Pedagogy, Language, Arts & Culture in Education
Recently completed projects
Twinkle twinkle little bat! 400 years of poetry for children
Morag Styles is currently co-curating an exhibition (with Michael Rosen, the children's Laureate) at the British Library which will be running between April – June 2009. In addition, she is organising a conference on Poetry and Childhood jointly run by the British Library and the Cambridge Faculty of Education. For more information please click on the link below.
www.educ.cam.ac.uk/events/conferences/poetrychildhood/
Primary Review (Esmee Fairbairn)
Professor Robin Alexander (Director), Christine Doddington (Associate Director) are leading a major review into primary education (2008). (Please click on links for further information - www.primaryreview.org.uk and www.robinalexander.org.uk)
Language Learning at Key Stage 3: The Impact of the Key Stage 3 Modern Foreign Languages Framework and changes to the curriculum on provision and practice (DCSF)
Michael Evans and Linda Fisher (co-directors); Ruth Levine and Caroline Filmer-Sankey (Research Associates)
Key Stage 3 has in recent years become an even more crucial period for foreign language learning than it has been previously in England. It is currently the only stage of compulsory language learning in this country and KS3 languages teachers will increasingly play a pivotal role in strengthening transition with KS2 and with KS4. This national, DCSF-funded study is examining the impact of the following policy initiatives on KS3 provision and practice in schools: the introduction of foreign language teaching in primary schools; KS3 Framework; Specialist Language Colleges; Languages uptake post - KS3. The study is also examining drivers and challenges to effective language provision and teaching at this level.
The report may be dowloaded from the DCSF website at the following address: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/DCSF-RR091.pdf
Pupil and Teacher Perceptions of the Nature of Artist Pedagogies and Their Potential Impact On School Change
Pamela Burnard and Mandy Swann
The Robinson Report, All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (NACCCE, 1999) and its key recommendations served as a 'call to arms' to school leaders, educational researchers, policy makers and practitioners to provide the kinds of creative and cultural education that young people need and deserve.
One strand of funded projects in the educational arena includes involving teachers, professional artists and young people working in participatory arts activities and in cross-disciplinary projects. This small-scale scoping study aimed to explore pupil and teacher views on the ways in which visiting artists worked in a large Sussex comprehensive school with specialist status in the performing arts, and to attempt to assess the value of these pedagogical encounters, and how their outcomes might relate to school change.
The study demonstrated that artists' pedagogies contribute to advancing pupil learning and can help pupils to regain confidence in their learning capacity. The visiting artists were seen as professionals with expert knowledge who came into the school in a joint quest for opening new ways of thinking, for improving standards, and of building new understanding of creativity. The artists offered new starting points, new learning relationships, new ways of being a learner and of learning. There was evidence that artist pedagogies contributed to perceived changes in pupils and teachers. The project has led to many published outcomes by Pam Burnard, Mandy Swann and collaborating colleagues. For a fuller account of this research, please download the pdf.