Search results

Pupil autonomy, empowerment and clarity of school rules are factors underpied that the schools subscribed to different philosophies regarding pupil management. One school was largely authoritarian in its approach and the other was overly lenient. This paper emphasises the importance of furthering democratic principles of pupil participation within the context of clear rules and boundaries.

Educational institutions are facing a growing number of challenges, which impair their ability to provide high quality and effective educational services. The involvement of pupils in co-creating learning experiences is a fundamental ingredient of the recipe for increased educational quality. Inter alia, the implementation of citizen science initiatives at schools allows pupils to be active co-producers of educational services. The purpose of this paper to shed light on the attributes of citizen science projects targeted at pupils (aged between six and ten) attending primary schools, in order to identify their potential implications in terms of educational services’ quality improvement.

Secondary data were collected from the Scistarter® web platform. Projects addressed to primary schools and provided with specific classroom materials were taken into consideration (n=65). A qualitative, comparative and bird’s eye analysis was performed: first, looking at the role and the tasks assigned to pupils, the projects were grouped in four categories; second, the potential implications of citizen science on educational services’ quality were investigated.

Citizen science at school paves the way for pupils’ empowerment and for their direct involvement in the co-production of educational services. Moreover, it enhances the relationship between teachers and pupils, engaging them in a co-creating partnership intended at addressing real scientific issues at school. However, citizen science is still poorly integrated into conventional educational curricula in primary schools.

From a management point of view, citizen science is thought to contribute to the improvement of educational services’ quality, stimulating pupils to partner with their peers and with teachers for the purpose of knowledge co-production; in addition, it allows for the enrichment of educational activities in primary schools. From a policy perspective, citizen science at school harmonizes with the democratization of scientific knowledge.

This is one of the first research papers to demonstrate the potential implications of citizen science on educational services’ quality and effectiveness in primary schools.

Traces developments in the Irish Network of Health Promoting Schools since joining the European network in 1992. The Irish Network is managed by a steering committee and supported jointly by the Department of Education and Science and the Department of Health and Children. The emergence of a framework that facilitates planning and progress reviews is outlined. The work of 40 schools is acknowledged together with the part played by principals, Health Promoting school co‐ordinators, parents and pupils. The role of the National Support Centre is described and reference is made to how progress has been evaluated. Future plans include the integration of the health‐promoting school concept with developments to include social, personal and health education as part of the core curriculum in all schools.

Describes how school nurses estimated their goal attainment in view of the contents and methods of health counselling and their roles and possibilities as health promoters in the school community. Data were collected from the school nurses (n=31) of the Finnish European Network of Health‐Promoting schools, using a semi‐structured questionnaire specifically developed for the study. The response rate was 77 per cent (n=24). The results show that the traditional aspects of health counselling were mostly covered well. Counselling on sexual health was partly achieved well, but contraception and the prevention of sexually transmitted disease were less emphasised in school nurses' health counselling. To foster the empowerment of pupils, parents and teachers, there is a need for the school nurse to adopt a more active participatory role as a health promoter in the whole school community.

Schools exist because of the children they educate but examples of their voice influencing their education in an authentic manner can be rare. This chapter outlines the importance of pupil voice and defines the key aspects of authenticity. It uses the themes emanating from this definition as examples of establishing practices to support pupil voice in the classroom. Such practices are based upon the findings of a pupil voice study into the experiences of 14–16-year-old children in physical education (PE) lessons. This PE project was driven by the pupils and adult voice was militated in order to enhance the authenticity of the findings. The project empowered children to raise and discuss the issues they deemed important and find their own solutions without steering or influence by their teachers. The implementation of these findings in one school demonstrated the dynamism and potential of learning based upon child-centred practice.

The purpose of this paper is to explore teachers’ and head teachers’ perceptions of the implementation of intercultural education within the 13 intercultural primary schools (IPSs) in Greece.

The research methodology adopted is a mixed-method approach. It has been employed to add breadth and depth to the analysis and to achieve a better understanding of the issue examined. The research methods used include questionnaires administered and interviews conducted with teachers and head teachers.

The results indicate that great importance is attributed to the use of cooperative learning, group work and the interdisciplinary approach to implementing intercultural education. The findings provide suggestions for the creation of a school environment in which the intercultural dimension will be promoted, so as to meet the educational needs of native, foreign and, repatriate pupils attending both intercultural and mainstream primary schools.

The research study focusses on primary education. Nonetheless, some of the findings may be applicable to secondary education.

The contribution of this study to the topic examined is significant since this is a country-scale research conducted among the 13 IPSs – and there has been no previous research conducted in all 13 IPSs in Greece – and different pupil populations. Therefore, teachers’ views and practices allow international readership to be informed of the Greek intercultural context as well as to reflect a variety of teaching approaches and methods that can be well adopted by intercultural practitioners and which in turn can contribute to the improvement of the entire spectrum of pedagogy and pursue further research.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the views of school staff on a nutrition health project implemented via an ICT‐based learning environment in a secondary school (7th to 9th grades).

The study was a part of the wider European Network for Health Promoting Schools programme (ENHPS; since 2008, Schools for Health in Europe SHE) in Finland, and particularly its sub‐project, From Puijo to the World with Health Lunch, which sought to renew secondary schools' nutrition health education by developing and utilising an ICT‐based learning environment using participatory action research. The data were collected by means of recall interviews conducted with 12 teachers, two school health nurses and two school catering managers after the nutrition health project ended. The data were analysed with qualitative content analysis using Atlas.ti software.

The findings regarding the views of the school staff – teachers, school health nurses and school catering managers – on the nutrition health project implemented via an ICT‐based learning environment at the end of the three‐year educational development project revealed five main categories: the basis of multidisciplinary education in nutrition health, motivation to lifelong nutrition health learning, school community support of nutrition health activities, operational ICT culture in the nutrition health project and ICT for the nutrition health project process.

The sample of school staff consisted of two secondary schools in Eastern Finland, and the results cannot be generalised widely due to the small, geographically defined sample. However, the results are suggestive for other schools elsewhere in Finland.

Development of a nutrition health project via an ICT‐based learning environment as a project involves the entire school staff and all the pupils. It also enables renewing of the nutrition health curriculum. Pupils use ICT in their everyday activities, thus the school staffs have to manage and update their knowledge and skills in ICT and new action environments to promote pupils' nutrition health learning today and in the future.

The purpose of this paper is to present a lesson study (LS) approach implemented as part of the initial training of primary school teachers in a course on the oversight and accompaniment of learning. This course aims to develop students’ ability to analyse their practice and to shift attention to pupils’ learning processes.

Data were collected on the contribution of the LS system and interaction protocols used in class, according to students.

Qualitative analysis of this data shows the role played by the use of theoretical concepts in the quality of their planning, the depth of their analysis and the quality of their work in class.

This work opens avenues for teacher training, in particular in terms of encouraging students to use theoretical concepts to prepare, implement and analyse their teaching.

This approach is of interest in that it examines the use of theoretical concepts in a study lesson system during initial teacher training.