Conference Agenda

We present an existential provocation concerning the interlinkage of practice, procedure, policy, theory and system change of constructivist initiatives in and of school education. Our focus is the constellation of approaches which constituted major school reform efforts in each of Ontario, Canada and Scotland, United Kingdom extending for approximately fifteen years in the first two decades of this century. Neither formally began nor ended, but each had central organizing focus on ‘Knowledge Building’ (Scardamalia, 2002) and ‘Building the Curriculum’ (Scottish Executive/Government, 2006-2010) respectively, as the dynamic focus of the reforms in each nation/province. The former is an applied theory based on twelve principles through which all members of school communities, including especially the students, build knowledge. The latter is a policy enactment refocusing schooling to promote four capacities of student potential of responsibility, confidence, contribution and learning through seven explicit principles of curriculum design. These were to be ‘built’ locally. There was a five-stage themed five-year Building the Curriculum national process.

Co-author is a primary school teacher and was school principal/head teacher during the active years of the development of these reforms in Scotland, United Kingdom. Co-author is a former school principal who was in post during the active developmental phase of the cognate initiative in Ontario, Canada. Both became long-standing participants in Knowledge Building International and ICSEI.

We give a flavour of these developments, anchoring them conceptually and theoretically and drawing linkages. Both systems sought that schools and educators, school communities and on to the students, would be active co-constructors of the processes to enable and shape envisaged policy changes. These derived from societal changes. The guiding ideas were pupils/students engaging with what has come to be known as twenty-first century skills and wider capacities extending far beyond attainment. For both, major emphasis was given to collaborative pedagogies, transcending individualized learning. The role of the authors was as lead teachers, steering and ‘building’ the reforms at school level, working with colleagues, students, communities of interest, partner schools, external bodies and agencies of our respective District, Council, Provincial and National administrations.

We affirm that schools must own the constellations of practice, policy and procedure which they, that is we, identify as fitting our needs and potentials, as authentic self-evaluation. We recommend that policy be reconceived as principles. We seek alignment and harmonization of professional development for educators, institutional development of schools, and system change roles of wider governing bodies. These would merge and integrate external with self-evaluation and reframe accountability as institutional and system professional development through mentoring, peer review and inquiry. We commend Knowledge Building as applied in Ontario and Building the Curriculum as applied in Scotland which pioneered these approaches. We now seek that each system build on the applied insights of each other, extending far beyond to a globalized context. Our insight and recommendation are that the evidenced and theoretically refined practice of practitioners responding to societal and policy shifts be viewed and valorized as major research and inquiry projects in themselves. These would build policy.

Education inequality is a fundamental factor contributing to social inequality. In China, the "Quality and Equity in Compulsory Education" project is considered an important institutional initiative by the government to promote fairness in basic education. In this context, this study focuses on a project for the High-quality balanced development of compulsory education, in which five teams of education scholars from universities have been commissioned by the government to enhance the "endogenous" capacity-building of weak schools. After six years of exploration, these projects have developed relatively mature models and strategies, effectively promoting the development of endogenous capabilities in recipient schools and successfully disseminating their experiences and achievements to the respective regions. This serves as strong evidence for university education scholars in selecting schools for continuous improvement. The distillation of key elements and practical strategies for university education scholars' involvement in educational balance actions will contribute to the refinement and consolidation of research outcomes for sustained endogenous development in schools.

Empowerment theory was initially applied in the field of sociology（Rappaport,1984）, emphasizing the analysis of the disadvantaged groups' state and developmental direction from the perspective of power deprivation. In the field of education, empowerment refers to teachers' ability to achieve self-discovery with a positive attitude, enhance their own capabilities through reflective action, actively participate in decision-making, and ultimately become professionals with their own educational philosophy and wisdom(Bogler R, Somech A,2004;操太圣,卢乃桂，2006). Based on individual empowerment and combining it with Ecological Systems Theory, researchers proposed the theory of organizational empowerment in order to address the issues of fragmentation and narrowness in traditional empowerment theories.（Peterson, N.A,Zimmerman,2004;Forenza, B,2017; Wilke, L.A. and Speer, P,2011）This study attempts to clarify the main strategies and core elements of scholars' intervention in improving weak schools in a region from four dimensions: "teacher empowerment," "organizational empowerment" "shaping school culture" and "community support".

The methodology of “multiple case study”and “best practice extraction”was combined used in this study.

