Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
This document seeks to address some of the key questions that present
themselves in thinking about creating meaningful engagement between
education, area and community. It presents a case for the core business
of schools — the curriculum — being co-created by teachers, young
people, community members and local organisations.
This document will not provide a ‘how to’ guide or give concrete examples
of what an Area Based Curriculum might look like. It is instead
exclusively focused on outlining the conceptual premises for such work,
and we wish to avoid appearing to prescribe (and hence potentially narrow)
how these ideas should manifest in practice. However, examples of
related work done by the RSA and its partners in this field are available
on the RSA website www.thersa.org/projects/area-based-curriculum.
Although progress has been made in some areas, many schools still
feel compelled to provide a generic curriculum which fails to engage
or enthuse young people, and that misses opportunities to draw
on local resources to support young people’s learning. Failure to take
proper account of the lived worlds and identities of young people can
impede the engagement required for achievement.
We begin from a critique of the way in which particular local areas are
perceived as problems in education, meaning that only some areas and
communities are offered the opportunity to share in and help to construct
the kinds of knowledge and activities that young people engage in as
part of their school lives. National policy tends to treat schools and
children as without context (unless their context is seen to be problematic
in some way), rather than ensuring the system takes proper account
of the areas it serves. This construction of certain areas as problematic
can be damaging, and risks undermining efforts to reduce the impact
of social class, ethnicity and neighbourhood on educational success.
3 C
urriculum co-developed in collaborative and equal partnerships
between schools, and community partners (organisations, groups,
or individuals), supported by a charter of principles.
Any local area should develop and development, and an insistence on ensuring the involvement of
those young people least engaged in school.
own its own curriculum designed
to address the specific history, 5 T
he starting point for community engagement being those groups
socio-economic context, needs and least often engaged or heard in the formal education sector.
resources of the locality. 6 M
onitoring of experiences and indicators of engagement and
achievement among pupils learning from the Area Based Curriculum.
7 P
rovision of support for curriculum design and partnership skills,
and opportunities for the development of activist professionalism
in teachers and community practitioners.
8 A
critical approach to the relationship between the local, national and
global dimensions of learning, focussing on the links between these.
9 A
n action research approach that includes on-going processes of:
mapping the terrain and need; collaborative approaches to monitoring
and evaluation; reflection and refinement.
10 A
locally collective approach to solving the practical barriers to the
Area Based Curriculum, including developing area wide arrangements
for teacher cover, risk assessments, safe-guarding, sharing contacts and
so on.
11 T
he promotion of a critical approach in young people to multiple
(local, regional, national, global and other) knowledge discourses to
ensure they are able to access and to shape their multiple identities
and worlds.
SECTION 1: Background 6
• The people
• The places
• The content
• Some additional considerations
SECTION 6: Summary 28
Indicative bibliography 31
There has been a great deal of concern in policy, research and media
circles at the narrowness of the existing National Curriculum, and its
limitations in meeting the needs of all children in terms of both
engagement and outcomes. Such concerns, coupled with the evidence
of the various other problems created by nationally-centralised
approaches that marginalise the local, which we outline in Section 2,
led the RSA to develop and pilot its ‘Area Based Curriculum’ in
Manchester in 2008-9. This pilot project worked with three secondary
schools in the creation and implementation of a ‘Manchester Curriculum’;
and its evaluation is published by the RSA (Facer, 2009a).
Where next?
