disseminating good practice and
celebrating achievement in Wiltshire

Produced by the Schools’ Branch

Volume 5 Number 3 Summer 2004

Editorial

The role of teacher research has been highlighted in the 11 June edition of TES. Entitled "Classroom discoveries: how teacher researchers are finding their own answers" this 24 page supplement is sponsored by the General Teaching Council for England and contains articles by teacher researchers, academics and consultants. As well as reports from teachers and those engaged in supporting research it includes useful background information on getting started on research, the role of networked leaning communities and recommended web sites. Also announced is a new funding initiative being considered by the Arts Council’s Creative Partnership to support creativity in teaching along the same lines of the BPRS programme but linking teachers and people from the arts community. The National Educational Research Forum is also planning a bulletin to turn research material into articles that are readable and useful for teachers.

In Wiltshire, of course, teacher research is well established and is becoming embedded into teaching practice with even more teachers from more schools choosing to bid for action research grants. In this edition are the final reports of four pieces of research on such diverse topics as using "Transforming Learning", working with gifted and talented pupils, encouraging thinking skills and developing performance. There is also a report of a British Council sponsored visit to New Zealand which is already forging links between schools in Wiltshire and Nelson leading to a cross-fertilisation of ideas.

Each year more studies are being supported by EDP funding and a list of the topics can be found in this edition. Many more projects are still in progress, for example one on using picture books to support pupils with emotional literacy issues has led to 185 books being read, reviewed, graded for suitability of plot/characterisation and illustration and key worded. Teachers at the SPEL centre are now working on developing activities for the most appropriate titles with the eventual aim of providing INSET and guided reading lists. A report of this research plus other projects in progress will be published in subsequent editions of the Journal.
We hope you find this latest edition interesting and informative. If you have any queries or comments please do contact me.

Susan McCulloch, general editor
susanmcculloch@wiltshire.gov.uk

Creativity and Thinking skills:
report of a British Council sponsored visit to New Zealand

Introduction

Intended aims of the visit:

* to research the strategies employed in order to promote creative thinking;
* to look for ways in which a creative approach to teaching and learning is encouraged;
* to consider the impact of creativity on learning styles;
* to establish links with teachers in host schools for continuing use of teacher and pupil liaison;
* to establish a links between Wiltshire LEA and ACENZ, Advisors and Principals in order to share good practice.

Expected outcomes of the visit:

* identify aspects of good practice in creative approaches to teaching and learning and the development of thinking skills;
* establish links with the both the primary schools visited, ACENZ (Association of Colleges of Education in New Zealand who employ the Advisers to support schools) to explore collaborative ideas;
* set up support networks between Headteachers in Wiltshire and Principals in New Zealand;
* share aspects of good practice with other schools in Wiltshire.

How were these to be identified and recorded:

Each teacher kept their own journal and used digital and standard cameras to capture evidence. Group meetings were arranged at the end of most days to share information, make comparisons in practice between schools visited and to reflect on own practice.
ACENZ and the British Council arranged a workshop on Thinking Skills by Jean Edwards, an authority on this area in New Zealand and input from Teresa Hosie. Teresa is a teacher who is leading a project for Gifted and Talented pupils through the use of ICT and using Thinking Skills underpin the process. They also arranged a midpoint discussion with Jean Edwards, Catherine Hannagan, and a representative from ACENZ, Teresa Hosie and some of the principals from the schools we visited.

A debriefing session was held on the morning of our last day to share findings and to carry out an evaluation -this was videoed by colleagues inNew Zealand. Members of the party were also asked to complete evaluation forms for ACENZ and the British Council.

Report of the experience:

We were fortunate to be based in Nelson, to the north of the South Island. Nelson is a town of 50,000 people in a largely rural area where the main industries are fishing, fruit growing, wineries and tourism. The population is mainly of European descent with most of them living in or close to the towns.

It was a privilege to visit the schools in Nelson. Principals were open and honest and gave generously of their time to explain their vision for their schools and in sharing materials. Teachers talked us through their planning and where thinking skills and creativity fitted into their curriculum. All staff in the schools were very welcoming and were happy to spend time talking to us despite it being the end of term. The hospitality is amazing.
The overwhelming impression is of the space available to the schools both for learning and recreation. All classrooms are of a good size and there were excellent adventure playgrounds with unrestricted use by all pupils. All classes have a daily 30 minutes physical activity session outside. There is easy access to outdoors where the children can work in veranda or shaded areas. There was free access to the school with no locked doors and no alarms. The majority of children made their own way to school on foot (or by scooter!).

