Predicament of the new primary teacher : educating teachers as intellectuals in changing times

This is a digitised version of a thesis that was deposited in the University Library. If you are the author and you have a query about this item please contact PEARL Admin ([email protected])Metadata merged with duplicate record (http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/694) on 20.12.2016 by CS (TIS).This thesis is based on a case study of the predicament of new primary teachers in a time of rapid and multiple change. It examines the proposal that emerging teachers should be supported as intellectuals in responding to the inherited collision of education policy and practice within postmodernity. Action research methodology was employed to investigate a small scale attempt to support student teachers as intellectuals in their final period of the BEd. Some participants were followed into the first year of teaching, using an ethnographic and autoethnographic methodology to evaluate and elaborate the initial proposal. The study shows that emerging teachers could function as intellectuals but there was little political or professional support for this. In particular there were neglected elements in both preparation and induction periods concerning professional purpose, vocation and orientation. The study contributes to our understanding of the dilemmas of tutoring emerging teachers as intellectuals. It also contributes to our understanding of the predicament of new teachers, which is typified as caught between the rock of the state and the increasingly hard place of the school. In this situation clarity of ideals and beliefs are required, and personal and social strategies are needed to carry these through in the problematic contexts of both policy and practice. It is recommended that the imbalance of preparation and induction programmes is reconsidered in order to allow for these neglected elements. Finall y the study offers a cultural rationale for professional purpose and vocation based on principles of equality, quality, diversity and democracy.University of Plymout

The reconstruction of primary teachers' identitities

Primary teachers have had to reconstruct their identities in response to the reconstruction of the education system. The holism, humanism and vocationalism of the old Plowden self-identity has been challenged by a new assigned social identity signalled in the assault on child-centred philosophy, the diminution of elementary trust, and changes in the teacher role. These challenges have thrown up new dilemmas for teachers, and represent 'fateful moments' in the careers of their identities. In trying to resolve the dilemmas, teachers have engaged in identity work, characterised mainly by identity talk, and a number of emotional and intellectual strategies. The result has been a partitioning of the old Plowden self-identity, with the 'real self' being largely withheld from the new personal identity and the sense of vocationalism being set to one side. The new personal identity in teaching represents a more instrumental and situational outlook, with the substantial self finding more expression elsewhere. Identity work is still in progress and seems set to continue while teachers have to find ways of relating to two or more competing discourses

Epistemic insights: Contemplating tensions between policy influences and creativity in school science

Creativity and the way it could be supported in schools is understood differently by policy makers, practitioners and scientists. This article reviews, with a chronological lens, the development of policies that include teaching creativity and teaching for creativity. The epistemic tensions between the intentions of government and the nature of creativity as it emerges in learning or scientific work is introduced and reflected upon. There have been more than nine key educational policies that have been introduced over the last 50 years. Each of these are considered in this article and related to the ways that creativity is understood and expected to be taught, supported or enacted in schools by policy makers. In light of the need to support creativity as a key twenty‐first‐century skill, to ultimately enable current students (who will become the next generation of scientists) to develop the capabilities to address global concerns, this article highlights issues related to this issue. Epistemic insights are offered that relate to the development of aspects of creativity, including questioning, developing alternate ideas, ‘seeing’ things differently, innovation, curiosity, problem solving and evaluating. The ways that policy related to creativity in science appears not to recognise how creativity can be reified in these ways in schools suggests the need for rapid review, especially in light of the upcoming international creativity tests in 2021

‘Words are bandied about but what do they mean?’: An exploration of the meaning of the pedagogical term “project” in historical and contemporary contexts