Community
At the same time that the role of local areas in formal education has
been squeezed, attention has been focused on certain localities, due to
their determining impact on children’s outcomes. It is widely
recognised that children living in certain areas — neighbourhoods,
towns, estates, catchment areas — are much less likely to achieve the
higher levels of educational attainment reached by children living
elsewhere. Clearly, there is a powerful relation here between locality,
social class, and quality of schooling. There is a strong trend for
middle class pupils to be concentrated in good quality and high
achieving schools, with working class and BME pupils
disproportionately represented in poorer quality and lower achieving
schools. Locality intersects as a factor here, with many poor schools
located in ‘disadvantaged’ neighbourhoods. However, such correlations
should by no means be automatically presumed, as some
schools judged as ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted are located in particularly
deprived areas.
children were being educated have perceived to have ‘low aspirations’ and low levels of engagement
and interest in their children’s education; who have low levels
often involved attempts either to of educational attainment themselves, and insufficient social
‘regenerate’ an area; or strategies networks and cultural capital to help children to achieve.
which involve physically removing
2 T
he geographical and physical properties of an area:
children from the local area for neighbourhoods, areas, estates, places etc. where economic and
shorter or longer periods. social disadvantage are concentrated geographically; which are
usually characterised by a dilapidated built environment, poor
infrastructure and a lack of high status cultural and economic
locations (museums, libraries, government buildings, etc.).
3 T
he cultural, linguistic and knowledge resources of an area: a deficit
in what an area is perceived to be able to offer in terms of content;
a lack of mainstream knowledge resources to support learning, the
absence of famous or high status things to know about the area,
and, most often cited, an English language deficit which is seen to
disadvantage all children at schools where this is the case.
Children from some better off areas and communities are equipped to
use the education system and meet its requirements more effectively
than others. Although the National Curriculum represents a broad
social consensus around the knowledge considered to be important,
the ‘lived worlds’ of better off children are more likely to be recognised
in the assumptions not only of the curriculum as a document, but also
in how it is enacted by professional teachers in schools. Other children
may not find the National Curriculum so easy to engage with, struggle
to relate to its cultural assumptions, and find that their families and
networks outside school are unable to support their learning because
of their own distance from the norms embodied in formal education.
The blame for the resulting inequalities between these groups of children
is often laid at the door of the areas that do not fit the ‘norm’ and the
individuals living within them, rather than with the broader system.
But why does this matter? Firstly, research has shown that being
treated as a problem to be solved renders certain schools, estates,
catchment areas and neighbourhoods alienated; lacking in confidence
and motivation (Raffo, 2006). The disengagement of entire families
and communities from mainstream education over several generations
has been shown to be a rational response to a variety of factors. For
example, a response to the failure of the system to provide opportunities
for certain groups and certain localities; to the humiliation and
alienation previously experienced by parents in their own ‘educational
failure’ at school, and a consequent wish to protect their children from
unrealistic expectations; and to the blame that that same system then
lays at the door of the people it has failed (Reay, 2004).
• the positive impact that the engagement of an area can have on the
school’s educational agenda
• the positive impact that engagement with a school can have on the
wider area
In addition, the agenda for schools has expanded in recent years, with
schools expected to tackle a whole array of social issues such as social
cohesion and teenage pregnancy. It is therefore important that schools
are able to marshal resources from outside their gates to meet these
ends. It remains to be seen whether the coalition government will
sustain the emphasis on the broader role of schools in the welfare of
children: however, it is well established that children’s health, well-being,
home life, and relationships with other students, are intimately
connected to their ability to learn and achieve academically. Hence the
broader remit of schooling is likely to endure.
A multiplicity of knowledges
The people
Opportunities
Secondly, there are personal gains for young people in working with
a wide range of adults as part of their core formal education. Social
capital, employability, social skills, and confidence are all lauded as
benefits of work experience and other initiatives that put students in
contact with a range of adults from outside the school. Longitudinal
evidence from schemes such as Career Academies shows that the
impact of this can be significant gains in earning potential, even
where academic success in school is not impacted (MDRC, 2008).
It has been repeatedly demonstrated that those with better and wider
connections are more likely to be in employment, to enjoy better
health outcomes, and to report themselves as being happy (Putnam,
2000, Woolcock, 2001). We propose moving beyond the occasional and
often incidental contact between children and adults through school
by embedding contact between children’s learning and a wider network
of adults in the core business of curriculum creation and enactment.
