Teaching’s Alexander Technique
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29 / 10 / 2009 | Author: dnorris
The Alexander Report.
The Alexander Report published in October 2009 represents the biggest review into primary education in England for 40 years, but surprisingly it is not a government initiative.
It has been researched in Cambridge by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, and it is worth looking at just what goes into such an enquiry before analysing the findings.
This particular report started in October 2006. Its purpose or remit was perfectly straightforward. It asked how good primary education was in England at that time. Two years later the findings were published.
The operation started by doing a sweep of 30 themes relating to educational documents published about primary education which had been published by 70 researchers in 23 universities.
That was just the starting point. They then listened to over 30 organisations, read 550 written submissions and held 750 individual hearings.
They held seminars on educational policy with teachers, met key educational agencies and held discussions with the teachers unions.
They also allowed any findings from these meetings to be openly recorded so that different parties could become aware of the varying opinions in an exercise which is called triangulated dialogue.
On the surface the topics for research may seem rather bland.. They were on Childhood and Children; Education, Culture and Society; but they served as areas to drill down deeper into the web that makes up modern day schooling. As such the research widened out into styles of teaching and learning, standards of attainment, the curriculum, professional standards, parenting and the funding of schools.
What the report was in fact searching for was indeed what we all want to know, namely what direction is education heading?
This was contextualised in a number of straightforward questions.
What do we know about young people’s lives? How do children develop today? What do children of today need from a primary education? What kind of a society are today’s children growing up in? What are the best characteristics of the state system? And what values should it espouse?
The reason why such questions need to be asked in the first place is because English education has undergone a seismic shift in the last 20 years. No longer is the child really at the centre of state education. The curriculum is. That’s why a set of national strategies, league tables, tests, targets and standards have grown up around the national curriculum.
The strength of early education has always seen the emphasis placed on a child’s imagination. The major finding was that this was being eroded. Schools did it through a regimented curriculum and by reducing outside visits to theme parks. Television and electronic games did it too.
The headline recommendations addressed these issues. Infant school activities should continue until the age of six and teachers should be trained as educators not people who are expected to deliver ready made lessons.
They found no merit in Sat’s tests and league tables and were very concerned at the widening gap between those who left school with nothing and those who were chalking up ‘A’s and ‘A*’s. That gap was dangerously wide and needed to be narrowed, but they were very critical of the way the media pedalled crisis stories and the government consistently banged the drum about improved standards.
Much of what went on in schools was good. School was often the one thing that held together when much else in the everyday package of living fell apart but even Professor Robin Alexander couldn’t resist recommending still more change in the area which is fast becoming a quagmire.
He recommended having a curriculum made up of twelve aims and eight domains. The Government commissioned review on the primary curriculum carried out by Sir Jim Rose recommended six areas of learning and six essential skills.
The best advice to anyone studying this report is to take the long view.
The Plowden report on primary education, carried out 20 years ago was met with derision. It advocated education through play and yet within a generation almost all of the recommendations were in place. New maths incorporated numbered rods; the P.E ritual was replaced with playful circuits and reading schemes replaced set books. Now it is viewed as a golden era in English education.
Time will tell with the Alexander Report.
