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Reflective Action Planning
A Model for Teacher-Led School Improvement
As we suggested earlier in Chapter 3, it is helpful to break the reflective action planning model into its different constituents so as to consider the nature and role of each. A detailed explanation of the process, together with accompanying workshop guides and other materials has been set out in a previous publication (Frost, 1997) but, in the period since that guide was published, the model has been developed. Here, we give a summary of each part of the process and illustrate where appropriate with facsimiles based on the work of teachers who have used the model in the past. Stage 1: Personal Vision-Building
This first stage of the process assumes that individual teachers need to develop greater clarity about ways in which they can contribute to school improvement; they need to develop the confidence and conviction to be able to enter into consultation about priorities and negotiation with colleagues, some of whom may have considerably more power and authority within the school. Teachers’ transformative capacity, their capacity ‘to make a difference’, their ‘agency’ (Giddens, 1984) can be developed by helping them to become clearer about their values and interests, and therefore, their own concerns and priorities. There are two stages to this part of the process: | (a) a workshop to explore the roots of individuals’ professional concerns; |
| (b) the writing of an ‘Initial Statement’ to support a private reflection. |
The workshop: at the very beginning of the programme the group leaders should arrange an activity in which participants work in pairs or trios to talk through their past experience, their roles of reponsibility, their professional values and so on. A series of headings such as those set out below could be provided with spaces for notes. It works well when A asks B about each heading and writes down the responses in the spaces provided. At the conclu-
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Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: Teacher-led School Improvement.
Contributors: David Frost - Author, Judy Durrant - Author, Michael Head - Author, Gary Holden - Author.
Publisher: Falmer Press.
Place of publication: London.
Publication year: 2000.
Page number: 42.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may
not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.
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