Introduction
A highlight of my time as a school principal (Riverdale Reception to Year 7 School, 1993-2000 and Woodville Primary School, 2000-2007) was the opportunity to talk with children informally, as well as to work more formally with them to discover their perceptions and opinions about their school.
In this paper, I briefly outline how I chose new ways of enabling children to identify and comment on issues of concern to them. I begin by stating why I thought it was important to listen to and learn from children. I continue by providing an overview of three stages of enabling children to reflect on their school experiences. I then summarise what children said about their school places. I conclude by identifying the implications for school leaders of listening to student perceptions.
The importance of listening to children
My interest in the sense children make of their school places results from having spent most of my life in schools, initially as a student, next as a primary school teacher and then as a school principal. My long-term involvement in primary schools has led to my awareness that adults often do not ask children about their perceptions of their schools. Researchers have confirmed these observations and have shown that students’ perspectives, especially those of primary school age children, have been under-represented (Prout, 2001).
There are six main reasons for my commitment to enabling children to have a say in the curriculum, operations and governance of their schools. They are based on: children’s rights; school reform; distributed leadership; civics and citizenship education; critical literacy; and the new sociology of childhood.
Like defenders of children’s rights (Groundwater-Smith & Downes, 1999; Alderson, 2003), I am concerned about the preoccupation in our western worlds on the rights of children to protection and provision with the subsequent exclusion of their rights of participation. I believe an explicit focus on children’s rights to participate in decisions that affect their daily lives will address the positioning of children as dependent, vulnerable and incompetent. A tenet of my primary school leadership is to ensure that children are able to play an integral role in determining their school experiences.
Like the proponents of school reform (MacBeath, 1999), I believe that children need to be enabled to provide feedback about their school and how it meets their learning needs. However, I favour approaches that allow children to comment in authentic ways on their daily experiences, classroom happenings, and relationships with adults and other students, and factors that affect their engagement with the curriculum. I do not believe this is achieved by the widespread practice of requiring children to respond to adult chosen indicators on a generic survey form. A fundamental principle of my school leadership is to explore with children better ways of enabling them to identify and comment on issues of concern to them.
I believe that students have important parts to play in leading school change and agree with those who claim that distributed leadership (Gronn, 1999) in schools should recognise students as well as parents as partners in education. For me, this means students will be actively involved rather than simply carrying out plans designed by adults. Central to my school leadership in primary schools is my recognition of children’s valuable knowledge about school operations, their willingness to share their insights, and their goodwill in working collaboratively towards improvement for all.
Similar to those who support civics and citizenship education (Pekrul & Levin, 2005; Holdsworth & Thomson, 2002), I believe that students need to experience and participate in democratic processes in their schools so they can develop the skills and dispositions which enable them to be good citizens. This means that students will learn to identify injustice and to advocate for the common good. This approach to civics and citizenship has clear connections with critical literacy approaches (Comber & Nixon, 2004; Comber & Thomson with Wells, 2001) that explores power relationships and provides opportunities for students to learn to critique texts and to work within their communities towards social justice. An essential element of my school leadership is my enthusiasm for creating with children a democratic school environment in which they can develop ways of operating as active citizens.
I have been significantly influenced by the proponents of the new sociology of childhood (Prout, 2001; Rudduck & Flutter, 2000) and support the claim that schools’ practices are based on outdated constructions of childhood. The curriculum, daily experiences, structures and systems of many schools do not acknowledge children’s competence and agency in reflecting on their daily lives, in identifying issues of concern, and making informed judgements. Because of this, I am committed to working in new ways with children in primary schools to enable them to develop expertise in having their voices heard in a variety of forums.
An overview of the linked stages
I decided on three stages of enabling children to reflect on their school, identify places they liked and to act on issues of concern. The first part asked children to represent their places using artworks and photographs; the second invited them to interpret their photographs; and the third enabled them to change places they didn’t like.
