Partnership in the Primary School

Working in Collaboration

Jean Mills

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9780415139014
• eBook ISBN: 9781134771998
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Working in 'partnership' in primary schools is an approach that is transforming the classrooms of the 1990s. It is now widely acknowledged that a collaborative approach can significantly improve the effectiveness of teaching. This book provides a practical, readable account of partnerships in educational settings including: * collaborating in nurseries and primary schools * reading and literacy partnerships * working with special needs assistants * supporting students in training * home-school links * liaising with an OFSTED inspector. The focus is placed on key principles of collaboration as well as specialist roles. Personal testimonies and case studies are used to illustrate the various aspects of teamwork.

Part I
WHOLE SCHOOL APPROACHES TO WORKING RELATIONSHIPS

1
NURSERY PARTNERS

Jean Mills

This opening chapter deliberately focuses on nursery education, not just because there is increasing discussion of provision for under-fives by politicians and the media, nor because a nursery may be the first experience for a child of formal education. It is primarily because, by the nature of their organisation, nurseries, often provide models for working in partnership both within the school and beyond. Thus, this section is presented as a microcosm for the rest of the book. Here there will be a description of a range of initiatives and patterns of working that exist within (arguably) the smallest unit in the school system. Later in the book the focus will be on separate issues in separate schools.

Secondly, nurseries operated in teams long before it was common practice in primary schools. Within a relatively small physical environment, they involve a range of adults, including teachers, nursery nurses, students on placement and outside professionals, who cannot fail to be aware of each other’s practice and the need to work co-operatively. What does this mean for different nurseries? How does a headteacher capitalise on these kinds of demands for the benefit of the children? What are the implications for relationships with parents, and others outside the school? At this point let us turn to Parkway Nursery School and to see how one institution and its headteacher, Mrs Andrews, has met these challenges.

PARKWAY NURSERY SCHOOL

Parkway is a seventy place (or unit) nursery school in an inner city area of a large city. It is housed in a modern, purpose-built building, surrounded by grassy open spaces, post-war council housing, maisonettes and high-rise flats, many of which are undergoing refurbishment through the city’s urban regeneration project. The population is culturally diverse, with white, some Asian, but mainly Afro-Caribbean families living in the area. Nearby, are various factories in which some of the children’s families work. Some other families experience the stress of poverty and unemployment.

The school itself is open plan, with three large interlinked classrooms, each served by a teacher and a nursery nurse; a large community room for parents, meetings and other activities; and a kitchen to prepare the children’s midday meal. The non-teaching head (more of that later) has been at the school for twelve years and is supported by a deputy, and six members of staff. These, then, are the apparently incidental details of the school, some of which will have significance later. As a setting for partnership, how does it operate and what are the key elements that underpin those partnerships?

Inside the school: partnership in planning

The first feature I am going to highlight is the coherence and quality of the planning that takes place. For most schools the headteacher is a crucial figure. As Acker noted ‘headteachers were pivotal in building and maintaining a culture of collaboration which was essentially about personal relationships’ (quoted in Biott and Easen, 1994:119). Parkway is no different. The headteacher here, along with her staff, as she emphasises, has developed the framework within which they can plan and work. Overall, this framework emphasises inclusiveness, responsibility, ownership and communication. The formal, concrete aspects of it are realised by their written planning, which reflects the collaborative ethos of the school, I feel, more than a response to ‘teachers’ formal obligations to work together on such things as curriculum review and the writing of annual school development plans’ as a result of the 1988 Education Act (Biott and Easen, 1994: 71).

Planning at Parkway stems from the writing of the School Development Plan and inclusiveness is reflected by the fact that, all staff have a part in this. Truly, small is beautiful when there is the opportunity to involve everyone in the school’s development. Thus, in the initial stages, during a staff meeting every member is given a questionnaire to complete showing where they feel the school is in its development, immediate targets, and how these might be achieved. This includes such questions as:

• Do you feel your responsibilities are clear? Would you like any change in your role?
• What are the interesting parts of your work?
• In what areas do you think you need more experience?
• Are you experiencing any frustrations or problems in your post?
• How do you think we might prepare for your long-term future?