This thesis explores the pedagogical practices signified by the pedagogical term ‘project;’ which have traditionally been associated with enquiry based progressive ways of working with young children aimed at facilitating levels of both child and teacher autonomy (Hadow, 1931, Plowden 1967, Rinaldi, 2006). There is an early focus upon historical project constructions bounded by the Hadow reports starting in 1921 to a key Estyn document of 1999, the year of Welsh devolution. This diachronic lens tracks the trajectory of understanding associated with ‘projects’ through an analysis of documentary evidence and is later drawn upon in the empirical study. A central aim is to make visible the perceived role of the practitioner and associated pedagogical practices utilised within ‘projects’ at different points in history; in so doing it also aims to illuminate the unstable and context laden nature of pedagogical terminology in circulation. The core of the study is the empirical focus – an embedded case study (Yin, 2009) which explored contemporary project interpretations within one Welsh local authority, as a ‘new’ (DCELLS, 2008a) and ‘radical’ (Maynard et al., 2012) early years curriculum, the Foundation Phase was introduced. Participants were located within the same ecological frame, sharing minimal dissimilarity: bounded within a specific geographical location (a five mile radius); a particular curriculum (the Foundation Phase) and at an explicit point in history. A central aim was to consider understandings of the role of the adult and associated pedagogical practices within contemporary project constructions and in so doing to further consider interpretations of the new Foundation Phase Curriculum, in which particular constructions were situated.The study was underpinned by a constructionist position with the research process viewed as dialogic and subjective in nature (Steer, 1991). Teachers were observed; exemplar documentary evidence collected and follow-up interviews used in a collaborative cycle of ‘meaning making.’ Bernsteinian notions of pedagogy and framing were utilised as analytical tools aimed at exploring how projects were interpreted, whilst Foucauldian notions of discourses were utilised to explain why projects may have been viewed in particular ways. Pedagogical practices associated with three broad project categories were made visible through analysis. Findings indicate that there were noteworthy differences particularly in relation to the varying levels of autonomy offered to the child and the associated positions adopted by the teacher. Whilst teachers used a range of progressive language such as ‘child initiated, ’ the practices noted were often constraining and resonated with a discourse of regulatory modernity (Moss, 2007) as participants succumbed to the ‘regulatory gaze’ (Osbourne, 2006). Since participants were identified because of their contextual similarities, differences in ‘project’ interpretations were deemed to be illustrative of the complex nature of the meaning making process and it is subsequently theorised that pedagogical terms are both context and value laden.This research may be significant within the Welsh context where the 'Foundation Phase' attempts to balance teacher and child agency but at the same time still retains a focus upon pre-specified outcomes. These findings may subsequently have implications for the policy to practice trajectory

Factors affecting primary school head teachers and the running of their schools

Since the early part of this century primary education has existed within a laissez-faire structure. The professional autonomy of teachers has, up to now, never been seriously threatened. The independence of Individual schools is a feature of the English education system. However, because education is a fundamental part of society it is inevitable that differing aspects of society affect education both directly and indirectly. The main area of interest examined in this study is the tension between the numerous factors affecting head teachers and the laissez-faire framework within which the head teacher has to work. This area of interest is examined by using two strategies. First, by using an historical perspective the study will evaluate the effects of society on primary schools. The investigation will assess how external influences and historical events have affected primary head teachers. Second, an Investigation into the internal life of primary schools - factors affecting head teachers on a day-to-day basis, the focus will be upon the interaction of parties within the institionalized setting. The role of the head teacher as a leader, educational manager and administrator will be explored in the context of the present major redefinition of education, which has at its heart the dismantling of the laissez-faire tradition.* Author's note. The radical and ceaseless nature of the redefinition of education following the 'Great Debate* of the mid seventies has created severe problems for the writer. Certain arguments and comments have been 'overtaken* by the march of history. The summer of 1986 is the finishing point of this investigation and the reader will need to bear this in mind.

Trusteeship, wisdom and the creative future of education?

What role does, and should, creativity play in education? What role can and should creativity play in designing the school of the future? This article explores the ascendance of creativity in education in the late 20th and early 21st century, exploring tensions in policy developments which both ‘universalise’ creativity and yet appear also to ‘particularise’ it within a specific set of social, economic and cultural arrangements and values. Arguing that the marketisation of creativity in particular is ultimately disastrous at personal, local, national and international levels, the case is advanced for an umbilical connection between creativity and education futures, in ways that highlight the role of wisdom, and creative trusteeship

Improvement or not?: a study of the impact of change in an infant school

The thesis examines the strategies used by the staff in an Infant School in responding to the demands of the 1988 Education Reform Act and whether the implementation of the reforms have had any impact on the standards of teaching and children's learning at Key Stage One. It considers the development of Primary Education and offers a critique of the debate about progressive and traditional teaching methods. The changing culture in the school following the 1988 Education Reform Act is examined in depth, in particular significant re-organisation to provide for the introduction of core subject teaching. A statistical analysis of the Standard Assessment Tests in England and Maths, the Quest Test in Reading and Number and the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability administered to over 200 children over the period 1991 - 1996 proved inconclusive with regard to improved children's performance and it is suggested a longer timescale may be required. Issues concerning the planning, implementation and management of school innovations are discussed and it is concluded that the subject based re-organisation at the school has realised a number of benefits

What is the question that group work is the answer to?

Bibliography: leaves 90-96.After the introduction of Curriculum 2005 in 1998, various classroom-based research projects were undertaken to monitor the implementation of the new curriculum. The findings of these projects point to the widespread use of a certain type of group work in South African classrooms. The Report of the Review Committee of Curriculum 2005 also points to the popularity of group work as methodology. In both the classroom-based research and the Report of the Review Committee it is stated that the way group work is currently practiced does not enhance learning. The researcher wondered what the question was that group work was the answer to for so many people, and decided to investigate