Conference Agenda

While there are many commonalities and shared characteristics of curriculum review processes globally (Sinnema and Aitken, 2013), curriculum redevelopment in each jurisdiction is informed by specific histories, contexts and cultures. The purpose of this symposium is to explore the approaches to and attributes of recent curriculum reforms in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. A specific emphasis will be placed on the concept of agency within curriculum documentation as it relates to pupils, teachers and school leaders.

The symposium will provide a platform for policy makers and researchers working geographically closely but whose contexts are very different to share and learn together through their collaborative experiences. It will also provide insights and learnings for practitioners, policy makers and researchers in relation to curriculum development, mediation and enactment.

Individual papers will provide key insights from well-positioned stakeholders from each of the four jurisdictions, focusing on the aspirations, progress, successes and challenges inherent in the curriculum redevelopment process. The symposium will be framed by a broad contextual introduction (Professor Jim Spillane) while the discussant (Professor Amanda Datnow) will bring a broader global perspective to bear on the curriculum reform efforts across the islands.

Agency can be seen as a socially situated capacity to act (Manyukhina and Wyse, 2021). In order for children to exercise agency they need to have the confidence, awareness and opportunities to act. Teachers, as part of education systems, have a very important role to play in creating affordance for children’s agency, however in order to do this they have to work with a range of structures that are integral to their own exercise of agency. This kind of agency-structure dynamic has been a central theoretical concern of research on agency (Archer, 2000), although empirical research focused on structure and children’s agency in education is rare.

This presentation draws particularly on the Children’s Agency and the National Curriculum research project (CHANT – Funded by the Leverhulme Trust). The research consist of two aspects: 1. A critical discourse analysis of the text of England’s National curriculum of 2014; 2. Empirical work to develop ethnographies of three contrasting primary schools in England.

The field of curriculum studies has generated a range of types of national curriculum models. This work includes identification of three main types: a) knowledge based; b) skills-oriented; c) learner-oriented (Cook and Wyse, 2023). A learner oriented curriculum is one in which there is more chance of children’s agency being supported, given the focus on the child’s interests, needs and preferences. However creating affordances for children’s agency is not automatic even in a learner oriented curriculum because systems that will enable children’s agency are needed.

England’s national curriculum is a knowledge-based curriculum. It’s development was dominated by a single politician, the then Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove MP, who brought his personal preferences and political ideology to bare on the rather brief period of curriculum development that he led from 2010 onwards (James, 2012). The nature of England’s national curriculum, including its misapplication of theories such as powerful knowledge (Young, 2013), is strongly focused on teachers and schools transmitting the content of the national curriculum to children. If teachers and schools want to support children’s agency they have to overcome the structural barriers that are part of the national curriculum text and its realisation mediated by the many policy requirements from the Department for Education (DfE) including statutory tests (https://www.icape.org.uk).

The presentation will include examples from the CHANT research data illustrating the work of a school that has found ways to support children’s agency in powerful and meaningful ways, for example how children can be part of curriculum planning in spite of pressures of structural constraints such as ‘deep dives’ into subject matter carried out by the inspectorate Ofsted.

My role as one of four academic advisors working with NCCA in Ireland on the new primary curriculum has enabled further comparisons with England, and the ways in which curriculum development processes can be so much more appropriate.

In an era of globalisation and prompted by post-Covid reflection, many education systems around the world are undertaking policy reviews and redevelopment work. In the Irish context, curriculum redevelopment processes are central features of all sectors of the education landscape at present. These processes are focused on revisiting and reviewing not only the content of curricula but also their underpinning values, philosophy and vision.

The focus of this presentation is an exploration and analysis of the changing conceptualisation of pupils, teachers and school leaders within the redeveloped primary school curriculum in Ireland, Primary Curriculum Framework for Primary and Special Schools (Department of Education [DE], 2023). This recent publication is the first move away from a traditional detailed curriculum for primary schooling and its replacement with a more skeletal curriculum framework. The curriculum framework’s central vision statement articulates the agentic nature of teachers and pupils; “the curriculum views children as unique, competent, and caring individuals, and it views teachers as committed, skilful, and agentic professionals” (DE, 2023:5). This emphasises the centrality of the teacher as a ‘curriculum maker’, using situated and contextual knowledge in framing and enacting appropriate learning experiences and outcomes for pupils. While such a move could be considered progressive and an acknowledgement of the trusted professional teacher, its implications for teacher identity and accountability have been a source of concern among some teachers and school leaders. Moreover, the focus on pupil agency has knock-on effects for teachers’ professional practice, pupil rights and pupil voice. A key objective of the presentation is to explore the intended and indeed unintended consequences of recent and proposed curriculum reforms at primary level related to teacher and child agency. The presentation will also review the ‘Supporting Systemwide Primary Curriculum Change’ (NCCA, 2022) in terms of the relationship between agency and structure.

The primary approach to inquiry is critical documentary analysis undertaken on both historical and contemporary curriculum documents and sources (Bowen, 2009). Alongside both deliberate and inadvertent policy document sources (Duffy, 2005), the presenter’s understanding of the history of curriculum in Ireland (Walsh, 2012) and his role as a member of the Advisory Panel for the redevelopment of the primary school curriculum will be drawn on in framing the presentation and discussion.

