The Cambridge Primary Review Trust

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Equality: do we really mean it?

The start of a new calendar year is a time traditionally given over to resolutions and promises to change. Good intentions often falter because we fail to identify or address the root causes of our existing patterns of behaviour. We wouldn’t need that diet if we really understood and applied the principles of healthy eating, for example.  Nothing magical happens on January 1st that will enable us to adopt a way of life we have studiously avoided for the previous 365 days. It takes effort to establish new patterns and habits.

I think this resistance to change might offer a possible explanation as to why, as 2016 starts, we as a society are still fighting for an equality which has been enshrined in law since 2010. I am referring to the right not to be discriminated against as a result of gender reassignment or sexual orientation, protected characteristics under UK law.

Now, there will be some who are uncomfortable with these being part of a blog about primary education, and to them I say: that is exactly my point. After 5 years it should not be the case that so many educators have failed to consider their public duty in relation to the Equalities Act. After five years, one could expect a profession guided by an underpinning set of values that are meant to include tolerance, democracy and mutual respect to have addressed these issues sensitively. So why will Christmas 2015 be remembered by one child as the one where the gendered gift given by the school reminded them they are expected to identify and conform to conventional expectations relating to the gender assigned at their birth? Why was 2015 the year where the child in reception was told to put both of her mothers on one Mother’s Day card rather than make them one each to show the uniqueness of her relationship with them? Why in 2015 were LGBT teachers still questioning whether they should come out at work for fear of the response from their colleagues, senior management and parents, despite the fact that the law is on their side?

Those who want easy answers will dismiss these instances with either a comment about political correctness gone mad or, worse, a blanket ban on all gendered events or language to do with LGBT issues. This is ironic, as CPRT has actually given us the simplest answer of all: listen to the children’s voices and work with them to develop an inclusive classroom that celebrates the diversity of their families. Recognise their rights and the rights of their families.

Carol Robinson’s 2014 CPRT report on Children’s Voice details how a Rights-Respecting School can enhance children’s learning through making them feel ‘valued, cared for, respected and listened to’ (p.5). It acknowledges the positive effect developing such a classroom culture has on staff collegiality and the relationship between teachers and pupils. It seems bizarre then that any primary school leadership team would be complicit in discrimination based on LGBT rights, and yet I hear regularly of incidents such as those above. The reason I am an advocate for CPRT is because as CPR’s evidence and CPRT’s aims and priorities make clear, it advocates a more equal society; reports like Carol’s demonstrate how important it is to keep reviewing and refining the response to CPRT aims until we no longer hear these anecdotes because they no longer happen.

CPRT Priority 2 is to advance children’s voice. It is possible to teach about the meaning behind Mother’s Day and to ask the children about all of their mother-figures, allowing them to make cards for all. The same will work on Father’s Day. If a child does not have a mother or father figure, we can discuss what qualities we think these people should have and pick the person we feel demonstrates them. It may be a fictional character or a famous person. It is not up to us to reassign the card to someone who makes us feel more comfortable: let the children write their card for whomsoever they choose.

As for gendered gifts, either make the effort to find out which they would prefer (regardless of their assigned gender) or give all children the same. Next December, a simple communication from Father Christmas asking them to tick a box next to the options will allow us to find out the children’s preference. We are not asking the children if they feel they are transgender: we are simply acknowledging their diversity and not expecting them to conform to gender stereotypes.

If none of this convinces, then maybe an argument that will persuade us to address such inequity is the link between equity, educational achievement and bullying as recorded in the evidence attached to CPRT Priority 1. In their 2015 CPRT research report Mind the Gap, Kate Pickett and Laura Vanderbloemen point out that ‘inequalities in educational outcomes are more profound in more unequal countries’ and that ‘average levels of educational attainment and children’s engagement in education are better in more equal societies’; and the 2014 Teachers’ Report produced by Stonewall states that ‘Almost half of primary school teachers (45 per cent) say that pupils at their school have experienced homophobic bullying or name-calling.’