Initially, I invited children to create individual visual compositions of the school places they liked. There were no limits on the number of artworks they could produce or restrictions on the media they could choose. The twenty-two participants created more than eighty artworks experimenting with artistic techniques such as ink and water colour; collage; wax resist; as well as pastels, acrylic paints, felt tipped pens and coloured pencils. There were no proscriptions about the size of the artworks and children selected the size paper they decided would suit the subject, thus varying the sizes of their creations. Some of the larger artworks measured more than a metre in length and presented challenges for safe storage, while the smallest representations were A4 size.
Next, I asked the children to work in small teams to create photographic representations of their school places. I restricted the number of photographs, which could be produced by each team because I had wanted children to make deliberate selections of places they wanted to represent before taking the photos. Prior to receiving a digital camera, each team recorded their list of ‘photo opportunities’ and the name of the student who would photograph each place. Later, I asked children to interpret their photographic images. During my conversations with the small groups, I invited them to reflect on their photographs, to collectively identify school places they liked, to nominate places about which they were concerned and to relate their individual knowledge of these places.
In the third stage, I shared my learning from conversations with these small groups with all the children. Together they identified the places about which they shared concerns and agreed on ways of checking their perceptions with the wider school community. They adopted a term long action research process to improving their school.What children had to say about their school places
Children provided valuable insights into the school and their perceptions of it. Here I focus only on their connection with outside place, their understanding of the impact of the built environment and their appropriation of places.
Children’s connections with outside places
Children’s visual compositions, photographs and interview comments revealed their strong attachment to specific outside places and, consequently, to the school. The subject of the school’s logo, the big tree, symbolised for them the school’s long and proud past history, their dreams and visions for the school’s future as well as their current sense of belonging to the school. The children displayed satisfaction with the planted areas of their physical environment and stated their desire for more gardens and quiet outside places where they could enjoy the company of their friends. Their preference for outside places which provided freedom of movement, freedom from the close scrutiny of adults and opportunities for fun with their friends was unanimous. Conversations with them revealed that children’s appreciation of the school’s planted environment was explicitly linked to their bond with the school.
The children expressed their strongest dissatisfaction with outside places, which were wasted spaces. They identified, and were critical of, such places because they were ugly, projected a lack of concern about the environment and therefore presented the school as uncared for, and did not meet the needs of children in the school. The children reaffirmed their disappointment with these places and committed themselves to advocating for the improvement of wasted spaces.
Children’s assessment of the built physical environment
The children revealed their developing consciousness of the impact of the built environment on their school places. Two of these places, the swimming pool and the gym, highlight the children’s understandings about both the inhibiting and the liberating impact of the built environment on their daily experiences.
The children’s conversations about the swimming pool identified the ways in which this built form impacted on their learning and their well-being. The children acknowledged that the physical conditions of the pool , especially its size, depth and water temperature, negatively affected their skill development in and enjoyment of this place. They further recognised that the physical conditions of the changing rooms promoted particular management routines by the instructors. The changing rooms were too small to allow all the children to change at the same time. Those children who changed first were required to sit along the outside of the changing rooms to wait as their peers prepared for the lesson. This meant that children who were allocated by the instructors to change in the second group had to walk in front of their seated peers. Children, especially the girls, identified this as an uncomfortable strategy which was directly caused by the built environment. Their suggestions for improvements were two-fold. Firstly, while accepting that they would be unlikely to have the pool itself changed, they sought to modify aspects of the pool, particularly the water temperature, to ensure their successful participation in swimming lessons. Secondly, children sought to change the physical environment of the pool by the provision of additional shaded seating away from the change rooms. The children envisaged that this seating would be used by children waiting for their peers to change. They believed that such alterations to the physical structures would facilitate modifications to the teaching and management practices, thus reducing the level of discomfort they felt in preparing for the lessons.