Multiple sources of data were included in this study such as in-depth interviews, field observations, and documents.The data were transcribed by the first author and then analysed using a qualitative inductive process (Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

Through the extraction of multiple case experiences, it was found that the reason why scholars' involvement in the high-quality balanced education project has been successful lies in their possession of nine core elements: critical thinking, facilitating inquiry, belief-driven, organizational transformation, institutional empowerment, cultural consolidation, distinctive exploration, resource linkage, and network building.

This study offers insights to inform understandings of school empowerment among researchers, policy-makers and the broader education community, with a particular emphasis on interrogating Western notions of organization empowerment.

The presentation falls under the “Leading improvement collaboratively and sustainably” theme and the 3P Network for policymakers, politicians, and practitioners

The crisis in foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) has gained significant attention in the Global South in the past decade. United Nation's Sustainable Development Goal 4.4 for example, aims to achieve universal literacy and numeracy. The World Bank now regularly tracks “learning poverty”—the number of children who cannot read with comprehension by age 10 (World Bank, 2019).

The problems of early grade learning in South Africa are now widely recognized and there is an emerging research tradition attempting to provide robust evidence to address it system-wide. Since 2011, the Early Grade Reading Study (EGRS) and its predecessor, the Gauteng Primary Literacy and Numeracy Strategy have been building a robust knowledge-base on cost-effective approaches to system-wide improvement to early grade reading in children's mother tongue and English as a second language. Using a combination of regression discontinuity design studies, cluster randomized control trials, in-depth qualitative case studies, and longitudinal student tracker studies, the EGRS team has successfully tested a structured pedagogy change model that combines the provision of standardized lesson plans and high-quality learning materials, with centralized training and one-on-one instructional coaching. This model has become known in South Africa as the Education Triple Cocktail (Fleisch, 2016 and 2018), a tribute to the successful intervention for managing AIDS in the health sector.

This paper provides an overview of the research projects and policy influence of the Early Grade Reading Study. It focuses on the results of the initial RDD study in the Gauteng Province in 2013 (Fleisch et al 2016; Fleisch, 2016), the first RCT study in KwaZulu Natal of the catch-up model (2014) (Fleisch et al 2018) and the major quantitative and qualitative findings of the large-scale randomized trials in the North West (2015-2018) (Cilliers et al 2020) and the Mpumalanga (2018-2020) provinces (Kotze et al 2020; Cilliers et al 2022). The paper also highlights the most recent evidence from the longitudinal tracker studies which shows the enduring impact on learning four years after the initiative ended. The paper also reviews research on the politics of change using the RISE diagnostic framework (Fleisch, et al 2023)

The experience of the EGRS in South Africa highlights the value of aligned standardized curriculum materials, particularly simple-to-use lesson plans, with the provision of quality and appropriate reading resources with training and onsite classroom coaching. While focusing on evidence of effectiveness, the study has uncovered the centrality of the emotions of change and how coaching works as a form of professional accountability. The findings of this large-scale government/university research partnership can make a significant contribution to the field of educational effectiveness and policymaking in the Global South.

The Scottish Government’s Diversity in the Teaching Profession Scotland Annual Data Report (2023) reiterates ‘the aim that by 2030 the number of minority ethnic teachers in Scotland’s schools should be at least 4%, which is on a par with the Scottish minority ethnic population in the 2011 census.’ Currently, the figure is 1.8%.

This paper explores the known issues to improving diversity in the teaching profession in Scotland, outlines national policy commitments and details work in motion to make the reality match the national rhetoric. Key challenges of this work, including the impact on teacher education and learning are shared with the aim of generating discussion about comparison with other jurisdictions to inform further required actions.

Scotland in the 21st century is a vibrant, diverse country. Therefore, a more diverse teaching profession is one which would reflect society as a whole, build equity and value diverse perspectives. While acknowledging it is a complex area (Martino, 2015; Santoro, 2015), young people do benefit from seeing role models who represent their lived experience (Boyle, 2022). It has also been shown that diverse classrooms, both in terms of teachers and learners, can increase learners’ citizenship skills and social cohesion (De Schaepmeester, et al., 2022). It is our ethical responsibility as a teaching profession to work towards this goal.

Structuring discussion around the stages on the journey of black and minority ethnic (BME) teachers, spanning from their own school experiences, teacher education, ongoing professional learning, through to advanced career stages, this paper explores research and initiatives promoting increased representation of racially diverse teachers in the teaching profession.

By highlighting proactive steps to support BME teachers through their career journey, this paper offers the potential for enhanced understanding and greater engagement with the national aspiration for a more diverse teaching profession.