It would not be unreasonable to look beyond socio-economic issues to include wider inequalities; to link the number of teachers citing homophobic incidents in primary settings with an inequality in recognising the diversity of our school population. Bullying and discrimination affect attainment; they affect children’s engagement in school and they are something we should be addressing until no child is a victim. The CPRT Children’s Voice report highlighted UNICEF UK’s finding that staff and pupils in rights-respecting environments often commented on the low incidents of bullying. It would seem to suggest that the best way of tackling issues of bullying and discrimination is to develop an ethos that respects people’s rights according to the laws of our society.

As part of the teacher training we offer at the University of Worcester there is explicit provision relating to equality and diversity, including tackling homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying on all postgraduate and undergraduate primary teaching courses. As a student-led project the university has set up a series of webpages, and other help is available.

So no more excuses: this is something we can resolve to address this year in order to give children the opportunity to express their true voice and celebrate who they and their families really are in all our schools. It is time to respect their rights.

Branwen Bingle of the University of Worcester co-ordinates CPRT’s new West Midlands network. If you would like to join Branwen in developing the network’s school-related activities please contact her here.

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And the octopus won

I held an election at the school recently. It happened just the day before a similar event took place nationally. The two candidates were an octopus (plastic) and a clown (wooden). This was not intended as a reflection on national politics, they were simply the toys that came to hand as I raced out of the classroom and down to the hall for assembly.

This term the theme for assemblies has been fairness. As I lined the pupils up with their voting slips in front of a cardboard ballot box, I explained that we had gone back in time 200 years. Lord Sam (Year 6) and Duke Timothy (Year 5) were to be in charge of this election and would decide who was to vote. The young aristos very much enjoyed turning away all the pupils, except their two wealthy land-owning mates (Cameron, Year 5, and Freddie, Year 4). And so we carried on, conducting elections right through till 1969 when finally everyone was allowed to vote.

The children, particularly the girls, were refreshingly indignant about the denial of their democratic rights. But what was more interesting was the way they became embroiled in the contest. Who was going to win? Was it going to be the octopus or the clown? Factions quickly developed. Arguments erupted in the corners of the hall. Some were passionate in their advocacy of a particular toy. Some came close to tears when a friend rebelled and voted for the opposition. Yet no policies had been discussed. No one knew what the octopus or the clown stood for despite this being an election to decide the leadership of the school.

You get my point, I’m sure. It was reinforced after the general election when the children told me gleefully that Sats were to be abolished. Yes, I said, but did they know that they were to be replaced with more and harder ‘exams’? They didn’t know and they were, for once, silent. I suspect they would also be silent if they read the Conservative manifesto. In a few bleak words the government outlines its priorities for primary education: ‘Every 11-year-old to know their times tables off by heart and be able to perform long division and complex multiplication. They should be able to read a book and write a short story with accurate punctuation, spelling and grammar.’ That the potential achievements of an 11-year-old should be so stale, flat and unprofitable is heart breaking.

I assume no child was involved in drawing up these priorities. What self-respecting young person would sign up to such dreary targets? A very different set of aims emerges when young people are consulted. The Cambridge Primary Review listened carefully to its many ‘prominent and thoughtful’ child witnesses. Its final report (p 489) recommended that in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child ‘children should be actively engaged in decisions which affect their education’ and that schools should increasingly work to ensure pupils’ opinions are listened to in a meaningful way. Children told CPR researchers (final report, p 148) that they ‘relish a challenge,’ that they ‘enjoy succeeding’ and that they like ‘hands-on active learning’ in lessons that are full of variety. They dislike ‘mundane and repetitive’ learning, copying and ‘drill and practice’ exercises.

Children are begging for a broad, balanced and rich curriculum, as sought by CPR and CPRT. They may not express it in those words, but they do express in their actions. They triumphantly find fossils in the school garden. They catch bugs, beetles and dead butterflies and bring them in to show and discuss. They make up great stories while stirring a magic mud potion. They adore playing with electrical circuits and making bits of paper fly off motor spindles. They copy a Turner painting and say ‘Wow, Miss, I didn’t know I was good at art’. They wonder why bruises happen and why we shiver or say things like ‘I know it’s a silly question, Miss, but why did lions evolve?’ They love acting, will volunteer for anything, relish funny books (I wonder if ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ is the kind of book the Tories have in mind) and, of course, some go wild for long division and complex multiplication. ‘Please can I stay in at break and do more maths, Miss?’