Another instance in which the children demonstrated their understandings of the ways in which the built form impacted on the school’s operations was in their evaluation of the gym. This was a highly popular place with the children and one they did not wish to improve. The gym was represented in both their artworks and photographs as well as their conversations. Like the swimming pool, the school’s gym was acknowledged by the children as an asset because it was an uncommon facility for a primary school in this state. Unlike the swimming pool, the gym’s built structure was not considered by the children to have a negative impact on their learning or well-being. Rather, they considered that this flexible space provided them with many opportunities to participate in a wide range of exciting activities. Their sense of freedom and movement in this space was evident as they engaged in lively debate about the degree to which they could choose their activities and associates in the gym.
Children’s appropriation of places
Children showed skill and imagination in converting places designed by adults for children into places transformed by children for children. Three examples demonstrated children’s agency and showed that they were able to operate at a number of levels in making places their own. Firstly, the conversion of the athletics jumping pit into a sandpit by the older children clearly revealed their practical approaches to identifying and meeting their needs. Secondly, the variety of activities around the big tree provided insights into children’s abilities to re-imagine physical environments as altogether different places. Thirdly, their appropriation of the toilets demonstrated children’s agency in removing themselves from adult regulation and exercising control over their own activities.
Denied access to the sandpit located in the Early Years’ section of the school, the older children used the athletics jumping pit as a place to dig in the sand and to create micro worlds. The children were clear that, while this place had a specific purpose during lesson times, it could be put to other uses at playtimes. This redefinition of the athletics jumping pit had strong appeal for the children for several reasons. Firstly, it allowed them to take control of a place and to determine its uses. Secondly, it permitted them to decide which other children had access to playing in this place. Thirdly, because it was located at the very back of the oval, the jumping pit provided children with relief from the close surveillance of the teachers on yard duty and therefore a sense of greater autonomy.
For reasons of staff supervision and student safety, the big tree was a designated out-of-bounds place. Because of its enormity, children behind the tree could not be seen by the staff on duty; neither could they be seen if they climbed into its huge branches several metres from the ground. However, children had converted this place from a tree into a world in which they and their friends could escape some of the realities of the school. They transformed it from a forbidden place into a place for children’s business; a place where they could be less inhibited and allow their playfulness to dominate. For some of the groups of children, this tree became a series of rooms in a larger mansion; for others it became a huge ship allowing them to travel the oceans; and for still others it became a tower from which they could secretly observe the behaviours of the people in the school. The children’s conversations about the big tree showed they attributed human aspects to the tree as they imagined it presiding over all the annual school events. Their imaginations and strong attachment to fantasy worlds were situated in their ownership of the big tree as a children’s place.
The occupation of the toilets by specific groups of children at recess and lunchtimes indicates some children were strategic in making places their own. Correctly identified by the children as places that most teachers on duty would not frequent, the toilet blocks were changed by some children into centres of child sub-culture. Instead of simply using the toilets for their designed purposes, small groups of children congregated in these places to share prohibited games and cards, to plan meetings during lesson times with their peers from other classes and to socialise. Knowing that teachers very rarely entered the toilet blocks provided some children with short bursts of freedom from adult control and opportunity to engage in activities which were not sanctioned by the school.
Implications for school leaders when seeking children’s perceptions
Discovering children’s perceptions about their school was a highlight of my time at my last school. I also learned much about the process of inviting children to have a say about their school. In this section, I look at three key implications for school leaders who wish to listen to children: seeking new ways of enabling children to have a say; being prepared to be surprised; and acting on children’s feedback.