Challenges
3 h
ow to ensure that decisions about curriculum are representative and
include groups not usually engaged or represented in such processes
4 h
ow to ensure that local individuals and organizations, particularly
poor families, are not simply ‘commandeered’ by schools in the
service of the dominant national agenda
Solutions
The first challenge concerning health and safety and access to children
is largely a logistical and bureaucratic issue, although a significant one.
It can be overcome with the support of Local Authorities and schools
working together with local partners to share the burden of ensuring
the necessary permissions and checks are in place. This collective approach
is essential, and may beget further discussion about how communities
(including parents, schools and others) choose to go about keeping their
children safe; whether typical bureaucratic procedures are either
necessary or sufficient; and what level of risk might be deemed tolerable.
The third concern over how to ensure that local decision making is not
dominated by the ‘usual suspects’ is a challenging one, demanding
reflection on what we mean by ‘community’. In Section 1 we acknowledged
the difficulties of defining who constitutes ‘the community’, but argued
that the loose definition of ‘people who live in an area’ is a useful place
to start for the purposes of an Area Based Curriculum. However, this
challenges those working for an Area Based Curriculum to ensure that
all people who live in an area are able to input, including those not
usually engaged in such initiatives and/or impeded from doing so by
factors such as language, time, work inflexibility and so on. Hence
logistical considerations will need to be addressed to ensure inclusion.
Further, while it is important that more traditionally involved groups
such as middle class parents, business leaders or well organized
special interest groups are included too, it needs to be ensured that
particular voices do not dominate agendas.
With regard to ensuring that working class families are not simply
brought into a dominant professional set of assumptions through
deeper engagement with schools, as some researchers have warned
against (e.g. Reay, 2004), the role of the teacher as a professional
working on behalf of the whole community is a very important one.
Professional development and training will be required in many cases
to ensure that teachers are able to transcend dominant assumptions
about the hierarchical role of the school and the community it serves.
The Area Based Curriculum model takes as its starting point the
knowledge, expertise and ambition of the community around the
school, and so assumes a more equal relationship from the start.
However, the assumptions, cultures and structures of the school may
be fundamentally challenged by any community oriented approach,
and will require support and ongoing local collective commitment if
the changes are to be sustained.
The places
Opportunities
Challenges
The content
Opportunities
We argue that important though these national agendas are, they should
be balanced by more local ones at various levels: what do children in
Tower Hamlets need to or want to learn at school in order to thrive in
the real world? Is it precisely the same as what children in Cumbria
need to or want to learn? Some of it will be, but some things will be
different. And not necessarily because all these children will end up
living in the same place in which they went to school; but rather
because children in different places will bring different kinds of
experience and knowledge into school, and will require different inputs
from school in order to equalise knowledge and opportunities with
children elsewhere.
Additionally, using the local area as a context for inspiration and enquiry
for the content of the curriculum, learning can be made more
meaningful for young people and opportunities for authentic learning
experiences are increased.
Solutions
Structure
Assessment
1 T
here is not a single, uniform model that can be applied across
areas. Any local area should develop and own its own curriculum
designed to address the specific history, socio-economic context,
needs and resources of the locality.
2 A
n approach to local areas that starts by mapping the resources,
opportunities and expertise already held within an area, and the
‘lived worlds’ of the young people in the area.
3 C
urriculum co-developed in collaborative and equal partnerships
between schools, and community partners (organisations, groups,
or individuals), supported by a charter of principles.
4 T
he engagement of young people as partners in curriculum
development, and an insistence on ensuring the involvement of
those young people least engaged in school.
5 T
he starting point for community engagement being those groups
least often engaged or heard in the formal education sector.
6 M
onitoring of experiences and indicators of engagement and
achievement among pupils learning from the Area Based Curriculum.
7 P
rovision of support for curriculum design and partnership skills,
and opportunities for the development of activist professionalism
in teachers and community practitioners.
