Leading and managing

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Student engagement in School Transformation

• Tilbury and Chadwell St Mary Extended Services
  Conference
• 30th March 2007

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Aims

• To enable adult members of the Cluster to
  reflect on their experience of Child-Centred
  Practice, through working with the leadership of
  young people
• To allow adult members of the Cluster to
  determine their next course of action.

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Every Child Matters

• Being healthy
• Staying safe
• Enjoying and achieving
• Making a positive contribution
• Economic wellbeing

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What is school like for you, for others?
Child Focused
Child
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What is school like for you, for others?
Child Centred
Child
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Child Child Focused Centred

• Starts with what matters to children
• Listens to children and often does something
  differently because of this
• Considers everything about the child, not just
  one thing, such as how s/he does at school

• Starts with what matters to adults
• Listens to children
• Works with parts of the child

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Child Child Focused Centred

• Plans to enable children to learn not just about
  subjects in the classroom but more about how they
  feel, how they get on with others, and anything
  else which helps them to grow up
• If anything needs to change, it may first of all
  be what the adults are doing no one
  automatically assumes that it is children who
  must change.

• Education focused on teaching
• Expects children to change

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Child Child Focused Centred

• If there are problems, everything possible is
  considered the whole situation, and how
  everyone is involved, not just a child
• Thinks of how to help children to control
  themselves, rather than organising things so that
  adults control children

• Assumes the problem is with the child
• Tends towards controlling children

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Child Child Focused Centred

• Thinks childrens leadership
• Thinks that adults and children both have to work
  together and be responsible for one another

• Thinks childrens participation
• Look for someone to blame for problems

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Evaluation of practice

• How far is Child-centred Practice really part of
  life in this Cluster?
• What do members of staff in schools, members of
  multi-agency teams, and pupils have to say?
• What ought to happen next?

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What adults have to say

• We dont really ask the children, do we? When we
  do they tend to say what they think we want to
  hear.
• Its about finding the right way for them to
  work rather than the right way for me to work.
• Theres no time to stop and think in the course
  of the school day. Its difficult to think about
  Every Child Matters.
• The children feel clever so are much more
  engaged. They are enthusiastic. This gives me
  more energy.

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What young people say

• They give us a chance to do things we wont
  normally do.
• They are sometimes in a hurry and dont care what
  children are up to.
• They let us control ourselves (try to help us)
  do not tell you what to do
• My teacher says hes always busy but hes just
  got better things to do
• They change the school not the children
• Children have to fit in with the school

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Findings from asking pupils
Yes Evidence not clear No

• 63 26.5 10.5
• 41 49 10
• 46 41 13
• 79 21
• 35 40.5 24.5

• Starts with what matters to children
• Listens to what children say
• Considers the child as a whole
• Education approached as whole-life experience
• The way adults work may change first

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Findings from asking pupils (cont)
Yes Evidence not clear No

• 63 18.5 18.5
• 59 38 3
• 48.5 17.5 34
• 71 13 15

• All-round approach to solving problems
• Not adults in control but childrens
  self-control
• Thinks childrens leadership
• Thinks adults and children share the
  responsibility together

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Recommendations (1)

• The ways in which adults teach (strategies) can
  help them to be more Child-centred in their
  behaviour (eg Impact Learning, Transforming
  Learning, Accelerated Learning)
• Suggest that all classroom methods should be
  looked at again to see how child-centred they are
  and that children/young people should be asked
  directly what they think (their evidence)
• Adults from different agencies by sharing their
  ideas how found out how to work faster, better
  and in a more trustworthy way with families they
  say that schools have more to offer, with more
  staff taking responsibility for helping
  children/young people (and their families) to
  enjoy school -
• Suggest that children/young people are asked
  directly what they think (their evidence)

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Recommendations (2)
Adults want to encourage the leadership of young
people through school councils, the Cluster
council, the Youth Cabinet Suggest that schools
look carefully at how their councils are set up
and meet, so that they are as important in the
life of the school as the meetings of governors,
or of headteachers and staff and that the ideas
raised and discussions held at school councils
are reported to governors and parents.
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Making sure that every child matters
You can do nothing wrong if you are
child-centred. If the child is at the centre of
what you are doing, you cant be doing anything
wrong. All these other people are working ith
you and hear what you are doing. You know that
something will be done. New teams of people
working together in a new way new professional
identity
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Key conclusions

• Consistency matters the most unsettling and
  potentially disruptive environment for learning
  is one where children and young people cannot
  trust adults to behave according to a common code
  of practice.
• Staff identified that disappointment at meeting
  child-focused rather than child-centred behaviour
  probably causes disruptive behaviour in pupils
• Mutual accountability between adults and children
  means mutual accountability between adults
  sharing, rigorously, what you discover and do in
  your varied professional lives is essential.
• You have more to learn from one another and from
  the young people than any external educational
  advisor will provide

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