There is a National Curriculum in New Zealand, which covers seven areas: English, Mathematics, Science, the Arts, Social Studies, Technology and Health and Physical Education. Each subject area has eight skills, which include communication, problem solving, social and co-operative skills and physical skills. Attitudes and values underpin all subjects.
Procedures and practices that reflect New Zealand's cultural diversity and the unique position of Maori culture is evident in all the schools we visited. Tikanga Maori (Maori culture) is taught through a modular programme. Instruction in Te Reo Maori (Maori language) is achieved through additional local resources including teachers or students of Maori. We saw lots of artwork which had a Maori influence including children's paintings based on the Koru design.

One of the schools has the following statement in their strategic plan:
"Brightwater School, as appropriate to the Brightwater Community, will develop procedures and practices that reflect New Zealand's cultural diversity and the unique position of the Maori culture. Brightwater School will take all reasonable steps to provide instruction in Tikanga Maori (Maori culture) and Te Reo Maori (Maori language) for students whose parents request it." They also went on to set out the following actions to support the strategic aims:

* Implement the Te Reo strategic plan so that language is taught through all curriculum areas.
* Seek out and train students who are interested in song and dance, encouraging them to join the Kapa Haka group.
* Develop a library of resources to support Te Reo and Tikanga teaching.
* Have bilingual language.
* Have classroom displays in Te Reo.
* Greet and sing in Te Reo regularly.
* Integrate Te Reo into curriculum areas when planning.

There is a strong emphasis on literacy in the curriculum and a numeracy strategy is being introduced. There are no SAT's and all assessment is by teachers. Schools seemed to have a very relaxed atmosphere. There is a culture of strong positive behaviour management, good co-operation and little friction. The children take pride in their work and have a strong sense of identity and of belonging -not just to their schools but to the community and they are very proud of their country. There are expectations that children will take responsibility for the choices they make.
The children were well behaved and take responsibility for their own actions in and out of the classroom. Older pupils are encouraged to be "buddies" for younger pupils, taking responsibility for them at break-times and in sharing reading books. Seeing children, outside on a veranda or shaded area, working unsupervised on group activities was particularly impressive. Children also manned road-crossing patrols.

Staff development has been provided to enable teachers to identify children with special abilities and enrichment programmes were then provided. This has lead to an examination of the curriculum with a view to redesigning 'coverage' to avoid 'crowded curriculum' issues and to promote a more learner-centred classroom approach.

Schools and teachers are being challenged to move learners deeper into gaining understanding, thinking and problem solving skills and collaborative learning. The way creativity is promoted and fostered differs from school to school and from teacher to teacher within schools. The focus is on teaching to equip students for today and the future and teachers are becoming more aware of the need to develop Creativity in all children, not just the top 10 %.

We observed creative approaches to teaching and learning through themes and opportunities for children to engage in large-scale artwork, dance, drama, and music including singing and in one school African drumming.
Thinking strategies

The teaching of thinking skills is fairly new to New Zealand Primary Schools, as it is in England. Some of the Primary Schools visited were beginning to use Bloom's Taxonomy, a strategy that consciously incorporates higher level thinking, (analysis, synthesis and evaluation), in all subject areas. It offers gifted students a higher proportion of the higher level activities and teaches independent study skills too.

There are six levels of Thinking Skills:
1. Knowledge - Checking that you can remember the details.
2. Comprehension - Checking that you understand the information.
3. Application - Making use of what is known.
4. Analysis - Breaking down information into its parts.
5. Synthesis - Using original, creative thinking to design, compose or construct.
6. Evaluation - Judging the value of the material, justifying or criticising as appropriate.

Edward de Bono's Thinking Hats may be used throughout the Primary age range. These are used to crystallise the thinking process. It is user friendly and, once taught, can be used as a cross-curricular tool for teachers and pupils. The pupils in one school were working on Six Hats thinking to follow an African Drumming workshop. They were asked about their feelings (red hat) what they liked (yellow hat) and what they had learnt from the session (white hat). The hats can also be combined, e.g. Decision-making = yellow and black, (to look at strengths and weaknesses of an idea). Looking for opportunities = white and yellow, (the facts we know and the good points or strengths).Distinguishing between fact and opinion = red and white, (feelings and facts).Creativity Starters -A statement is given to pupils for them to elaborate on, e.g. If the Earth were a cube. Pupils' responses are given a numerical value according to fluency, originality and degree of elaboration. Strategies include P.M.I. (Plus, Minus and Interesting) which are categories for exploring new concepts. Alternatively the headings of Fact, Fiction and Opinion can be used when deliberating the authenticity of texts.

