments for information dissemination but also learning networks. Through interaction people will create new knowledge for themselves which is relevant to their professional situations and needs.’ (Southworth, 2000, p**)

The PSLN promotes this work, but not in a 'neutral' way as Southworth (2000) seems to suggest. Rather, it is founded upon ten professional learning and capacity building precepts:

·  successful schools are learning communities for adults as well as children

·  teachers learn best when they participate actively in decisions about the content, processes and outcomes of their learning

·  successful learning requires time for critical reflection of different kinds, in, on and about action, and action research is the most effective means of investigating practice

·  learning alone through one’s own experience will ultimately limit progress

·  successful learning requires collaboration with others from inside and outside the workplace

·  teacher learning and development need to be linked to structural and cultural changes in order to create the capacity for school improvement

·  school leaders need to play a key role in promoting and linking teacher learning and the development of a school’s capacity to improve and cope with change

·  at its best, learning will have personal and professional significance for teachers

·  supported, sustained learning over time is likely to be more beneficial to the individual and organisation than short term learning

·  if schools are to operate effectively in devolved systems, much reliance has to be placed on trust in professional judgement at school level

These precepts have been drawn from the plethora of research into the professional education and development of teachers. Central to this is the notion that successful schools are learning communities for adults as well as children. There is also a recognised need to build the school’s capacity to support teachers’ learning and development in order to achieve improvement at the school level. The PSLN works to achieve this by replacing the notion of the individual teacher working in isolation with the utilisation of a range of intellectual, social and cultural capital available within the school and beyond. Teachers and schools are supported and encouraged to engage in sustained learning experiences to which inquiry is central, where they are able to research their own and other’s practices.

The PSLN also builds on the notion of choice, and individual and collective responsibility, by stressing the role of risk taking. Drucker, in writing about teachers as knowledge workers in a knowledge society, points out that as well as talking about ‘empowerment’ and ‘entitlement’ we should also talk about ‘contribution’ and ‘responsibility’.

‘What we should ask, is not, ‘What should you be entitled to?’ but, ‘What should you be responsible for?’ The job of management in a knowledge-based organisation is not to make everybody a boss. The task is to make everybody a contributor’ (Drucker, 1994, p.99 cited in Day 1999)

Collaborative action research ensures that everyone contributes to the continuing development of thinking and practice. The PSLN encourages everybody - teachers, LSA’s (Learning Support Assistants), school leaders, LEA advisers, lead teachers, and university staff - to become contributors to the creation, utilisation and dissemination of new knowledge. Collaborative action research and sustained school - LEA - university partnerships are key components to the work of the PSLN. The schools and staff involved in the project have real responsibility in designing the project, carrying out research, evaluation and dissemination of the findings.

Another essential element is the recognition of the part played by emotion in teaching and learning and the reliance of trust in the professional judgements and competence at school level. Teachers in the project have found that negative feelings of anxiety, insecurity and distrust are replaced by openness, honesty and the confidence to take risks in order to learn about learning and school improvement.

Based on its ten learning precepts the PSLN has five key objectives:

·  To build and sustain through collaborative action research the capacity of teachers and schools for growth and improvement and for PSLN schools to develop into Learning Communities

·  To seek innovative practices in teaching and learning that result in improved pupil learning and through this, enhanced opportunities for raised standards

·  To develop leadership for learning, giving staff opportunities to lead and to develop their emotional and cognitive leadership potential

·  To work with other schools to share and develop knowledge and practice and therefore build the capacity of the network as a whole

·  Through staff development to increase staff motivation that will improve the retention of staff

Networking: Organisation and Process

At the start of the project schools were given guidance on the precepts underlying the project, person specifications for SIG members and those who co-ordinate them, and training in developing and carrying out research. Through a process of a school analysis and self-evaluation schools decided on an area for research. This was followed by dialogue with other schools, LEA and the university. Underlying all the projects is the desire to find out more about teaching and learning styles, how to raise pupil self-esteem, and an excitement in learning. Individual schools selected foci that were particularly relevant to their own context: these include areas of the curriculum such as assessment for learning or developing thinking skills and particular groups of pupils including EAL and gifted and talented. All schools expressed the view that being able to identify their own focus has been a major motivator and a strength of the project.

Whilst the common factor in all networks is to enhance the drive towards higher standards, a distinctive feature of the PSLN is that it acknowledges the right of teachers in schools to identify the means for achieving these. Standards are not measured in terms of restricted pupil achievement agendas as defined by national testing agendas in relation to so called key areas of literacy, numeracy and science. Hence the guiding principles are: