Improving Schools

This article connects arguments in the field of integrated and multi-professional working concerning the need to promote a strengths-based approach to children, childhood and children’s services with writing about creativity in schooling. It utilizes strength-based and social justice approaches to encourage professionals who work with children and families to recognize the diversity of childhood and support children and families to collaboratively, creatively and flexibly develop solutions to their own life issues and their learning. It questions the extent to which schools are ready to be places that enable collaborative dialogue and considers whether targets and tests lead schools to stifle creativity. It draws from the CREANOVA project funded by the European Commission’s Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) to demonstrate the quantitative basis for the argument that flexibility stimulates creativity, and demonstrates that creativity flourishes in environments that value autonomy, openness, supportive structures and collaborative relationships. This finding enables the article to conclude that a culture shift can be achieved that stimulates creativity and innovation in childhood if organizations recognize the abilities of children to stimulate each other’s creativity, support children’s freedom to learn collaboratively and challenge barriers to learning such as targets and top-down performance indicators.

This article is based on a systematic review of educational research, policy and professional literature relating to creative environments for learning in schools. Despite the search yielding 210 documents, comparatively few empirical studies were published between 2005 and 2011 that addressed the review objectives. Only 18 studies included in the review investigated the impact of creativity on learners. There was, however, some evidence for the impact of creative learning environments on pupil attainment, confidence, resilience, motivation, problem-solving, interpersonal skills and school attendance. These findings have implications for policy, practice and research internationally.

This article applies theoretical understandings of power relations within student voice work to two empirical examples of school-based student voice projects. The article builds on and refines theoretical understandings of power and participation developed in previous articles written by the authors. The first article argued that at the heart of student voice work are four core values: communication as dialogue; participation and democratic inclusivity; the recognition that power relations are unequal and problematic; and the possibility for change and transformation (Robinson & Taylor, 2007); the second article focused on a theorization of power and participation within student voice work (Taylor & Robinson, 2009). This article explores how power and participation manifest themselves within the operation of student voice projects and considers the micro-processes at play when implementing student voice work within schools. The article concludes by questioning whether student voice work provides a genuine means through which change in schools is initiated.

This article describes the development and validation of a six-scale survey to assess school climate in terms of students’ perceptions of the degree to which they feel welcome and connected, together with a scale to assess students’ perceptions of bullying. The development of each survey involved a multi-stage approach, including: 1) an extensive review of research related to school climate to identify components that can be considered important for effective schools made up of diverse students; 2) elucidating the scales identified in step one; and 3) writing individual items within the scales. Items from previously validated questionnaires were examined and, if appropriate, adapted. We used Trochim and Donnelly’s (2006) framework for construct validity to guide the validation of the new questionnaire. When the questionnaire was administered to a sample of 4067 high school students from eight schools, various statistical analyses ensured the questionnaire’s discriminant, convergent, concurrent and predictive validity.

The contemporary attempts to tackle poverty and child poverty in the United Kingdom have been seriously hindered by the effects of the economic crisis (Hirsch, 2008a; Mooney, 2011). The prevailing discourses of the recession and intergenerational poverty can lead to a view that the effects of child poverty and the consequent detrimental impact on school education and future prospects for some young people are intractable (Sinclair & McKendrick, 2009). There can be insufficient emphasis on the successful attempts, however fragile, to intervene in the cycle of deprivation. This article reports on research conducted in two contrasting groups of secondary schools in the city of Glasgow, located in areas of deprivation, as they work to secure initial positive school leaver destinations for young people. This small-scale case study highlights the importance of a strong leadership vision committed to initial positive school leaver destinations, but complemented by distributed leadership and support from external partners to enable sustained successes. It also highlights the importance of individual attention to all young people to support and motivate them and the effectiveness of intervention at an early stage.