One further example was the concept of a continuum in which pupils make decisions for themselves with no right or wrong answers. This was illustrated in a topic on Castles. Pupils were asked to consider the character of a knight. If they would have liked to have been a knight they stood at one end of the line. If they disliked the idea they stood at the other end. Pupils contributed to a discussion on what being a knight entailed and they were then allowed to change their views and therefore their positions in the line. This was followed up with a worksheet for other castle characters.
Another school has adopted a problem solving and research process under the acronym SAUCE. It has been designed as a tool to help teachers implement information literacy, higher thinking skills, problem solving, collaborative learning and essential skills, including the use of I.C.T. The initial letters of SAUCE stand for:
S setting the scene
A acquiring information
U using information
C communicating information
E evaluating information

The task was set -"Brightwater is just another town" -which included arts, technology, science and social studies. The Head, along with key staff, has developed a whole school Vision for Learning.

Other examples we saw were:

* In a social study unit focussing on responsibility and caring, the children had to use the Thinking Hats approach to consider 'All children aged 5 and over should egg sit for a week every year.'
* Year 5 and 6 classes had done a risk assessment activity prior to going on their annual camp for a week; this was done as a PMI (plus, minus and interest).

OTHER INTERESTING INITIATIVES OBSERVED:

AtoL -Assessment to Learn

This focuses primarily on setting specific and challenging goals with students to provide the most appropriate learning opportunities.
Partnerships in learning are fostered by providing specific feedback to students and working with them to identify their next learning steps.
Using information to improve learning by modifying teaching programmes to ensure continuity of education for individual students.
Developing high quality assessment tools, not only what is put in front of the students, but also using exemplars as a benchmark to enable a more accurate measurement of where students are in relation to national achievements.

In the past the criteria for achievement has not been shared between teacher and pupil. Now the transparency is enabling students to be better judges of their progress and the effort / assistance still required.

The Numeracy Project

This promotes problem solving and logical thinking.
It promotes 'paper free' thinking.
The emphasis is on the strategy, not the correct answer.
It necessitates collaborative group work.
Manipulation of materials is an important factor.

Literacy

The Literacy Taskforce is aware that the Literacy Strategy is about both raising achievement for all students, including the gifted and talented and closing the gap between the lowest and highest achievers.

The strategy arose from the report of the Literacy Taskforce, published by the Ministry of Education in 1999. It provides direction for a range of policies, projects and programmes aimed at improving achievement in Literacy and Numeracy by learners at every level of New Zealand's educational system.

I.C.T. Initiative

Professional Development programmes in the use of I.C.T. have had little effect in the classrooms so a new approach is needed. The Government is investing heavily in this area as it perceives that Information and Communications Technology has become an important and successful tool for students' learning.

The Primary Enterprise Programme

PrEP engages all students in the design and operation of their own community through integrating the school curricula. In this community the students form their own government, hold jobs and have market places for goods and services. Students run ventures in such professions as banking, broadcasting and community services. Students may design a school-based currency with one venture providing a banking service. Through their exchange of goods and services they create jobs for one another. Students earn an income for their work, save and invest school money in their ventures. They pay taxes to support their own government.

For the students this is purposeful, practical and fun learning, turning problems into solutions. Scores in reading, writing and mathematics have been seen to have improved.

For the teacher there is the opportunity to teach pupils across age levels and cater for all learning styles. The curriculum develops skills, which include the areas of communication, problem solving, and co-operation.

Evaluation

The visit enabled colleagues to reflect on their own practice -it was useful to see similarities in practice but even more so to reflect on the differences. Teachers appear to have more flexibility and choices in New Zealand. There is a positive approach to teaching and learning –teachers are confident, enthusiastic and relaxed! Developing good relationships has a high profile in each of the schools visited. Colleagues were impressed with the way in which schools were developing thinking skills across the curriculum. Helped us all to realise that "thinking skills" cannot be separated from learning, you can't learn without thinking. The lectures on thinking skills gave an insight into how these techniques can be adapted for use in our own classes. Developing thinking skills is not something that can take place once or twice a week -it needs to underpin the whole curriculum and opportunities should be built into medium and short-term planning.
Observing how the three schools were developing thinking skills in different ways gave greater scope for colleagues from the UK to follow up in their own schools.

