Taking a Critical Stance
The third PINS national event/seminar: Glasgow 13th March 2008
This event encouraged delegates to explore how we think about and evaluate the work we do with children and young people who are disengaged or disaffected from learning and schooling. It proved a rare opportunity for delegates from across sectors to consider some fundamental questions in respect of ‘taking a critical stance’ and what this means in terms of our practice with children and young people. The event was chaired by Addie Stevenson from Aberlour Child Care Trust.
More about the day is available by clicking on the orange links below:
Welcome from the Chair
Addie Stevenson: Chief Executive Aberlour Childcare Trust
Our Chair introduced proceedings with some introductory comments about the necessity for the sector to build capacity for reflection and a commitment to evidence based practice. Addie asked delegates to consider the following crucial questions:
- Are we critical enough of our practice and that of others?
- Is there a culture of reflection in the voluntary sector and in Scotland’s schools?
- When we seek evidence of our impact what are we looking for and how do we measure it?
- How do we know that our practice makes a difference?
- Does reflection sit comfortably in a culture of targets, outcomes and inspection?
The reflective practitioner in Scottish education
Margaret Martin: Senior Lecturer Educational Studies University of Glasgow
“Unexamined common sense is a notoriously unreliable guide to action”
Margaret explored the different understandings of reflection and what we might mean by ‘the reflective practitioner’. Margaret touched on what is being done to foster reflection by Scotland’s teachers and then went on to highlight ways in which all practitioners can develop critical skills which will enhance professional knowledge, understandings and practice.
You can download Margaret’s Power Point presentation here
Margaret recommended S. D. Brookfield’s book ‘Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher’ (1995) as a really useful text for all practitioners interested learning more about reflection and becoming a reflective practitioner. You can buy Brookfield’s book at Amazon UK
Exploring excellence in Scotland’s schools: What does it mean for the disaffected or disengaged learner?
David Watt: HMIe Inspector
David explored how successful schools and other providers are in meeting learners’ needs. His attention focused on how schools are expected to deliver the highest quality outcomes for those learners who are disaffected or disengaged from schooling. He then touched on what might be expected from voluntary sector agencies as they work in partnership with schools, children and families.
You can download David’s Power Point presentation here
David’s presentation touched on Journey to Excellence, a new online resource developed in partnership between LTS, HMIe and the Scottish Government. Journey to Excellence focused on 10 dimensions of excellence in schools and early year centres and is important to everybody concerned with the school experience of disaffected and disengaged children and young people. The website contains video-based snapshots and case studies of Scottish schools which illustrate features of excellence in their day-to-day work. Journey to Excellence is available from the dedicated website here
Developing Evidence Based Practice
Professor Bill Whyte: Director Criminal Justice Social Work Development Centre University of Edinburgh and Steve McCreadie Assistant Regional Director Aberlour Child Care Trust
“Evaluation is more effective when built into the fabric with practitioners, middle and senior managers all involved”
Our final presentation of the day came from Bill Whyte and Steve McCreadie who presented on a current example of action research and critical reflection to improve practice; provoking questions for us all about how we make practical use of reflection in our work to improve services and outcomes for children and young people.
You can download Steve’s Power Point Presentation here
You can download Bill’s Power Point Presentation here
Key issues from across the seminar
Across the day delegates discussed their responses to the presentations, and broader issues of how to apply the notion of critical reflection to their practice. From round table discussions these key issues emerged:
- In working with schools as partners we need to ensure that there is time and a shared model for appropriate reflection on the work we do. This is something that needs to be negotiated in partnership working.
- When we work in partnership, and if our work is of interest in terms of Inspection, we need to be better at describing what we do, how we do it and why.
- We often think that we have built in time for reflection, for being critical, in support and supervision or in team meetings. But often this is not deep enough. We recognise we need to make time and structure the kind of thinking we need to do.
- We need to remember that the vulnerable and challenging children, young people and families we work with can achieve change, but that this will often be slow and incremental. We need to capture this in our reflection and evaluation.
- Reflection requires honesty – about what you do and what is evidenced to have been effective. However, we work in a competitive environment; and honesty can sometimes be a casualty in the competition for resources. this needs to change, and perhaps will if we feel more confident about models and approaches which support reflection and evaluation.
- As individual practitioners, or teams, we need to seek out other workers and teams and meet together to share what we do and how we do it; honestly exchanging what we are confident about and what we want to improve about our professional practice.
- When we evaluate our work we in the voluntary sector need to be clearer about outcomes – but we need to understand better how to articulate and measure what are often called the softer outcomes or the social and relationship skills.
- We need to be able to work with children, young people and families on reflecting about and evaluating work/progress.
- Following on from this seminar practical, skills based training on how to evaluate individual work or project work would be useful.
- If there are effective models which promote reflection or structure evaluation of work with individuals or programmes, these should be shared by PINS members via the Network.
- PINS members should provide the PINS teams with links to evaluation reports so that they can be shared across the sector.
- Perhaps there is a role for PINS in bringing together lots of practitioners to talk about their work in a structured but reflective way; helping us to embed the practice of critical reflection in our work.
- We need to reflect critically on Government Policy and on the actions and approaches of agencies such as Inspectorate. It is our role in the sector to continually reflect and ask: is what we are hearing impacting positively on the needs and experiences of the most vulnerable and excluded children and young people with whom we work day in day out?
- The voluntary sector must play a role, through PINS, and individually as agencies in ensuring that A Curriculum for Excellence and models of reflection and evaluation such as HMIe Journey to Excellence understand the needs of vulnerable and excluded children and young people. And that schools are aware of their responsibilities to meet the needs of all pupils.
- PINS has a role to play in both explaining the relevance of Government Policy and initiatives; as well as engaging the policy makers with the sector.
- We understand that resources/funding is not always the most important issue – but if the voluntary sector is to bring its insight, skills and creativity to the table these things do need to be in place and agencies, initiatives and programmes should not be so vulnerable to short termism.
Keep an eye on this site for more to support you in ‘taking a critical stance’!