8 A
critical approach to the relationship between the local,
national and global dimensions of learning, focusing on the links
between these.
9 A
n action research approach that includes on-going processes of:
mapping the terrain and need; collaborative approaches to monitoring
and evaluation; reflection and refinement.
10 A
locally collective approach to solving the practical barriers to the
Area Based Curriculum, including developing area wide
arrangements for teacher cover, risk assessments, safe-guarding,
sharing contacts and so on.
11 T
he promotion of a critical approach in young people to multiple
(local, regional, national, global and other) knowledge discourses to
ensure they are able to access and to shape their multiple identities
and worlds.
• Can we ensure that all children are able to construct their own
pathways to success through enabling them to position themselves
critically with respect to their local context and their national and
global position?
For more information about the Area Based Curriculum or the RSA’s
other education work please email education@rsa.org.uk or visit the
RSA Projects website at www.thersa.org/projects.
Archer, L. & Francis, B. (2007), Understanding Minority Ethnic Dyson, A. and Raffo, C. (2007), ‘Education and disadvantage:
Achievement: the role of race, class, gender and ‘success’, the role of community-oriented schools’Oxford Review of
(London: Routledge) Education, 33:3, 297 – 314, (London: Routledge)
Archer, L. (2010), Urban Youth and Education (Buckingham: ESRC Seminar Series (2009-10), Breaking the link between
Open University Press) education, disadvantage and place: What future for Area-Based
Initiatives (ABIs)? (University of Manchester)
Ball, S. J. (2007), Education PLC: Understanding private sector
participation in public sector education (London: Routledge) Facer, K. (2009a), Towards an area-based curriculum: Insights
and directions from the research (London: RSA)
Ball, S. J. (2010), ‘Privatising education, privatising education
policy, privatising educational research: network governance and Facer, K. (2009b), The Manchester Curriculum: A report and
the ‘competition state’, Journal of Education Policy, 24: 1, 83-99 reflections for further development (London: RSA)
Boyle, D., Coote, A., Sherwood, C., Slay, J. (2010), Right here, right Feinstein L., Duckworth K., Sabtes R. (eds.) (2008), Education
now: taking co-production into the mainstream (London, NESTA) and the Family: passing success across the generations
(Oxford: Routledge)
Brodie, E., Cowling, E., Nissen, N. (2009), Understanding
Participation: A Literature Review, (London: NCVO) Fielding, M. (2004), ‘”New Wavet Student Voice and the
renewal of civic society’, London Review of Education, 2:3, 197-
217 (London: Routledge)
CABE (2009), Survey conducted for Engaging Places by Opinion
Matters, http://www.engagingplaces.org.uk/about+us/art73355
Gill, T. (2010), Nothing Ventured...Balancing risks and benefits
in the outdoors (London: English Outdoor Council)
CABE (2010), Unforgettable Lessons: An Introduction to
Engaging Places (London: CABE)
Gonzales, N., Moll, L. and Amanti, C. (2005), Funds of
Knowledge (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum)
Craig, J. (2005), Taking the Wider View: The new leadership of
extended schools (London: NCSL)
Hopkins, P. (2010), Young People, Place and Identity
(Oxford: Routledge)
Craig, J., O’Leary, D. (2005), The Invisible Teacher: How
schools can unlock the power of community (London: Demos)
Kemple, J. and Willner, C. (2008), Career Academies:
Long-Term Impacts on Labor Market Outcomes,
Crozier, G. and Reay, D. (eds.), (2005), Activating Educational Attainment, and Transitions to Adulthood
Participation: parents and teachers working towards (New York: MDRC)
partnership (Stafford: Trentham)
Kendall, S., Murfield, J., White, R., Wilkin, A. Research into the
DCSF (2010), Statistical First Release: Key Stage 4 Attainment supply and demand of built environment education in schools
by Pupil Characteristics, in England 2008/09 (London: DCSF) in England (Slough: NFER)
DCSF (2008), The Impact of Parental Involvement on Kite, M. (2010), ‘Coalition to tell unemployed to ‘get on your
Children’s Education (London: DCSF) bike’ 26 June 2010, The Daily Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.
