No More Failures

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No More Failures

• Practices
• Ana Maria Bettencourt
• Maria Emília Brederode Santos
• 2007-10-09

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(No Transcript)
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Context
The data presented here today clearly show that
the traditional use of failing students
making them stay behind their group and repeat
the same year all over again is not an
efficient educational strategy. On the contrary
it seems to aggravate the problems it is supposed
to solve. Its persistence in Portuguese schools
probably derives from the idea that the
responsibility for school failure lies with the
learner and that justice requires he/she should
be rewarded or punished by passing or not to the
following grade. In general this punishment is
accompanied by recommendations of more work for
the student, more help from the families and
private lessons This creates and reinforces
educational inequity Portuguese population has
been insufficiently schooled for a long time (one
must not forget that a dictatorship that
mistrusted education and culture lasted until
1974 when around 30 of the population were
illiterate) and one may say that we are now
missing a generation that could help in
childrens education. An enormous effort in the
school system has been underway since 1974 and
all children are now supposed to be in schools
for nine years or until they are 15 years old.
But many problems remain and a high rate of
school failure is certainly one of them. In 2001
a general revision of the curriculum tried to
give schools the means for a greater autonomy in
curriculum management with the possibility of
increased flexibility and transversality. Three
new areas were created Project-based learning
(Área de Projecto- introducing research methods
and allowing for different ways of learning),
Study methods (Estudo Acompanhado allowing
for students to study in schools accompanied by
teachers and learning how to study) and
Citizenship Education (Formação Cívica to
develop participation skills and to help prevent
and solve students problems). A change in
government did not allow these new areas to be
supported and accompanied as necessary. A recent
study showed many difficulties in the
implementation of these areas. However the way to
improve our schools seems clear to make schools
co-responsible for learning and results, help
students to learn how to learn, help teachers
learn how to differentiate their teaching and
educational strategies and involve parents and
families This involves, however, big changes in
school organization and culture and also in
society at large and in public opinion
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Two schools in Portugal

• We have studied two schools in Portugal that
  present big differences (in social context,
  origin of changes and strategies, results) but
  also some interesting similarities in the aspects
  that concern us here today
• Escola da Ponte in Vila das Aves
• Agrupamento de Vialonga

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Escola da Ponte
Escola da Ponte is situated in Vila das Aves in
the North of Portugal. Although these names
suggest forests and rivers and birds singing on
trees (Vila das Aves means Birds Village,
Ponte means Bridge) it is really an
industrial town with its textile factories in a
long economic crisis but it is true that a rural
culture survives. The bridge does not refer to
a real river but it is a metaphor for the wish to
reach out to the community. This school not only
receives pupils from the local community but it
also welcomes children who have been refused by
other schools (over 40 of its pupils are
children who have been rejected before) many are
emigrants children who stay in the country with
grandparents and relatives while their parents go
abroad to try to make a living. It also has a
much higher rate of children with Special Needs
than other schools. Many different things
characterize this school it is not organized by
grades, each child has its own programme, every
week a general school meeting is run by children
to deal with problems and projects. Parents, at
first quite aloof, are now highly involved. It
started as a primary school but grew to include
children up to the end of cumpulsory
schooling. In this growing process, the Ministry
of Education asked the University of Coimbra for
an evaluation of the school. This evaluation was
very positive and showed that in spite of this
difficult population, their results in the
national exams were above national average.
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Agrupamento de Vialonga
Agrupamento1 de Vialonga is situated in the
outskirts of Lisbon, a so-called dormitory
neighbourhood. About 30 of the pupils are
children of immigrants, particularly from Africa,
more recently also from Brazil and East-European
countries. A strong leadership has managed to
replace a difficult, aggressive climate by an
atmosphere of involvement and common goals.
Partnerships were established with the health and
social departments, with the local authorities
and with the police. And parents are constantly
called upon but also helped in every practical
matter by the school. One of us (A.M.
Bettencourt) is conducting an action-research in
this school, working with groups of teachers to
support their cooperative work and make school
feel responsible for pupils results and for
finding the ways to improve them. Two learning
management strategies have been developed that
seem particularly useful the school director has
regular meetings with each class and its tutor to
analyse problems, define possible answers and
goals. The second useful strategy deals with
educational continuity as much as possible each
class has the same group of teachers throughout
each educational cycle. Activities such as the
creation of a violin orchestra give the school
public visibility and fight the cultural ghetto
it tends to be closed in. 1 A group of
schools governed as a unit
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Conclusions
Although these two practices are so different in
context, origin, history and educational
procedures, common strategies can be found that
lead to improvement in educational performance of
all children.

• Make schools responsible for the success of
  pupils and reorganize themselves for that
  purpose.
• It is the organization and the mandate of
  schools that should be refounded.
• (the risk of teachers becoming scapegoats of
  an organizational misadjustment to the purpose of
  Education for all).

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For that purpose

• Promote educational differentiation as a strategy
  to prevent difficulties, e.g. through Individual
  learning plans.
• Create an environment where having difficulties
  in learning tasks and asking for help is well
  accepted
• Create opportunities to ask for help and
  immediate interventions to answer them and to
  assist those falling behind.

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Organization and teacher training

• Organize schools based on teams of teachers who
  will be responsible for pupils learning and
  success.
• Promote in-service teacher training in the
  context of those teams of teachers to increase
  confidence in changing teacherspractices.
• Make intermediate leadership more clear and
  responsible.

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Participation

• Pupilsparticipation in social management and
  learning.
• Parentsinvolvement and participation
• through
• . commitment
• . regular meetings
• . permanent contact
• . parent support.

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Means and conditions

• Financial support positive discrimination
  (TEIP)
• School autonomy
• Curriculum
• Language teaching and support for immigrants
• Periods for new types of learning, to learn how
  to study and to regulate learning and social
  problems.

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To treat equally those that are different
leads to the aggravation of differences