Colleagues were particularly impressed with the way in which pupils were encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning -carrying out a risk assessment before going on a camp and manning the road traffic patrols. There was also a strong sense of identity and belonging - through the use of themes on family, school and the community. In one school children were not expected to put up their hands if they had something to say -children did not interrupt each other or talk over each other, it was just like a conversation and a sharing of ideas –very impressive. This made us question why do we expect pupils to respond in certain ways and how does this impact on their learning? Do we give our children enough opportunities to develop independent learning skills? Do we value their contributions? We intend to reflect on how we can introduce some of the strategies observed in our schools.

The quality of teaching and learning was seen to vary tremendously within the three schools visited. In general the expectations of pupils to perform at a given ,academic level were lower than we perceive in England. For example pupils in Years Five and Six do not join their letters in handwriting and only occasionally use punctuation. However, pupils do take responsibility for their learning and their behaviour. They are confident, well-balanced and healthy children with an interest in their lessons and the world about them.

The expectation is that pupils will learn through a process of self-discovery, without the appropriate skills being taught. This was evident in pupils' artwork where there was a lack of knowledge as to the properties of materials, use of appropriate tools and no colour mixing in painting.
Pupils were given the responsibility to choose the order in which they were to work in the morning sessions. Mathematics tended to be worksheet based and free writing was allowed each day. For those pupils who did not complete their work by lunchtime, they were expected to complete the work in their own time.

However, the group felt that children in the UK are treated like hot houseplants and forced to achieve too soon which can impact on them enjoying learning and wanting to learn. We all agreed that the difference in achievement would pan out and that the children in the Nelson schools are left with more positive attitudes to learning and work ethic -they can work effectively by themselves.

Staff rooms were generally attractive rooms with a relaxed atmosphere -learning and teaching is fun! Colleagues hope to take more "risks" when they return to the UK -developing creative approaches to teaching that make learning purposeful and that enthuse and motivate pupils into becoming life-long learners. An information rich environment forces us to look at our teaching to equip children for today and the future -we are becoming more aware of developing creativity of all children.

How can the findings be applied to the UK context?

Building in flexibility into the curriculum to develop cross-curricular links and working on whole school themes.

Treating teachers as professionals and allowing them to make more choices and decisions e.g. if something is working well then run with it -remove some of the time constraints.

Modify School Development plans and organisation where necessary and impact on teaching content, learning styles! techniques employed through enhanced opportunities.

Build on the suggestions within "Excellence and Enjoyment."

Use some of the strategies seen for encouraging pupils to make choices and take responsibility for their own learning -giving them ownership.

Colleagues have been given the opportunity to reflect on their own teaching and discuss creative approaches to both teaching and learning. They have also seen how the use of thinking skills can underpin the curriculum and have a positive impact on the quality of pupils' learning.

How will you apply them to your work?

* Explore cross curricular links and whole school themes
* Developing child-centred, flexible approaches to learning
* E-mail links have already been established between the schools visited in New Zealand and participating schools in Wiltshire
* Many of the teachers in the group teach in schools that are developing thinking skills but they feel that the range of thinking skills need to be extended and a model for creative thinking adopted to ensure that there a hierarchy of skills that pupils can progress through.
* Incorporating opportunities for thinking skills in medium and short term planning.
* Lead inset on Jean Edward's materials on thinking skills
* One school is going to organise a "Think Fest(ival)" -this would be part of the whole school fun curriculum that are already established
* Gifted and Talented pupils -propose the setting up of a cluster based group, offering these children termly sessions organised and led by each school or linked with the secondary school to develop using some of the strategies used by Teresa Hosie and the pilot for G&T pupils in Nelson

How do you now intend to disseminate the findings of your visit?

* Displays in individual schools and at the Professional Development Centres
* Key Learning outcomes will be disseminated through reports and presentations to governors and teachers in participating schools
* Presentation to the LEA Schools Branch
* An article in the Wiltshire Journal and the Research and Development journal.
Proposals for future developments and continuing links:
* Inset planned and awareness raising sessions organised, based on the materials produced by Jean Edwards on developing Thinking Skills.
* Team leader to meet with colleagues to discuss establishing links with the Advisory service in New Zealand
* Team leader to follow up link with one of the principals who is interested in the work in Wiltshire re establishing support networks for Headteachers
* Teresa Hosie is visiting the UK in June -have arranged visits to some of the participant's schools and a meeting with the Advisers for ICT and Gifted and Talented pupils
* All three primary schools visited have exchanged addresses and email details. We intend to stay in contact with the schools and exchange ideas and information.
* The group intends to meet half-termly to continue to share ideas and reflect on the impact on own practice.