So once more, as Warwick Mansell pointed out last week in his CPRT blog, we are back to the ‘basics versus breadth’ debate. Except that there is no debate at government level. The only debate is at school level as heads and teachers struggle to square the circle and reinforce the basics while not losing the breadth. Despite their efforts, largely via intervention programmes run by dedicated TAs and squeezed into every nook and cranny of a school day, some children will not meet those manifesto targets. They will not pass the new Year 6 ‘exams’. Their fate is to have to retake them in Year 7 – how humiliating is that for poor souls struggling to find their feet in their first year at secondary school?

Primary schools will be blamed for failing these children, but the truth is that they have a special need. It will not gain them exemption from the exams, though it ought to. These children are victims of a disadvantaged background where for myriad reasons there is no one at home prepared to listen to times tables or to buy a book, let alone to read it. Primary schools do an awful lot for these children – not least making them feel safe and valued for 30 hours a week. But they cannot and should not run them ragged to meet flawed targets set by a government that doesn’t listen to children and doesn’t have their best interests at heart.

If children had the vote I wonder if the Tory manifesto would have been different.

By the way, the octopus (plastic) won the school election. Make of that what you will.

Stephanie Northen is a teacher and journalist. She contributed to the Cambridge Primary Review final report and is a member of the Board of the Cambridge Primary Review Trust.

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Voice and Choice

I am writing this blog in election week, hunched over my headteacher’s desk, surrounded by the ephemera of a busy school day: a pile of maths marking; a sheaf of phone message slips; certificates to be given out tomorrow for ‘Bankside Best’ effort, excellence and perseverance; a SEF that needs updating in the light of our last round of monitoring and evaluation/performance management (all indicators continue to be both upwards and onwards – thank you for asking); 22 class sets of top, middle and bottom sample end-of-year reports to be checked and proof-read by the end of the week; the school finance director’s papers stacked more neatly in preparation for the resources sub-committee; the glue-y remnants of some lunchtime card making with year 4 girls (glitter and sequins everywhere – apologies to our lovely cleaners –  a sparkling testimony to the triumph of bling over restrained good taste). And at least 15 incoming email alerts have pinged into my intray since I resolved to sit down and find a moment, in a busy week, to reflect on the principles of being a member of the Cambridge Primary Review Trust Schools Alliance.

And this has been a busier week than usual – for all of us. After I have written this blog, and before you have read it, three very important things will have happened on Thursday, May 7th. Events that have given me opportunity to consider what my key values are as a headteacher and, as a relative newcomer to CPRT, how these define us as an Alliance school, particularly in relation to the Trust’s priorities of equity, voice and community.

The first May 7th event was of course one of national importance: the General Election. The second: the inaugural meeting of our north east area partnership CPRT reading group, based on Carol Robinson’s recent CPRT report on ‘Children’s Voice’.  This will be an exciting opportunity  to spread the good news about CPRT and to embark on a project, potentially across 43 Leeds primary schools, developing ‘rights respecting schools’ to support social, emotional and mental health inclusion based on the research reviewed in her report. Watch this space to see how this will create more choices and involve new voices in developing our landscape of school leadership in Leeds over the next year. The third, more local still: the return of our school council trip to the Houses of Parliament.

From national to parochial, the consequences of these events will reverberate in school over the coming weeks and months; a time to be mindful of the importance of creating effective conditions for learning at all levels, whatever the national climate for education may be, and continue to work hard to invest all our resources to create strong social capital and inclusive school practice, which is what being part of CPRT means to me.

And of course I believe that the most important resource to be invested in the future of our nation, whatever political shape this may be taking as you read this, is our children. At Bankside Primary we aim to ‘put down strong roots for success’;  to be a learning community where pupils are ‘loud and proud’ and where we passionately want ‘every child to have a voice’ shaping their future and those of others. Indeed it was one of our school councillors, in the school mock-elections leading up to the trip to the Houses of Parliament, who came up with the hustings slogan ‘voices for choices’ that inspired me to write this blog. Sadly, I cannot predict at this moment if her crowd-pleasing catchphrase will have led to victory, but I can reflect that none of her more adult political brethren seemed as focussed on embracing the voices and choices of children in the national hurly-burly of soap-boxing and manifesto-mongering around education. Policies appear to focus more on school processes than on pedagogy, with little or no mention of the role of children in helping to shape their own educational futures. But, in spite of their absence in the electioneering this year, the centrality of children’s voices in the creation of first class education will never diminish, as I believe our school community exemplifies.