Seeking new ways of discovering children’s perspectives
One of the challenges to school leaders who wish to listen to children’s perceptions is for them to use methods that use children’s current expertise, which are inclusive of all participants and which engage the children. Valuing children’s existing skills and abilities allows them to demonstrate their competence as does asking them to provide information about something they know very well. I asked children to use the skills they had learned throughout their school years in art and I asked them about something they were expert in-their everyday school lives. Adopting methods that are inclusive of all children may mean allowing children to convey their understandings in forms other than oral and written text. It enables all children who wish to participate to ‘have a say’, to reflect on their daily lives, to identify issues of concern, and to make informed judgements. The use of artwork and photography enabled children to develop further expertise in having their ‘voices heard’. Because words were not the privileged source of data, children at my school who were deaf and communicated with AUSLAN (signed language), those with identified language disorders and those who did not speak fluent English were able to participate. Methods of involving children that capture their playfulness and imagination will greatly enrich their contributions as well as promote children’s active engagement. I found that visual research methods incorporating digital technologies, further developed children’s current expertise, were inclusive of all participants and actively engaged the children.
Being prepared to be surprised
The children expected their contributions to be taken seriously. They were thoughtful in the composition of their artworks and photographs of their school places. They were sincere in their small group conversations and candid in their interpretations of the photographs of their places. They were creative in their recommendations for improving the school and personally committed to working towards these changes.
A highlight for me in working with the children to discover their perceptions was their expectation that having a say would be enjoyable as well as significant. Their participation was marked by their inquisitiveness. They took pleasure in the artistic efforts of their peers as well as in creating their own representations. They were enthusiastic about experimenting with the new technologies to produce photographs they judged as aesthetically satisfying. When talking about future possibilities, they were quick to indulge in fantasy and readily engaged with the wild dreams of their peers. Children gave the same energetic attention to imaginative solutions as they did to highly pragmatic alternatives for changing places.
I found children’s responses, interpretations and recommendations refreshingly surprising. Although, as the principal, I had worked with these children for several years before commencing this research and knew them well, I was unable to accurately predict their reactions. I was constantly surprised by their interpretations of the photographs and illustrations and often unable to anticipate children’s perceptions. This emphasized for me that even though adults inhabit the same school places they experience them very differently from children. It reinforced for me the futility of assuming that adults will identify with children’s perceptions of their school and again highlighted the need to create opportunities for children to tell their experiences and perceptions.
Acting on children’s feedback
I am aware that some of the children who talked with me believed that while teachers declared they were interested in the children’s feedback they only listened to children when it suited them. This is a pertinent reminder to school leaders who wish to hear what children have to say about their school and their learning to:
References
Comber, B & Nixon, H (2004) Children re-read and re-write their neighbourhoods: critical literacies and identity work. In Janet Evans (Ed) Literacy moves on: Popular culture, new technologies and critical literacy in the elementary classroom. Portsmouth: Heinemann.
Comber, B, & Thomson, P with Wells, M (2001) Critical literacy finds a ‘place’: Writing and social action in a neighbourhood school. Elementary School Journal, Vol 101(4), pp 451-464.
Gronn, P (1999) Life in teams: collaborative leadership and learning in autonomous work units. Burwood: ACEA.
Groundwater-Smith, S & Downes, T (1999) Students: from Informants to Co-Researchers. Paper presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education Annual Conference, Melbourne, Nov. 29-Dec 2.
Holdsworth, R & Thomson, P (2002) Options within the regulation and containment of ‘student voice’. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, April 1-5.
MacBeath, J (1999) Schools Must Speak for Themselves: the case for school self-evaluation. London: Routledge
Pekrul, S & Levin, B (2005) Building Student Voice for School Improvement Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association as part of a symposium on student voice, Montreal, April 11-15.
Prout, A (2001) The future of childhood. First Annual Lecture of the Children’s Research Centre, Trinity College, Dublin.
Rudduck, J, & Flutter, J (2000) Pupil participation and pupil perspective: ‘carving' a new order of experience. Cambridge Journal of Education, 30(1), pp 75-89.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ms Kaye Johnson is National Coordinator of KidsMatter, at the Australian Principals Associations Professional Development Council Inc., in Hindmarsh, South Australia, Australia. See: http://www.kidsmatter.edu.au .