(The questionnaire is derived from the GRIDS approach to school review and development, Abbott, et al., 1988.) Achievements for the previous year are then discussed. This is followed by individual interviews with the head.

While the previous discussions have been open, the interview is confidential, since part of the overall planning will take into consideration who staff prefer to work with and what they would like to change. From the head’s point of view, ‘it’s left to me as the leader, if you like, to try to make things work. There are always hiccups in any staff. I try to make sure everyone is happy with what’s going on, so the interview is totally confidential. It doesn’t work if that’s open, it upsets people, but the GRIDS are open.’ The questionnaires are collated along with the feedback from the interviews and areas for development are focused on. For example, this year these were: writing schemes of work for role play, drama and language; reviewing equipment; updating job descriptions; reviewing pupil records, working with other agencies. The criteria for success were agreed as, among others: the whole staff collaborating in writing the schemes; the production of a general list of equipment; each staff member meeting the head to review responsibilities; new record sheets being used consistently by all staff; greater awareness of the childcare strategy in the community.

The formulation of policies involves a similar corporate effort based on staff discussion. The head notes, ‘it involves the actual ethos of the place in the sense that the staff formulate the policy, it’s not me that writes them. If it’s about something that’s happening already, say special needs, I will ask the special needs teacher to write down what she does. Rather than me formulating the policy it’s actually what happens here then…and if we need to change that comes up as a discussion with the whole staff.’

A record of staff meetings ensures that absent staff keep up with events. For example, on one particular day these were: the developments in each classroom; what activities should take place in the morning session; how planning and topic sheets would be drawn up; what kinds of records would be used, how they would be completed. Similarly, when members of staff receive any training outside school they complete an evaluation form so that a record is kept of what has been useful, as had happened recently for a first aid course, one on the science curriculum, and the Code of Practice for Special Needs. These might then be followed by an in-service session on this area for the rest of the staff. Awareness of accountability means that while most communication is oral, written evidence is constantly compiled.

Termly and half-termly curriculum planning occurs in common with other schools, as does joint planning by teachers and nursery nurses, working to a topic or theme and covering areas of experience. For example, a topic web on ‘Carnivals’ included:

• Science: tasting foods and recording; cooking Afro-Caribbean food with parent helpers (soup, dumplings, fritters);
• Literacy: Nini at Carnival; Anansi; a calypso alphabet;
• Art: papier mâché masks; face painting;
• Music: salsa, calypso, reggae.

The themes are written up for all staff, and copied so that everyone knows what is happening elsewhere. On their planning sheets staff have a list of the areas they have chosen to focus on as an aide-mémoire: Art, Music, PE, Literacy, Language, Drama, Turntaking, Fine Motor, Technology, IT, Maths, and Science. These roughly follow the areas covered by the OFSTED guidelines for inspection of nursery schools: Social, Linguistic, Physical, Mathematical, Science, Technology, Aesthetic, Creative.

For Parkway, with its open plan design, there is a further factor, consistency on a daily basis. Again, this requires communication. So, on Thursday lunchtimes each team plans in detail for the following week, and all staff then get a plan of the activities in each room in one day, as in Appendix 1. ‘It makes sense, for example, if you’ve got waterplay at one end it would be nice to have colour in it or different equipment so it’s floating and sinking. So you’ve got a spread of activities throughout the nursery.’ These are also monitored on a weekly basis, so that, for example, a check can be kept on the amount of maths taking place.

This communication is also needed in record keeping. Since the children are not confined to one classroom, the activities they experience with an adult need to be monitored. So each member of staff has an alphabetical list of the children and a tick chart of the areas of experience. Each child’s experiences are recorded and each half term the ticks are collated and matched to the child’s attendance. The record can show, for example, that Tyler has mainly done art (26 ticks); Russell, in contrast has done art once, but only attended 15 sessions; Naomi has done no art, but has not been arriving until 10.30, by which time it has been cleared away. As it is colour coded according to the classroom the child was in, the record also shows how much the children move around, indicating their sociability and adventurousness. ‘It’s our way of making sure we don’t lose the children. You wouldn’t necessarily need this in every set up.’

Again, the head is the linch pin for evaluation and record keeping.

