The Anne Frank Haven: A case of an alternative educational program in an integrative Kibbutz setting

The essential features of the programme of the Anne Frank Haven are the complete integration of children from low SES and different cultural backgrounds with Kibbutz children; a holistic approach to education; and the involvement of the whole community in an open residential school. After 33 years, it is argued that the experiment has proved successful in absorbing city-born youth in the Kibbutz, enabling at-risk populations to reach significant academic achievements, and ensuring their continued participation in the dominant culture. The basic integration model consists of layers of concentric circles, in dynamic interaction. The innermost circle is the class, the learning community. The Kibbutz community and the foster parents form a supportive, enveloping circle, which enables students to become part of the outer community and to intervene in it. A kind of meta-environment, the inter-Kibbutz partnership and the Israeli educational system, influence the program through decision making and guidance. Some of the principles of the Haven — integration, community involvement, a year's induction for all new students, and open residential settings — could be useful for cultures and societies outside the Kibbutz. The real secret of success of an alternative educational program is the dedicated, motivated and highly trained staff.

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Zusammenfassung Die Hauptpunkte des Programms des Anne-Frank-Internats sind die vollständige Integration von Kindern aus sozial schwachen Familien und unterschiedlichem kulturellen Hintergrund in die Gruppe von Kibbutz-Kindern, ein holistischer Ansatz zur Erziehung und die Beteiligung der gesamten Gemeinde an einer offenen Heimschule. Das Experiment wird von den Autoren 33 Jahre nach Beginn als erfolgreich angesehen, sowohl bei der Integration der Stadtjugend in den Kibbutz und den eröffneten Möglichkeiten für Risikogruppen, bedeutende akademische Leistungen zu vollbringen, als auch bei deren gesicherter kontinuierlicher Beteiligung an einer dominanten Kultur. Das Grundintegrationsmodell besteht aus Schichten konzentrischer Kreise in dynamischer Interaktion. Der innerste Kreis ist die Klasse, die Lerngemeinschaft. Die Kibbutz-Gesellschaft und die Pflegeeltern bilden einen unterstützenden und beschützenden Kreis, der es den Schülern ermöglicht, Teil der äußeren Gemeinde zu werden und sich dort zu engagieren. Eine Art Meta-Umgebung, die Partnerschaft zwischen den Kibbutzim und das israelische Schulsystem beeinflussen das Programm, indem Entscheidungen getroffen und Richtlinien gegeben werden. Einige der Prinzipien des Internats wie Integration, Beteiligung der Gemeinden, einjährige Einführungszeit für alle neuen Schüler und offene Wohnbedingungen, könnten für Kulturen und Gesellschaften außerhalb des Kibbutz ebenfalls von Interesse sein. Das wahre Geheimnis des Erfolgs eines alternativen Schulprogramms ist jedoch engagiertes, motiviertes und hochqualifiziertes Personal.

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Résumé L'insertion complète des enfants de bas statut socio-économique et de milieux culturels différents aux enfants des kibboutz, une approche holistique de l'enseignement et la participation de l'ensemble de la communauté à une école résidentielle ouverte constituent les caractéristiques essentielles du programme Anne Frank Haven. On est d'avis, 33 ans plus tard, que cette expérience a réussi à intégrer les jeunes citadins dans les kibboutz, à donner un niveau de scolarité satisfaisant aux populations à risque et à assurer leur participation continue à la culture dominante. Le modèle d'intégration de base est constitué de couches de cercles concentriques en interaction dynamique. Le cercle le plus au centre représente la classe, la communauté qui apprend. La collectivité du kibboutz et les parents nourriciers forment un cercle de soutien enveloppant qui permet aux élèves de prendre part à la vie de la communauté extérieure et d'intervenir au sein de celle-ci. Une sorte de méta-environnement, l'association entre les kibboutz et le système éducatif israélien exercent une influence sur le programme par leurs décisions et les conseils qu'ils prodiguent. Quelques-uns des principes du programme Haven, tels que l'intégration, la participation de la communauté, une année d'initiation pour tous les nouveaux élèves et les structures d'internat ouvert, pourraient servir aux cultures et sociétés à l'extérieur des kibboutz. Le véritable secret du succès d'un programme éducatif non conventionnel repose sur un personnel dévoué, motivé et parfaitement formé.