The presentation focus has cross-cutting implications for policy, practice and research at this critical juncture of curriculum redevelopment in Ireland. It also has significant resonances with the conference theme which explores the importance of quality professional education across the teacher education continuum to ensure the ongoing quality of the education system. With increased focus on agency within the curriculum, teachers will need time, space and support both as individuals and as a collective to make sense of their evolving roles and responsibilities as professional educators. A focus on ‘learning by’ and ‘learning from’ all actors within the complex education ecosystem will be a central theme of the presentation (Hayward et al., 2022).

The recognition of how important it is to have teacher and learner agency at the heart of the processes of education has been a consistent theme at the heart of educational policy in Scotland (Hayward, 2013). This presentation explores how these ideas emerge differently for teachers and learners in research, policy and practice.

In the context of learners, Scotland, in common with many countries internationally has sought to place the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) at the heart of society. Scotland is in the process of enshrining the UNCRC into law but already uses the treaty as a framework ‘to ensure that we consider children's rights whenever we take decisions, and to help provide every child with a good start in life and a safe, healthy and happy childhood’ (Scottish Government, 2023). The emphasis is on learner voice and how that voice might be influential is taken as an indicator of learner agency, an approach consistent with Laura Lundy’s work (2007).

When considering the position of the profession, the language changes. Teachers are central to ideas of quality in education in Scotland. However, the language of discussions is less commonly related to rights or voice. Some regard the concern with teacher agency as a pragmatic response. For example, Priestley et al.(2015) argue that:

‘There has been a growing realization, however, that ultimately it is not possible to have a teacher proof curriculum since teachers mediate the curriculum in ways which are often antithetical to policy intentions, leading to an implementation gap and often to unintended consequences’ (p.187).

Others present professional agency in the language of empowerment. For example, Education Scotland describes the characteristics of an empowered system, as one that encourages collaboration, collegiality and mutual respect between all partners. They identify eight partners crucial to the process, School Leaders, Learners, Local Authority and Regional Improvement Collaborative, Scottish Government and National Organisations, Partners, Support Staff, Teachers and Practitioners and Parents and Carers. Empowered individuals are believed to come from empowered collaborative contexts.

There are undoubtedly many examples across Scotland where teachers and learners have a strong sense of agency and are empowered to have agency in learning and teaching. However, a recent report on Scottish Education (Muir, 2022) suggested that not every teacher felt empowered and the report called for cultural change.

In this presentation we explore the research and policy contexts underpinning ideas of agency for learners and teachers. We will then reflect on a number of examples to illustrate the impact of these different conceptualisations on implementation in practice - including teacher agency though curriculum co-design at a national level. Finally, we will identify and explore tensions that emerge around ideas of agency through the lenses of research, policy and practice in agency. We will reflect on what we have learned in Scotland and in working with other countries in this symposium about the eternal tensions between policy intentions and personal experience.

Following a review of curriculum and assessment arrangements (Donaldson, 2016), a new curriculum [The Curriculum for Wales] has begun to be implemented in Wales Curriculum for Wales - Hwb (gov.wales).

A key part in developing the curriculum was played by groups of teachers who were designated as digital, curriculum and professional learning pioneers. Within the legislative framework, teachers can develop their own curriculum suited to the specific needs and context of their schools. This reflects a change in policy direction by The Welsh Government towards greater teacher agency in contrast to the high-stakes accountability which had previously constrained professional autonomy (Welsh Government, 2017 and 2023; Egan, 2022).

This paper will consider the extent to which this greater empowerment of teachers is leading to high quality professional education that impacts on enhanced school effectiveness and improvement. Professional enquiry approaches have been central to developing greater teacher agency and the paper will, therefore, draw upon Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s (2009) ‘inquiry as stance’ theorisation of professional enquiry, to analyse emerging practice in Wales. They perceive teacher enquiry to be:

‘’…neither a top-down nor a bottom-up theory of action, but an organic and democratic one that positions practitioners’ knowledge, practitioners, and their interactions with students and other stakeholders at the center of educational transformation.’’ (Cochran Smith and Lytle, 2009:123-124).

The analysis will draw upon evidence produced by teachers who as part of the National Professional Enquiry Programme (NPEP), which now involves 300 schools in Wales (19 % of all schools) have undertaken a range of enquiries designed to inform the realisation of the new curriculum; the reports produced by the university researchers who have been supporting this work and external evaluations of the programme( OECD, 2021;ACER, 2022 ).

Using the theoretical framework proposed by Cochran- Smith and Lytle, the analysis will consider:

• The positioning of NPEP at system and school level as being neither top-down or bottom-up but allowing for teacher agency.

• The evolution of NPEP as an organic and democratic approach to professional enquiry that enables teacher agency to develop at whole-school and whole -system level.

• The extent to which NPEP is enabling practitioners’ knowledge, practitioners and their interaction with students and other stakeholders at the centre of the Welsh education reform programme.

In relation to each of these areas, the paper will suggest that whilst professional enquiry enables greater teacher agency to be progressed at the level of individual practitioners and in some cases to transform whole-school cultures, challenges are faced in scaling this upwards to standard practice for most schools and to wider system change. This will reflect Richard Elmore’s analysis (2004) of instructional practice in North America which he found not to be ‘sustained or deep enough to have an impact beyond the relatively small proportion of schools that are willing adopters of innovation’ (Ibid: 7).

In conclusion, the implications of these findings for the reform programme in Wales including the realisation of The Curriculum for Wales and their salience with the ICSEI conference themes will be considered.