Shirley Palmer, Schools Branch
Team leader of visit to Nelson, New Zealand

Gifted and Talented Provision in the classroom and throughout the school.

What were my original aims?

Gifted and Talented or Able children were recognised in our rural school. We wanted to be able to meet the needs of our Gifted and Talented pupils, from Foundation Stage through to Year Six, by strengthening the provision we offered.

We were interested in

* how we defined Gifted and Talented;
* where and when we identified Gifted and Talented;
* the provision they received;
* how we would be able to link this research to on-going Creativity work in our school.

The research should help us address

* the quality of provision for Gifted and Talented pupils in our school;
* the current definitions for Gifted and Talented pupils in our school;
* our Gifted and Talented provision becoming linked with ongoing "creative initiatives";
* a greater understanding of the emotional literacy needs of our Gifted and Talented pupils.

In what ways did I refine my aims?

After attending two initial sessions by Rick Shade from Oxford Brookes University on Teaching and Learning for Gifted and Talented Pupils during Spring Term 2003, we felt that much progress could be made by making improvements to teaching/improving the learning experience of our Gifted and Talented pupils. In order better to meet the learning needs of our Gifted and Talented pupils, our understanding of Gifted and Talented needed to be more clearly defined in our minds and in our practice. We soon realised that subtle changes in our teaching should have a great effect upon our Gifted and Talented pupils as well as on all pupils "A rising tide floats all boats".
During the Spring Term 2004, following pupil interviews, an issue arose concerning the effect upon those not "selected" for the County-run Able child courses which was to cause us to review our procedures for publicising and allocating places.

Research processes I found helpful

This was the first research project that I had undertaken and was daunted at the outset, but found that as the project evolved it had an empowering element. During the activities I set up, I became increasingly confident and subject aware. The processes used were:-

* Attendance at the Gifted and Talented sessions held at the P.D.C. Melksham run by Rick Shade. These sessions provided the background and brief history of the subject. They were thought provoking and inspiring. It was a great way to begin the research.

* Reading the materials presented to me during the training sessions run by Oxford Brookes University. The readings were full of ideas and knowledge.

* Undertaking a SWOT analysis of Gifted and Talented provision.

* Undertaking the "Implications for teaching and learning in your school" activity.

* Considering the Strengths and Limitations of identification methods, activity as part of initial thinking.

* Observation of Gifted and Talented pupils.

* Interviews with Gifted and Talented pupils.

* Evaluating pupils’ performance.

Research processes my pupils found helpful.
Pupils indicated during interviews

* That they were pleased to have their particular strengths identified and recorded in a whole school Gifted and Talented Register, whilst acknowledging the feelings of those children not included in the register, in any subject or discipline.

* That it was good to feel affirmed as able, by adults in the school.

* That Gifted and Talented pupils should have the opportunity to "Do what they are good at". Some of the Gifted and Talented pupils displayed disappointment at the limited availability of some of the Able Child courses.

* Some of the children reported that they did not like the separation involved in certain Gifted and Talented provision, such as football academies or residential courses and that they would be more willing to attend with their own friends.

* All children interviewed could see the benefit of curriculum courses for Gifted and Talented pupils. All wished to be invited to such courses.

The children interviewed were of mixed ability including Gifted and Talented pupils.

The frank responses of the children were greatly appreciated and their belief that "all are different, not better" was gratifying and showed a surprisingly mature approach on the part of these young children.

The learning points I gained from undertaking the research and what evidence I had to monitor this.

* I have learned that we try our best to do the right thing for our pupils but found out that what we perceive as good practice, is not always addressing the children’s exact needs.

* I found it hard not to become hijacked by new ideas and stick to the original aims and timescale of the research.

* That whole staff involvement from the outset of a project would aid whole school success.

* I have learnt the importance of reflection time in my work.

* That good practice is constantly changing and we owe it to our pupils to keep up with current thinking and seek to adapt our teaching to reflect new ideas.

* That Research can affect students’ learning and teachers’ teaching directly.

