Reaching the hard to reach: Inclusive responses to diversity through child-teacher dialogue Erasmus Project

Project Title

Reaching the hard to reach: Inclusive responses to diversity through child-teacher dialogue

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Inclusion – equity; Research and innovation

Project Summary

The issue of including all children in schools is a challenge faced by teachers across Europe. The “Reaching the hard to reach: inclusive responses to diversity through child-teacher dialogue” project was focused on this challenge. It set out to develop effective strategies for including all children in lessons, particularly those who are hard to reach, such as migrants, refugees and disabled students.

The project objectives were to:
1. Respond to learner diversity in inclusive ways through the active participation of children;
2. Enhance the access, participation and learning performance of all children, ensuring that no child is marginalised;
3. Use a research-based model of teacher professional development that encourages dialogue between children and teachers;
4. Design new techniques for generating the views of younger children, including ways of involving them in carrying out research in their schools; and,
5. Measure the impact of using such approaches on teachers’ thinking and practices, and on students’ engagement (attitudes and behaviours)

These objectives were addressed through the use of an innovative approach, Inclusive Inquiry (Messiou and Ainscow, 2020). This was developed through an earlier EU funded project and further refined to be used in this project. The earlier project involved work in secondary schools, whereas this new project was located in primary schools, a gap identified in relation to student voice work.

The project involved partnerships of universities and primary schools in five countries: Austria, Denmark, England, Portugal and Spain. There were ten partners in total: five universities and five primary schools, in each of the participating countries. The project involved three cycles of collaborative action research:

Cycle 1. Researchers worked closely with the headteachers and a trio of teachers in each of the five partner ‘hub’ schools in piloting the refined approach of Inclusive Inquiry. Children in the hub schools were trained as researchers. At the end of this cycle, lessons identified were taken into consideration for the second cycle.
Cycle 2. Inclusive Inquiry was used in five more schools in each country, whilst at the same time expanded in the hub schools, with systematic monitoring of the impact on teachers’ thinking and practices and students’ engagement.
Cycle 3. The approach was used more widely in the 30 participating schools and disseminated to other schools in each of the cities involved.

Inclusive Inquiry involves three phases: Plan, Teach and Analyse, carried out by trios of teachers. Each teacher chose three or more students from their class who were seen in some way as being ‘hard to reach’ to became researchers. For example, some were defined as having special educational needs, refugees, children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and others lacked confidence. These students were then trained by their teachers in order to collect their classmates’ views about learning and teaching. The information collected was analysed by the student researchers to inform the co-planning of a lesson. This was then taught in each of the classes. These lessons were observed by the other two teachers and by student researchers from the other two classes. At the end of each lesson, student researchers analysed what happened with their teachers in order to make modifications for the next time the lesson was taught, with a focus on ensuring that all learners are included in the learning process.

The need to address the challenge of ensuring implementation of key features was crucial within a project that involved so many participants. This required the specification of the essential features of the strategy that needed to be adopted. With this in mind, implementation was monitored systematically, by teachers and researchers, using a ‘Levels of Use’ instrument devised for this purpose. In this way, it was possible to establish causal links between the process and outcomes.

Impact was determined through observations, interviews and questionnaires completed by students and teachers. This provided evidence of direct impact on teachers’ thinking and practices, and on children’s engagement in lessons. There were also indications that project had longer term benefits within the participating schools by changing teachers’ thinking about student diversity. Further research is needed to explore this impact.

Informed by this analysis, six booklets in five languages were produced to be used by other schools. In addition, a video was produced that can be used as an introduction and for staff development purposes. Finally, five academic publications and five practitioner publications, jointly written with practitioners, were produced.

At the same time, as a result of various dissemination events, the use of the approach has been expanded to other countries, such as the USA, the Netherlands, and in various Latin America countries. In these ways, the project exceeded its original intentions.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 363910,08 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON & Country: UK

Project Partners

• AARHUS UNIVERSITET
• UNIVERSIDADE DO ALGARVE
• Nivaa Skole
• UNIVERSITAET GRAZ
• CEIP Aldebarán
• Wordsworth Primary School
• AGRUPAMENTO DE ESCOLAS PINHEIRO E ROSA