     

Bridging the gap: an alternative tool for course evaluation

The increasing perception of students as customers of services puts a stronger focus on improving the quality of the student experience. Satisfaction with aspects of service, such as access, flexibility and fitness for purpose can be assessed through student feedback questionnaires. The results of these surveys may not immediately suggest strategies for making improvement. How to bridge any gaps between what students look for and what they experience requires knowledge of student expectations and experiences separately. This paper describes an alternative evaluation tool, QUEST, based on a service template approach and explains how it has been used for evaluating the level of student satisfaction with HE distance education courses. QUEST is web‐based and produces a measure of satisfaction for a range of service quality aspect of the course provision. The results can be interrogated at several layers of detail to produce a clear picture of where issues arise and to identify how they might be addressed. The paper describes how these outputs from an evaluation might be interpreted to suggest strategies for improving the fit between what students look for from a particular course of study and what they experience.     

Middle years and middle schools: an analysis of national policy

The terms ‘primary education’ and ‘primary schools’ were in use long before 1945. However, it was not until 1 April 1945 that primary education became the first of three statutory stages of the English education system. At that time, primary education faced an uncertain future because of the enormous problems it had inherited from the elementary school tradition. This article charts the early challenges that were faced during the years of World War II and immediate post-war period.     

Working within and against the grain of policy in an alternative school

This paper investigates the ways that teachers in one alternative school blur the boundaries of the political, personal, and philosophical in their efforts to re-engage marginalised and disenfranchised young people. The labours of the school staff at Harmony High offer an intriguing narrative of working both within and against the grain of policy mandates, curriculum narrowing, and the pervasive effects of neoliberalism. Through the physical and social spatiality, critical pedagogical and affective engagement of learners, new schooling assemblages might be formed. The work being done by teachers in alternative schooling contexts such as that of Harmony High – while situated, meaningful and deeply contextualised – offers hope for reconstituting mainstream education in more socially just ways that serve the needs and interests of everybody.     

Realising the potential for evidence-informed policy and practice in primary schools

This article considers how primary school staff may be supported with developing their capacity for ‘evidence-informed policy and practice’ (EIPP) through partnerships involving academic researchers. It reports on one such partnership, a collaborative research project focused on improving the transition between key stages of the National Curriculum for pupils in the middle years of schooling. A case study of one participating primary school is presented. The headteacher opportunistically capitalised on the unexpected evidence emerging during the project that the vision for the school held by members of the senior management team had not been communicated to other teachers. The headteacher's response was to initiate a management review involving all staff. It is suggested that this sort of approach to collaborative research involving school staff and academic researchers holds great promise as a starting point for many initiatives to strengthen the evidence base informing school policy and practice.     

An evaluation of an alternative placement experience for students undertaking primary initial teacher training

This study is an analysis of the impact on students of their experience of an alternative placement. The placement was run with Year 2 students on a three-year undergraduate initial teacher education degree programme (primary, 3–11) in England. The placement enabled students to have a practical teaching experience in any setting outside the age phase they were training to teach. The analysis is based on a cohort evaluation of the placement (170 students). Data were collected in two ways: through students’ written reflections and their identification of the standards required for Qualified Teacher Status that they experienced. This approach was selected owing to the strong expectations by the UK Government to meet set criteria to qualify as a teacher. There is one direct reference in the standards to learning outside the classroom, but it was found that the students considered they had benefited from the alternative placement by offering opportunities for their professional and personal development in many more areas. The research study found that these areas included learning from other experts, working with colleagues, gaining confidence to teach, experiencing other cultural settings, working with children in informal settings, the importance of personalising learning and, in some cases, experiencing second language teaching.     

Empirical evaluation of an educational conservation programme introduced in Swiss secondary schools

This paper surveys the consequences of pupils' participation in a conservation education programme by monitoring changes in their relevant knowledge as well as in their environmental perception. The programme in question is an extra-curricular education unit about an endangered migrant bird (Apus apus; Apodidae) which was initiated by a state-wide conservation agency and offered free of charge to all secondary schools of the German-speaking part of Switzerland. An activity package was provided to the participating classes and individually introduced by the classroom teacher during an entire school year. The programme highlighted the bird's natural history and also focused on the individual involvement of pupils who built artificial nest-boxes and watched the bird's breeding and feeding behaviour at appropriate outdoors sites. A bilingual approach was included by sharing these observations with pupils of (French-speaking) Senegal, this country being the wintering region of the rd. bi Based on an instrument measuring environmental perception, i.e. individuals' preservation and conservation preferences (from an attitudinal and behavioural point of view) and built on construct validation procedures published in a previous study, the influences of the education programme were evaluated on a pre-/post-test basis. The post-test was delayed for at least a month after experiencing the education programme in order to exclude short-term effects. The programme had a significant positive effect on the specific knowledge level and on two of the five environmental perception subscales. The results are discussed in the context of other related outdoor ecology education programmes.     

