Search results

England is a clear example of a country where government has imposed a stranglehold over curriculum development over the last 30 years, driven by a belief in the power of markets and testing to improve education. We provide an account of the evolution of a national curriculum in England, along with the growing importance of the school inspection system, which has served as a form of surveillance and as a constraint on curriculum development in schools, resulting in a very subject dominated curriculum. This has been exacerbated by demise of many traditional meso level curriculum actors and the emergence of a different assemblage of support. We give particular attention to the prominence given to interventions in pedagogy and curriculum, set within a school effectiveness paradigm. We explain that within government rhetoric there is encouragement to innovate but we show through research evidence that accountability pressures overwhelm this message and that younger teachers have not been introduced to or trained in curriculum development processes. In the final section of the chapter, we describe some schools which are going against the grain and innovating, but they do stand very much as oases in a curriculum desert.

In England there are very strong pressures in schools to meet government targets for public examination results. Thus assessment is very ‘high stakes’ as principals and class teachers can lose their jobs if these targets aren’t met. In such a climate many teachers feel that innovation, such as inquiry-based learning involves taking a considerable risk. As a result teachers in England often enact a hybridised form of inquiry in order to manage the risk and this chapter explores three cases of schools in north east England in which hybridisation has occurred. We use Basil Bernstein’s concept of ‘framing’ to analyse the effect of inquiry-based learning on the relationship between the curriculum, teachers and students in these schools. Inquiry, acts as a disruption to the normal ‘convergent’ pedagogy with many positive outcomes for teachers and students but both feel the constraint of the demands of the examination system. Although the agency, or capacity for action, of teachers is increased through exploring inquiry approaches, we conclude that for inquiry to develop further there is a need for a stronger local ‘ecology’ to support teachers and schools in their efforts to innovate. We describe the contribution of Newcastle University to such an ecology.

Coaching in educational settings is an alluring concept, as it carries associations with life coaching and well being, sports coaching and achievement and improving educational attainment. Although there are examples of successful deployment in schools, there is also evidence that coaching often struggles to meet expectations. This article aims to use socio‐cultural theory to explore why coaching does NOT transplant readily to schools, particularly in England, where the object of coaching activity may be in contradiction to the object of dominant activity in schools – meeting examination targets.

The article is a conceptual exploration of peer coaching through the lens of cultural historical activity theory, using an empirical base for exemplification.

It is argued that the results agenda, or performativity culture, in many schools is so strong that coaching is either introduced as part of the dominant discourse which meets resistance from staff, or where it develops in a more organic, “bottom up” approach, it may well clash with managerial cultures which demand accountability and surveillance, which does not sit well with trust‐based coaching partnerships.

The contradictions described in the article suggest that more research is needed to explore how skilled coaches manage some mediation between the meta‐discourse of managerialism and the meso‐ and micro‐discourses underpinning meaningful professional learning.

The article provides encouragement for peer coaches who manage the boundary between trust‐based coaching and performativity agendas.

The application of cultural historical activity theory offers a powerful analytical tool for understanding the interaction of peer coaching with organisational cultures, particularly through their emphasis on different motives or objects for professional learning.

This chapter provides an introduction to how the inquiry-based learning (IBL) approach is being used by colleges and universities around the world to improve faculty and institutional development and to strengthen the interconnections between teaching, learning, and research. This chapter provides a synthesis and analysis of all the chapters in the volume, which present a range of perspectives, case studies, and empirical research on how IBL is being used across a range of courses across a range of institutions to enhance faculty and institutional development. This chapter argues that the IBL approach has great potential to enhance and transform teaching and learning. Given the growing demands placed on education to meet a diverse range of complex political, economic, and social problems and personal needs, this chapter argues that education should be a place where lifelong and lifewide learning is cultivated and where self-directed learning is nurtured. To that end, this chapter argues that IBL helps cultivate a learning environment that is more meaningful, responsive, integrated, and purposeful.