Active Learning in Primary Classrooms

A Case Study Approach

Jenny Monk, Catherine Silman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781138357266
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317862000
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

• What do we mean by Active Learning?
• How can you inspire children to engage fully in their learning?
• How can you plan and organise a curriculum that ensures that children are actively involved in the learning process?

This brand new text not only explores and examines the concept of active learning, but demonstrates how every teacher, new or experienced, can translate theory into practice and reap the rewards of children actively engaged in their own learning in the classroom.

Central to the book is the series of extended case studies, through which the authors highlight examples of effective teaching and learning across the whole primary curriculum. They provide practical examples of planning, teaching and assessing to encourage, inspire and give confidence to teach in creative, integrated and exciting ways.

1

Setting the scene

Chapter 1 Setting the context: a brief overview of the development of primary education

Chapter 2 Active learning: reflections on research into children’s learning and development

Chapter 3 Inclusion

Chapter 4 Starting from the Early Years

Chapter 5 Translating theory into action: the tools for effective teaching and learning

1

Setting the context: A brief overview of the development of primary education

This chapter explores:

External influences on curriculum design

A historical perspective on primary education

Recent reports and initiatives

External influences on curriculum design

The context for this book is education in primary classrooms in the early part of the twenty-first century. The publication of both the Independent Primary Review (DCSF, 2009) and the Cambridge Review (Alexander, 2010) raised questions in relation to curriculum content and pedagogy. The teaching profession, as it awaits the next initiative, appreciates the opportunity to reflect on past initiatives and research and looks forward to implementing an exciting and innovative curriculum, while maintaining the rigour required to improve standards.

There has been some breathing space for teachers, and now instead of being forced to implement new initiatives in an ill-considered, reactive way, they may have the opportunity to consolidate and develop their understanding of all that has been learnt over the centuries and to translate this into excellent classroom practice. Indeed, teachers could become more proactive and take ownership of a potentially exciting and demanding curriculum. Consider for a moment that, for some, a teaching career will extend over 40 years. There will be many changes of government, ministers of state and policy during this time, but that teacher remains the pivotal point in the ever-turning world. It is to be hoped that the teachers of the future are prepared, principled and proactive. They need to be ready to answer the question: how can primary education best meet the needs of today’s children and tomorrow’s world?

This question is the one that all teachers strive to answer through their practice and professional discussion. The quest for the solution is a lifelong one initiated by Initial Teacher Training (ITT), and consolidated through Continuing Professional Development (CPD) nationally, locally and daily in teacher dialogue. The quest is informed by research, peer observation and experience. Brighouse (2010) suggests that teaching can be ‘boiled down to an essential trinity of questions, explanations and experiences’. One thing is certain: good teachers make a difference to children’s life chances.

The Cambridge Primary Review (Alexander, 2010) also poses the above question at the beginning of its investigations into the state of primary education today. It suggests that the introduction of any new strategies, curriculums, or pedagogy will only be successful if teachers are not left in the position of having to ‘make complex judgements and decisions without knowing why or whether the procedures have any warrant other than that they are commended by government and its agencies’ (p. 308). The writers of the Review state that adopting wholesale a new primary curriculum without critical debate and informed judgements is ‘professionally demeaning and likely to be educationally unsound’ (p. 308).

The Cambridge Primary Review follows several reports that consider how schools can meet the needs of today’s children and tomorrow’s world. The following are some of the questions to which these reports and surveys have sought to find answers:

Why do we educate children?

Should the curriculum be decided by government, teachers, parents, children, popular perception, the media or employers?

Do children learn more productively through direct teaching and testing or by investigating and problem solving or a combination of both?

Should they learn discrete subjects in isolation or should they learn through integrated programmes of study?

At any one time teachers differ as to what and how they deliver the curriculum, but to the profession it seems that the prevailing belief in society throughout history is that ‘education is in a worse state today than when I was at school’. This often leads to the introduction of initiatives to which insufficient thought has been given in relation to content, and insufficient time and training for implementation. An example of this was the period at the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s. Following the Plowden Report in 1967, some schools placed individual learning and choice at the heart of the curriculum, laying special emphasis on individual discovery, on first-hand experience and on opportunities for creative work (Central Advisory Council for Education (CACE), 1967). In these schools the idea of class teaching and even group teaching was frowned upon. Everything was focused on the individual. In many areas, however, children were still taught directly as a class, completing the same work with differentiated work unheard of. The provision of in-service training was varied and inconsistent. In some areas such as parts of Yorkshire and Oxfordshire, the principles outlined in the Plowden Report were adopted but in other areas its effects were negligible.

In the 1970s the integrated day guided by topic webs was common practice in many local authorities. Unfortunately, the extremes to which this was taken in some cases resulted in some very strange and tenuous links. A topic on wood, for example, included the study of Joan of Arc in RE. The media and HMI began to look carefully at some examples of poor practice. In 1976 Prime Minister James Callaghan’s Ruskin College speech hinted at the introduction of a government-devised National Curriculum, and criticised some of the so-called ‘informal teaching methods’. The growing disquiet about these methods had been fuelled by the press, and scapegoats were sought. The furore led finally to the introduction of the National Curriculum with the establishment of English, Mathematics and Science at its core. This was reinforced by the assessment regime which tested children in the core subjects four times over a period of 11 years.

The intentions of the writers of the National Curriculum were laudable, but the consequences of creating a curriculum whose whole was greater than the sum of its parts were predictable. Teachers had to cope with ten subjects and more than 300 attainment targets. Amazingly some schools achieved this, albeit at the expense of teachers’ sanity. Sadly, there was also frantic, frenetic, compartment-alised teaching in some schools and a focus on testing and outcomes at the expense of learning in others. Unsurprisingly, the results were not what the government of the day expected and so Initial Teacher Training came under scrutiny as being too progressive; teachers were told to ‘go back to basics’ and an emphasis on English, Mathematics and Science returned through the testing regime. Thus the tail wagged the dog. There is no doubt that many good things were beginning to happen, particularly in the teaching and assessment of reading and mathematics. Unfortunately, the publication of league tables destroyed the confidence of some schools particularly in disadvantaged areas and pedagogy suffered. The introduction of the national strategies followed but the rise in national standards was slow. The reasons for this are more complex than first appears and the impact on children’s view of learning quite worrying. Yet no one should question the determination, commitment and rigour shown by teachers throughout this period.

It became clear that some children were bored, that the Year 6 curriculum in many schools was almost totally focused on SATs and that disenchanted learners moved onto Secondary Education and became a problem. How therefore can teachers plan a curriculum that not only raises standards, but also engages children in their learning? We argue that these two issues are interlinked.

As we will show later in the chapter, the Cambridge Review suggests that the knowledge obtained from all past initiatives and experiences can empower teachers to decide, within a national framework, the pedagogy and the detail of their own school’s educational provision and ethos. So what can we learn from a historical perspective?

Reflections

What has influenced your views on education?

Which of these influences have ha...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Brief contents
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part 1 Setting the scene
• Part 2 Case studies
• Part 3 Getting started Examples of practice
• Conclusion
• References
• Index