Key issues in educational policy for secondary schools in federated Belgium 1

Belgian educational policy for secondary schools was a national matter until 1989, although the polarized structure had already given rise to some decentralization. When educational policy became the responsibility of the Communities in 1989, it became clear that each Community would deal with their problems differently, even when confronting the same problems. The Communities did not abolish the influence of the polarized structure. Analysis of four key issues of educational policy in relation to secondary schools confirms the typical approach to the problems by each community. They gave different political answers to the problems of the protection of the position of teachers, of the quality of education, and local schools administration. Only the problem of the integration of immigrant children is being tackled similarly.

     

The enactment of the policy initiative for critical thinking in Singapore schools

This article examines the enactment of the policy initiative to promote critical thinking in Singapore schools from the perspectives of educators in Singapore. It is argued that teachers in Singapore are not passive recipients or mere implementers of top-down policy decisions. Rather, they enact the policy initiative by making sense of, negotiating, influencing and capitalising on their unique conditions to achieve their goals and juggle multiple demands. Three research findings are discussed in this article. First, the teachers mediate the policy process through their interpretations of critical thinking and cognisance of the socio-cultural challenges they face. Secondly, they recontextualise the policy initiative by adopting a skills-focused conception of critical thinking in the form of the infusion cum discipline-specific approach. Thirdly, they apply correlative thinking by combining didactic teaching with active student participation in their dual desire to foster critical thinking and prepare their students for the high-stakes exam. This study extends the existing research on policy enactment by identifying and illustrating manifestations of active appropriation in an Asian context.     

Toward improved knowledge and policy on urban education

The essays in this volume mark a watershed in the study of urban public education in the United States. By virtue of their intellectual breadth and substantive concern for the welfare of city schools and students, these papers forecast an integration of political and organizational analysis of education in the big cities ‐connecting the structures and processes of policy‐making with the structures and processes that comprise the everyday lives of school administrators, teachers and students. These essays derive their theoretical and practical import from their ultimate focus on how city schools work and on the experiences that their students have in schools and classrooms. This focus on consequences for schooling as it is experienced in the city school marks a significant departure for students of urban school politics and policy in the US.     

Complementing the mainstream: an exploration of partnership work between complementary alternative provisions and mainstream schools

In the English context, complementary alternative provisions (APs) can make specific positive contributions for young people at risk of exclusion from mainstream school. Whilst recognising the potential value of all complementary AP that is carefully selected and of high quality, we problematise the ‘repair and return’ rationale that continues to underpin the commissioning of some provisions. Drawing on two case studies, we explicate the nature and value of partnership working between complementary provider and mainstream school. We argue that when a productive partnership happens (1) schools take greater responsibility for young people at risk of exclusion, and (2) there is the potential to encourage wider shifts in the learning context of the mainstream school in ways that are beneficial for a larger group of pupils. Such wider transformations in the mainstream context may be particularly beneficial given the current performative regimes that dominate English education policy, and focus schools’ work on the achievement of key data targets rather than inclusive practice. We reflect on what can be learnt from these cases in relation to the evolving AP policy context in England.     

Involving parents in schools: Toward developing a social-intervention technology

Emphasis is on parents and public elementary schools in lower socioeconomic areas. A rationale for direct parental involvement in the school's instructional and policy-formulation processes is presented. Neighborhood and school social factors are identified, especially those related to the change process in schools, since these could potentially hinder the development of parental involvement. Finally, organization development is examined as a promising means of minimizing difficulties.

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Résumé Cet article traite surtout des parents et des écoles élémentaires publiques des quartiers déshérités au point de vue socio-économique. L'auteur expose la raison d'être de l'intervention directe des parents dans les méthodes d'enseignement et dans l'élaboration de la politique éducative. Il identifie les facteurs sociaux représentés par le quartier et l'école et insiste sur les facteurs propres à la nature du processus d'évolution dans les écoles, étant donné que ces facteurs pourraient faire obstacle au développement de l'engagement des parents. L'auteur conclut que le développement de l'organisation représente une méthode prometteuse qui pourrait faciliter la tâche dans ce domaine.

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OISE     

Primary schools and opting out: Some policy implications

Abstract

Significant differences in perceptions between teachers in primary and secondary grant‐maintained schools are reported and analysed. Parents were more frequently involved in promoting opting‐out in primary schools, primary teachers had more favourable attitudes to the grant‐maintained school policy and, in primary schools, grant‐maintained status delivered improvements in classroom conditions, most notably reduced class size and increased para‐professional support in classrooms. The findings are discussed in terms of the management of primary schools, of theorising about reputation management in grant‐maintained schools, and of the explicit objectives of the grant‐maintained policy. It is further suggested that the evidence provided about grant‐maintained primary schools could be used to inject new life into a policy faltering in secondary schools.