In our last Ofsted we achieved an ‘outstanding’ judgement for our early years provision, in spite of 90% of our children arriving at school at well below age-related expectations (and this in a primary school of over 700 children). This reflects the impact of our work at foundation level embedding the principles of Reggio Emilia – an Italian educational philosophy based on the ‘image of the child, and of human beings, as possessing strong potentials for development and as a subject of rights learning and growing in relationships with others’. We are a school which aims to create opportunities for constructional, rather than instructional, learning through a constant range of ‘provocations’ – or talk triggers – which promote conversations and learning ideas, to be included in our more general curriculum planning. Look at our website, where children have a voice to share their learning and express their views. In particular, the video created by the school council for a Leeds Film Festival, called ‘Children’s Rights’, is a testimony to their ambition for other children and a showcase for their voices. If you do nothing else in this week of change find 3’20” minutes to remind yourself of the power of the voice and views of children by watching it.

Creating voices and choices to forge strong communities of learning and love attracted us to joining CPRT six months ago. Robin Alexander, with an ironic nod in the direction of George Osborne, talked of creating a ‘northern powerhouse’ of CPRT schools in this part of England. We have, as befits our enterprising spirit, a proud history of being educational innovators: William E Forster, MP for Bradford, was the driving hand behind the 1870 Education Act, which defined the future of national state education in England. Perhaps it was his particular brand of non-conformity, shared with many other of the great figures of the northern powerhouse of the nineteenth century, that made this the case. I am proud of that heritage and aspire to create a world where social coherence and personal accountability are the drivers for our school, rather than being servants to uniform conformity. I want the children at Bankside to be amazing, to be wonderful, to grow up in a morally purposeful world where they can use their voices to articulate their views and influence others, not to be sheep to be herded through a one-size-fits-all educational process. Politicians take note.

I started off with a snapshot of what it feels like to be a school leader in election week May 2015, as a reminder of how easy it is to for headteachers to be distracted from the bigger issues that should, and must, inform our choices as educationalists. I truly have the best job in the world, as a leader of children’s learning, working with a school team of over 90 adults – all themselves talented creators of learning who believe and understand that, in order to give our children an empowering and respectful education we must design our lessons with care and creativity to facilitate rich opportunities to promote choice and voice. And one further bonus; we do so with glitter and sparkle. As an NQT, I was inadvertently responsible for a blanket ban on all things shiny and sticky; in the eyes of the SMT, it made too much of a mess. Now I am a headteacher, I have a team of staff, including our lovely cleaners, who understand that ‘mess can create success’ and look for opportunities to embrace it. Amidst the flotsam of school life that has washed up on my headteacher’s desk today I welcome this chance to pause and celebrate our partnership with the Cambridge Primary Review Trust in order to give our children good choices and strong voices for educational success: at Bankside, in Leeds and in the whole of the UK a this time of potential and exciting – if possibly messy – change for us all.

Sarah Rutty is Head Teacher of Bankside Primary School in Leeds, part-time Adviser for Leeds City Council Children’s Services, a member of CPRT’s Schools Alliance, and Co-ordinator of CPRT’s newly-established Leeds/West Yorkshire network. 

If you work in or near Leeds and wish to become involved in its CPRT network, contact administrator@cprtrust.org.uk.

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Respecting children’s voices

As an educational researcher who has worked in the field of student voice for the past 22 years, I was fascinated to pick up the recent CPRT Research Report by Dr Carol Robinson, Children, their Voices and their Experiences of School: what does the evidence tell us?, introduced in Robin Alexander’s CPRT blog on 12 December.

