The principles of Learning for Sustainability provided a unifying theme across subjects as a starting point for an evidence-informed approach to developing learning experiences. Teachers from five departments in Lourdes Secondary School, Glasgow, took advantage of the wide-ranging nature of Learning for Sustainability to shape practitioner enquiries aimed at enhancing learner engagement. This allowed the focus of each enquiry to be quite distinct, while also supporting the development of a small number of key themes: what impact would outdoor learning, pupil voice, rights and values-based education across the curriculum have on pupil engagement?
“Using elements of LfS to plan across the curriculum can have a positive impact on learner experiences.”
The enquiries ranged from small scale interventions, to longer-term, more ambitious projects and a range of different baselines techniques were used to measure pupil starting points. Nevertheless, a common thread emerged as the enquiries took shape: that using elements of LfS to plan across the curriculum can have a positive impact on learner experiences.
Outdoor learning
Principal Teacher of PE, Gordon Fagan, focussed on the impact of outdoor learning on learners’ sense of wellbeing and affinity with the natural environment. Before and after questionnaires clearly demonstrated a marked increase in how positively pupils felt about outdoor learning. Similarly, Maths teacher Tracey Gallacher found that taking learning outdoors seemed to have a positive impact on the engagement of a group of learners with additional support needs, who struggled at times to focus during more traditional, class-based maths approaches.
“For pupils, this approach has yielded real results in terms of their learning, thinking and – ultimately, and critically – their view of themselves as agents of positive change.”
Pupil voices
For some others, the practitioner enquiry raised more questions than it answered. Initial pupil responses to a survey on what was important to them in school, led Stephen McFadden, PT of Pastoral Care, to a complete shift in the focus of his enquiry.
“The results were surprising: pupils voted that feeling safe at school was most important to them, followed by other issues such as access to technology... It surprised both myself and members of school leadership that such a fundamental aspect of school life was deemed a priority to pupils. It became clear that there was a need to broaden this exercise and to ask pupils across the school what mattered to them.”
In response, Stephen’s enquiry grew into a larger scale project, with the aim of building sustainable ways of incorporating pupil voice into shaping school priorities. This shift in direction is entirely in line with the GTCS perspective on practitioner enquiry, that the process should, “support professional growth by challenging or 'disrupting thinking' and 'ingrained habits of mind'. Practitioner enquiry helps to create a space to stop and look again at existing ways of working.”
Social justice
Similarly, for Martin MacKinnon, PT of Pastoral Care, the practitioner enquiry process was strongly shaped by unexpected responses from learners. Seeing pupils genuinely moved by two key moments - a teaching input around Holocaust Memorial Week and the terrorist atrocities in Paris in late 2015 - Martin decided to explore ways of building opportunities for learners to express their growing sense of social justice. This led to him developing ways to create shared planning with pupils, shaped around article 12 of the UNCRC, in order to build on their growing sense of rights as meaningful within real world contexts.
“All of those who took part in the LfS practitioner enquiry have reported an increase in confidence in and enthusiasm for building elements of LfS into their practice.”
Change agents
This led to planning for ways in which learners could be given opportunities to express their increased commitment to social justice, culminating in their energised campaigning as part of the Youth Philanthropy Initiative. In Martin’s view, the starting point of pupil responses to real world issues, as a stimulus for helping them shape a direction for their energies, was a genuinely transformative moment which will have a long term impact on his practice. Further, for pupils, this approach has yielded real results in terms of their learning, thinking and – ultimately, and critically – their view of themselves as agents of positive change.
Positive impacts
A key element of the value of practitioner enquiry is the impact it has on practice. All of those who took part in the LfS practitioner enquiry have reported an increase in confidence in and enthusiasm for building elements of LfS into their practice, as well as a renewed, evidence-based view of the galvanising effect it can have on learners.
Properly embedded, the principles of Global Citizenship and Learning for Sustainability can have a transformative effect on learners’ experiences. While further targeted research is needed to establish a clear causal relationship between the two, practitioner enquiry offers the perfect vehicle for teachers to explore ways of developing their practice in these areas and for charting the positive impact on learners.