co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/7856349/
Coalition-to-tell-unemployed-to-get-on-your-bike.html
de Carvalho, M. E. (2001). Rethinking family school relations:
A critique of parental involvement in schooling (New York:
Teacher’s College Press) Lord, P. and Jones, M. Pupils’ experiences and perspectives of
the national curriculum and assessment – final report of the
research review (Slough: NFER)
Dyson, A., Goldrick, S., Jones, L., Kerr, K. (2010), Equity in
Education: Creating a fairer education system (Centre for
Equity in Education, University of Manchester) QCDA (2008), National Curriculum Guidance
31
Indicative
Mann, A. (2010), What is to be gained through partnership? Sachs, J. (2001), ‘Teacher professional identity: competing
bibliography Exploring the value of education-employer relationships discourses, competing outcomes’, Journal of Education Policy,
continued (London: Education and Employers Taskforce) 16: 2, pp. 149-161 (London: Routledge)
Moll, L., Amanti, C., Neff, D. and Gonzalez, N. (1992), ‘Funds Smith, G. (1987), ‘Whatever happened to Education
of Knowledge for Teaching: Using a Qualitative Approach Priority Areas?’ in Plowden Twenty Years On Special edition
to Connect Homes and Classrooms: Theory into Practice’, of the Oxford Review of Education, 13:1 (London: Routledge)
Qualitative Issues in Educational Research, 31:2, pp. 132-141
Stephens, L., Ryan-Collins, J., and Boyle, D. Co-production:
Nash, V., Christie, I. (2003), Making Sense of Community A Manifesto for growing the core economy (London: NEF)
(London, IPPR)
Taylor, E. V. (2009), ‘The Purchasing Practice of Low-Income
Nasir, N. S., Hand, V., & Taylor, E. V. (2008), ‘Relevant Students: The Relationship to Mathematical Development’, Journal
knowledge in school mathematics: Boundaries between of the Learning Sciences, 18:3, pp. 370-415 (London: Routledge)
cultural and domain knowledge in mathematics classroom’,
Review of Research in Education, 32, pp. 187-240
Tredway, L. (2001), ‘Community Mapping: A Rationale’
(Unpublished manuscript prepared for Contextual Teaching
Ofsted (2009), Implementation of 14–19 reforms, including and Learning Project, Ohio State University and U.S.
the introduction of Diplomas (London: Ofsted) Department of Education)
Putnam, R. (2000), Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival Whitty, G. (2006), ‘Teacher professionalism in a new era’,
of American Community(New York: Simon and Schuster Ltd.) Paper presented at the first General Teaching Council for
Northern Ireland Annual Lecture, Belfast, March 2006
Reay, D. and William, D. (1999), ‘I’ll Be a Nothing’: Structure,
Agency and the Construction of Identity through Assessment, Whitty, G. (2001), ‘Education, social class and social exclusion’,
British Educational Research Journal (London: Routledge), Journal of Education Policy, 16: 4, pp. 287-295 (London, Routledge)
25:3, pp. 343-354
Woolcock, M. (2001), ‘The place of social capital in
Reay, D. (2004), ‘Education and cultural capital: the understanding social and economic outcomes’, ISUMA
implications of changing trends in education policies’, Cultural Canadian Journal of Policy Research, 2:10, pp. 11-17 (Montreal:
Trends, 13:2, pp. 73 – 86 (London: Routledge) University of Montreal)
Raffo, C. (2006), ‘Disadvantaged young people accessing the Young, M. (2007), Bringing Knowledge Back In: From social
new urban economies of the post industrial city’, Journal of constructivism to social realism in the sociology of education
Education Policy, 21:1, pp. 75 – 94 (London: Routledge) (London: Routledge)
32