Carol’s insightful review documents the developing influence of the ‘children’s voices’ movement, and offers an exciting agenda for future practice, policy and research. While the report shows us clearly that much has been gained through researching pupils’ views and the adoption of children’s voices principles, it also acknowledges that there is still a long way to go before these ideas are fully recognised and acted upon, both in the UK and internationally. While Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) confers on every child the right to be consulted and to participate in decision-making, how these principles are put into practice opens up new questions and challenges, particularly for teachers and schools.

Among the questions often raised about the children’s voices principles are the following:

  • Is the idea of respecting children’s voices a ‘luxury’ that schools no longer have time for?
  • Has the children’s voices movement overstepped the mark by giving children too great a say in decision-making in schools?
  • Should we allow children to take responsibility for their own learning?

Let’s look at each of these questions in turn.

Is the idea of respecting children’s voices a ‘luxury’ that schools no longer have time for?

After a presentation on our children’s voices research a few years ago, a head teacher stood up and told the audience that he was deeply grateful for the way in which our research had allowed him to re-focus his attention back onto the children in his school and their learning. He spoke of how the pressures and demands of the prevailing educational policy climate had temporarily eclipsed his thinking about the most important concerns.  His was a powerful statement about the value of respecting children’s voices: centring teaching practice on children’s voices in this way redirects us back to the things that matter, that make a real difference to children’s achievement and their love of learning. Far from being a luxury, the recommendations in Carol’s report show us that respecting children’s voices lies at the heart of a successful school community and offers a set of principles which every school should embrace.

Has the children’s voices movement overstepped the mark by giving children too great a say in decision-making in schools?

A common criticism of children’s voices principles is the concern that giving children an active say and involvement in decision-making could undermine teachers’ authority in schools. Some teaching unions have opposed children’s roles in interviewing teacher job applicants, for example, on the grounds that such activities might compromise pupil-teacher relationships while this type of decision-making, they argue, represents a step too far in changing the dynamics of power. However, as Jean Rudduck argued, respecting children’s voices does not mean that pupils’ views take precedence over teachers’ authority, nor must it result in a silencing of teachers’ own voices in the decision-making process. While it is important that children’s views are considered seriously and without tokenism, there is a clear balance to be struck, and a school ethos that is framed on values that embrace responsibility, reciprocity and community sets the parameters for ensuring that the voices of all, whether adult or child, are heard and respected. There are many schools around the country which have successfully embedded children’s voices principles in their practice. One of them is the Exeter school featured in Jo Evans’s CPRT blog on 21 January. Over the coming months the CPRT website will be showcasing other schools where CPRT principles, on this and other matters, can be witnessed in action.

Should we allow children to take responsibility for their own learning?

There is clear evidence from psychological studies showing that encouraging young learners to develop a sense of responsibility for their learning has a significant and positive impact on their achievement and attitudes to learning. US researcher, Carol Dweck, for example, has demonstrated that the children’s motivation and achievement are dependent on having a sense of ownership and responsibility for their learning. Giving children choices in their learning also provides opportunities for teachers to design classroom activities that respond to children’s interests and prior knowledge so that learning becomes more engaging and relevant.

Over to you  

  • What do you think about the role of children’s voices in primary education?
  • Does your school have interesting children’s voices practice or experiences to share?

To discover more about these ideas

Cambridge Primary Review Trust has been working with Pearson to develop a number of professional development programmes, including one focusing on children’s voices. This exciting new course looks at involving children in the development of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment and is designed for senior leadership teams.

The Rights Respecting Schools programme has been developed by UNICEF to support schools interested in putting the UNCRC recommendations on children’s rights at the heart of their practice. The programme offers training, resources and an award scheme for any organisations working with children and young people around the UK.

On 1 January Julia Flutter joined CPRT’s directorial team, taking responsibility for developing the Trust’s communication strategy.

  • Read more about CPR’s evidence and recommendations on children’s voices in its final report (Chapter 10) and the commissioned research surveys on children’s voices published in 2010 and 2014.
  • Find out more about the professional development packages arising from CPRT’s collaboration with Pearson.

by Robin Alexander

New evidence on childrens’ voices and rights. But does DfE get it?