Each half term I do records with each member of staff. They talk to me about each child and I keep a profile and have this collated so I know what they’ve done. We’re about to trial a new set of records and will highlight the statements and put comments on for each child. The staff have worked this out, it isn’t me. When they evaluate how the week’s gone to feedback to me it goes back in the file. It gives them an idea of what they’ve covered and what they need to cover for another week.

(The headings on the record sheet are included in Appendix 2.)

Relationships

What should also have become clear in this description is the other key element without which this type of planning and record keeping would not function so efficiently: that is, the nature of the relationships. For me, this was encapsulated on one of my visits by the large group photograph of the staff by the main door. Many schools, of course, have separate photographs of their personnel in their entrances. In this picture, however, the staff were presented as a unit, named but without their status indicated. Yet more evidence of what has been called a ‘flat hierarchy’ (Yeomans, quoted in Biott and Easen, 1994:73). It is my experience that on entering a nursery, in particular, it is not always immediately obvious who is a teacher, nursery nurse or parent, so similar are their working interactions with the children.

At Parkway this is deliberate. Here is the head’s view of that policy:

With new parents when I introduce them to members of staff I do not say their rank. I don’t make a hierarchy decision at all, I have to be asked if they want something specifically, who is the special needs teacher, for instance. I basically don’t tell anyone who is who. Now I think that is quite important because it gives the ground work philosophy to every member of staff, they are all a member of staff. It’s harder running a school like this being totally democratic and having me as the lead at times, than having a hierarchical system. This gives power and responsibility to people and sometimes that power can be abused. But it can also be extremely rewarding because people come up with things. They’re doing a whole thing on dance this term. I’ve had nothing to do with it. It doesn’t have to be a nursery nurse or a teacher, it’s whoever’s interested. For instance, in our industry links it has all been the nursery nurses and they have been the ones who have gone out and monitored a half day session and then taken groups of children to visit. As far as I’m concerned I’m quite happy with that. All staff are involved on new parents afternoons. It can be nursery nurses, it can be teachers taking the admission details.

This is not to say that staff do not have defined roles and areas of responsibility. Mrs Andrews reflected on her own role thus: ‘I’m not a teaching head, that isn’t the role the staff want me to play. My role will be observing staff; supporting staff; congratulating staff, because people do not get the pats on the back that they need…nice things as well as criticism.’ Similarly, for the deputy the role has developed over time as ‘it can be that the deputy’s role gets almost lost over time if you’re not careful’. Thus, the deputy oversees all in-service training, absences, phoning for cover, liaison with local playgroups, and planning, while the head writes the final version of policies after staff contributions.

Obviously, though, things are not going to run smoothly all the time, and some problems can be aired during the confidential discussion. An ‘open door’ policy is also part of this approach: ‘I’d rather people just walked in when they’re upset about something, because someone from the outside can make you look at something totally differently. This has grown over time. It isn’t easy and it’s one of the things that some members of staff find easier than others.’

There are also particular issues of staff relationships related to the ‘flat hierarchy’ that present themselves in a nursery. One of these is the differential between teachers and nursery nurses. During their working day these two professionals may be carrying out very similar tasks and, as we have seen, taking on important responsibilities, yet they have quite different training and qualifications, and, potentially a sore point, a different salary. As this nursery acknowledges this can be a difficult issue, which is partly accommodated by the monitoring interview and the policy of changing rooms (and possibly partners) every year. Similarly, in the light of the job description review, staff had collectively reallocated responsibilities so that each person now covered an area they were interested in or wanted to know more about. Ultimately, however, whatever the daily routine, it is the teachers who take on the responsibility for resolving problems, and I know from my own experience that it is the teacher concerned who would mediate if, for example, a student teacher on placement and a nursery nurse did not get on.

A further issue, again related to the roles undertaken in this setting, is that of career development. The nursery nurses in particular, invariably go for promotion, but have often become so...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• CONTRIBUTORS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• Part I: WHOLE SCHOOL APPROACHES TO WORKING RELATIONSHIPS
• Part II: PARTNERSHIP AND THE CURRICULUM
• Part III: THE SHOCK OF THE NEW