A New Approach to Staff Interviews -
pupil participation in the selection procedure

Since 2001 Lawrence Sheriff School has involved members of the school council in the interviewing of staff. Rather than ask interviewees to teach a sample lesson, a process which is found to be rather artificial, staff are asked to spend half an hour being interviewed by four members of the school council. The four interviewers are elected by the council as a whole. Each council member asks the candidate two questions and there is also an opportunity for the candidate to ask the students questions. The student questions are checked beforehand by the Deputy Head to ensure suitability and to avoid duplication. Questions have been challenging and thoughtful, for example: "Why would I enjoy being in your lessons?" The chair of the panel then feeds back to members of the SMT before they interview the candidate (normally the Head, Deputy Head and a governor) and before making a recommendation about who should be appointed.

Whilst students only make a recommendation to the final interviewing panel, to date their comments have been extremely accurate, and in almost every case their nominee has been the person finally appointed. Feedback from interviewees has been extremely positive, and many have commented that this stage of the interview process provides the clearest insight into the culture of the school.

Over the past two years students have taken part in the interviewing for nearly twenty different posts within the school. This involvement of students has encouraged the school to involve them in a range of issues which student councils might not ordinarily be consulted on. Hence the council has prepared a paper on what makes a good lesson, which has been distributed to members of staff. They have also advised the school's parents association on how to improve their fundraising.

Overall, the involvement of students in staff interviews has taught us that students can be trusted to play a part in some of the most important decisions made within a school. We have found that the more responsibility that is given to students the better they respond. Our project has led to interest from the local authority and the DfES. However, perhaps the strongest supporters of the initiative have been the school governors (equivalent to the parent school board members in Scottish schools), who have been deeply impressed by the way in which student perspectives have enriched the appointment process.

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The newly established PIER Network, directed by Professor Julie Allan and co-ordinated by Joanna McPake, at the Institute of Education, University of Stirling, consists of researchers in the fields of education, social science, psychology and philosophy, with an interest in participation, inclusion and equity issues in social policy. The PIER Network will carry out critical reviews of existing research and is committed to involving the users of research - policy-makers, practitioners and the public - in the development of thinking, research activity, dissemination and impact. The PIER Network website, shortly to be online, will be one of the key formats through which information, news and debate will be disseminated to all those with an interest in these activities.

For further information, contact:
Julie Allan Tel: 01786 46762 Fax: 01786 467633 Email: j.e.allan@stir.ac.uk

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International Consortium on School Disaffection

This is a new group of educators and practitioners from different countries which came out of some international meetings at the annual convention of the US National Dropout Prevention Network. The work of the Center can be found online by clicking their logo below.

Gwynedd Lloyd, Senior Lecturer in Education Support at the University of Edinburgh, attended the convention in October 2002 to present several papers, including one on her research with Joan Stead (funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation) into multi-professional collaboration to prevent exclusion from Scottish schools.

One of the more up-beat highlights of the Convention was when Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul and Mary fame, who now runs an anti bullying organisation called 'Don't Laugh at Me' persuaded the 2000 teachers and other professionals to give a rousing rendition of Puff the Magic Dragon!

There is to be an International Journal on School Disaffection, published by Trentham, edited by the writer Reva Klein. The first issue will come out later this year. The journal will have two parts, one for academic articles, which will be peer refereed and a second part with a focus on sharing international practice, to encourage practitioners to write about their work.

Information about the journal can be found here.

It is planned that there will be an international conference every two years. The first will be in Spring 2004 in Charleston, South Carolina. There will also be a website with links to sites of consortium members. The Advisory Board of the National Dropout Prevention Network includes business leaders who are looking at the possibility of some core funding for the International Consortium.

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Dr. Pavla Polechova, formerly of the Pedagogical Faculty of Charles University, Prague and now with the Czech State Education Inspectorate:

The Czech Republic has always scored very highly in international comparison tables, especially in Maths and Science. However, comparison of data from the recent PISA programme showed great variability between Czech schools. This internal gap is widening. Following the political changes, some Czech schools became private, specialist and/or selective. This has resulted in 'social selection' of schools by aspiring and supportive parents, with 'favoured' schools performing ever better in attainment tests.

Many teachers have little commitment to overcoming socio-cultural disadvantage or educational difficulty in children, preferring to cater in didactic whole-class pedagogy for already educationally advantaged pupils. Czech students rated their teachers' support very low - only Korea scored less in the PISA data.

Internal critics of the system, myself included, think that the curriculum is too knowledge-laden and boring. Many pupils - especially those for whom learning is harder - do not enjoy school. School ethos could sometimes be described as oppressive. UNICEF and the EC have criticised education's inability to advance the rights and aspirations of Roma (gypsy) children. Progressive teacher organisations such as PAU and NEMES, some academics and forward-thinking schools have pushed for more child-centred, actively experiential and inclusive schools and teaching. Our shared belief is that these strategies, far from being incompatible with effective learning, will actually enable higher attainments.

Zdenek Bron, Head Teacher of the Jana Malika Elementary School in the small Czech town of Chrudim, writes, 'We wish to transform our school into a place where knowledge is acquired through an active and pleasant learning process, where individuality and diversity is fully respected. The school will enable partnership between the pupils and teachers and between the teachers and parents'. The school is beginning to use the British Index of Inclusion as a school self-evaluation tool.

I introduced the Index and also new and lively ways of enabling teaching and learning through an EC-funded Comenius 2 project that I co-ordinated. We have developed conceptually highly successful and socially enjoyable collaborative lessons for children in maths (see photograph). Most Czech teachers previously assumed that maths is unsuitable for co-operative learning and for enabling children's grasp of mathematical concepts.

Our four-country project involved key teacher education institutes working with several primary and secondary schools, selected to reflect diverse socio-economic, rural/urban and cultural contexts. Chrudim's school was one of my most enthusiastic and successful partners, achieving progress in our aims to:

	promote social inclusion and raise attainment
	demonstrate the value of diversity, participation and collaboration in learning
	raise the self-esteem of previously marginalised groups of pupils

Results to date in the schools that carried through the plans, like the Jana Malika Elementary School in Chrudim, are very encouraging indeed.

Any enquiries about this project should be sent to the Editor of the Ethos Network Newsletter.

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Herjit Dhanoa has taught Drama and English in Vancouver, London and Edinburgh. She is currently working towards her MEd at Edinburgh University and also teaches part-time in Edinburgh. She plans to return to Canada in October.

Over the past seven years as a teacher in Vancouver, I have seen two sides of inclusion. Students with varying degrees of learning difficulties are integrated into many subjects with additional support. The integration feels natural because streaming by academic ability does not occur. Also, students with visual, auditory and mobility impairments can be almost fully included in most mainstream classes. I have had a wide range of special needs students in my Drama classes and have always felt that the students and I were fully supported. However, 38 per cent of the city's population do not speak English as their first language, which poses a challenge for schools. Extensive ESL programs exist in most schools, and the ESL students have separate academic classes from fluent English speakers. Once a student is enrolled in ESL, many find it difficult to pass written tests which enable them to enter mainstream classes. ESL classes are effective and exist to support the students in their language learning, but they create a distinct divide between ESL and mainstream students. Despite doing well with most aspects of inclusion, I feel that Vancouver needs to address this divide.

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