Children, their World, their Education. The basic premise of the Cambridge Primary Review (CPR) was as clear in the title of its final report as in its choice of investigative themes and questions: education is meaningful only when educators understand and coherently respond to the nature and needs of children and the society and world in which they are growing up. Mastering the practical skills of teaching is a necessary but not sufficient condition, and as an educational rationale mantras like ‘effective teaching’ take us to the nearest 3Rs test but no further.

A more comprehensive rationale was crystallised in the twelve aims for primary education that were at the heart of CPR’s final report and that  now inform the work of an ever-increasing number of schools.  In preparing the ground for these, CPR met and listened to children and those who work with them, and many more children added to these face-to-face conversations by writing in. We also commissioned reviews of research on children’s development, learning and lives inside and outside school.

One of these research reviews was on children’s voice and today CPRT publishes its sequel: Carol Robinson’s update of the report that she and Michael Fielding first produced in 2007 and then revised in 2010 for inclusion in The Cambridge Primary Review Research Surveys.

Last month saw the 25th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The UK is a signatory, but just how far short of the UN’s ideals we fall is daily all too apparent in the media and in CPRT’s recent blogs on young carers, the government’s proposed policy ‘family test’, and the fate of those millions of children caught up in conflict or lacking access to education as a basic human right. Nor is CPRT convinced that the new national curriculum has yet registered that these matters demand a more serious and committed response than DfE has so far provided, though we are certainly convinced that making citizenship optional in primary schools transmits entirely the wrong signal.

Yet all is not gloom, doom and hollow promises. Carol Robinson’s report documents the encouraging growth of research and practice in the area of children’s agency, voice and rights, and of impressive movements like Rights Respecting Schools. Always at risk of being treated tokenistically, children’s voice in many schools now means considerably more than stage-managed deliberations on food and wet playtimes.  This progress should be celebrated.

Probably not at DfE, though:  its recent advice on promoting ‘British’ values rightly encourages schools to ‘ensure that all pupils … have a voice that is listened to’ but confines that voice to the task of demonstrating ‘how democracy works by actively promoting democratic processes such as a school council whose members are voted for by the pupils.’ To DfE, then, voice equates with vote, and we know how little, in Britain’s electoral system, votes count for, or how little notice our democratically-elected government takes of the voices of others than those who toe the party line, not least on educational matters.  But we won’t tell our children about this, will we, for in the official account of British values parliamentary democracy is the envy of the world.

In fact, the most basic test of the seriousness with which we treat what children think and say is not the election of a school council – valuable though its deliberations can be – but the extent to which empowering, exploring and building on children’s articulated ideas is central to our every teaching encounter and to the everyday assessment for learning which at best informs both children and ourselves. Children’s voices will remain unheard, and their understanding will advance thus far and no further, if ‘speaking and listening’ means that teachers do all the speaking and children all the listening; or if the writing through which children express their ideas is confined to repeating those of the teacher.

That’s why CPRT’s eight priorities include not only a commitment to ‘advance children’s voice and rights … in accordance with the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child’ but also contingent commitments to the development of patterns of teaching and assessment for learning in which genuine dialogue is paramount. This term we have published Wynne Harlen’s report on assessment and Carol Robinson’s on children’s voices. Next term we’ll be presenting reports from Usha Goswami, David Hogan, Dennis Kwek and Peter Renshaw on learning and teaching. In parallel, we are working with Pearson to develop jointly-branded CPD programmes in these areas. All these initiatives are united by the imperatives of childhood.

It is classroom pedagogy that most tellingly liberates children’s voices; but in the wrong hands it is pedagogy that most decisively suppresses them.

www.robinalexander.org.uk

View/download Carol Robinson’s CPRT research report Children, their voices and their experiences of school: what does the evidence tell us?

View/download a four-page briefing on Carol Robinson’s report.

View/download Wynne Harlen’s CPRT research report Assessment, standards and quality of learning in primary education and/or the accompanying four-page briefing.

Find out more about these and CPRT’s other research initiatives.

Find out more about the joint CPRT/Pearson CPD programmes on children’s voice, assessment and other topics.

Read the DfE guidance ‘Promoting fundamental British values as part of SMSC in schools’ (November 2014).

Contact

Cambridge Primary Review Trust - Email: administrator@cprtrust.org.uk