* That Research projects are a valuable part of school culture and raise teacher competencies.

* The importance of an action plan and project timeline.

Questions for my future practice.

* How to keep Gifted and Talented a priority in the next school year?
* How to monitor provision for Gifted and Talented pupils when G&T is not on SDP?
* Does our cluster group require regular G&T meetings?

Questions for my school

* How to continue to provide a strong Gifted and Talented provision for able pupils whilst avoiding demotivating other pupils?
* How to create an ethos of achievement that values and rewards all, including Gifted and Talented pupils?
* Should Gifted and Talented provision appear in both Medium Term Plans and Short Term Plans?

Questions for further research

* How do G&T pupils cope with the pressures of their ability?
* What strategies do G&T pupils use when work is not sufficiently stretching?
* Would fast-tracking work in our school?

How will I disseminate my findings?

* Planned Staff Meetings
* Cluster Meetings
* Offer report to the Association for the Study of Primary Education (ASPE).

Paddy Macey – Alderbury and West Grimstead CEVA Primary School

Helping pupils think about thinking Project

– paper edited by Peter Ward, East Salisbury Cluster

Background:The headteachers of Idmiston and Winterslow Primary Schools met with me in July 2001 to outline a project which would involve a cluster of schools working on the development of thinking skills across the curriculum. I would introduce the activities to all schools and leave the teachers and pupils with ideas to use in the classroom with the aim of enhancing thinking.

There were four session altogether repeated twice so all members of the cluster could be involved.

The programme involved:

* An introduction to how we learn and what we need to do to make learning more likely;

* Wizard hat thinking; a version of Edward de Bono's 6 hat thinking model. Pupils were encouraged to use the thinking hat strategy to solve problems and come up with creative solutions see appendix 3

* Working together; memory and collaboration. Pupils worked together on a activity which encouraged close collaboration and speaking and listening skills.

* Robotics: pupils were given the opportunity to work with computer and make robots which would respond to simple programmes

The schools involved in the project were:

Idmiston CE Primary School; Winterslow CE Primary School; Gomeldon Primary School; St. Andrew's Primary School; Pitton Primary School and Winterboume Earls CE Primary School

Dr. Tom Robson
Science Adviser, Schools’ Branch

Appendix 1 – reports from the participating schools

Evaluation by Wendy Jenkins a Teaching Assistant at Winterslow Primary School

As a Teaching Assistant involved in the delivery of a social skills programme which aims to help children develop specific skills and attitudes for making friends, I focus on increasing positive and desirable behaviour. Having the opportunity to be involved in the programme "Helping Pupils think about Thinking" was of particular interest to me and it was so beneficial to observe the many talents of Tom Robson.

The children were interested and motivated throughout each session. The programme encouraged the children to work together, value each other's contribution, follow direction and develop their speaking and listening skills. With growing confidence they were able to express and initiate ideas. Tom's enthusiasm for the programme was obvious and consistent; the delivery was fun and exciting.

The questioning techniques used by Tom were extremely good, an area I intend to develop personally, so it was of particular interest to me. Tom used various techniques, always thought-provoking and encouraged the children to take risks with confidence and self-belief. The notes provided with the programme are of considerable help to me with lots of practical advice and, they are a good reference source.

Children were constantly encouraged to be responsible for the organisation and preparation of activities, and when working together in this way they were interacting, problem-solving and developing relationships. This heightened my awareness of the many opportunities I have when working with groups of children and is also relevant to all areas of my work. To have the opportunity to observe was of great value.

Thank you for introducing me to the "Six Hat Thinking". As a Teaching Assistant it is always great to discover another 'tool'. My role is quite diverse and I anticipate being able to use this in many areas including sharing it with colleagues. The main area I would like to try it in would be in the reception class! It would be a brilliant tool for focusing on specific ideas or problems, and fantastic to promote 'working together'. Initially I see the adult in the blue-hat, but not for long!

I found the programme of great value in my role as a Teaching Assistant. It was a positive experience and so worthwhile for adults and children alike to focus on thinking and learning, a refreshing and beneficial change of emphasis from the usual teaching methodology.

Thinking Skills review

The Year 4 children were totally engaged in the first session with Tom. They had been rather hesitant initially having not met Tom or their peers from 2 other primary schools . However, they found the information regarding the brain totally fascinating and their follow up discussions exhibited that they had retained plenty of information.

After the second session whereby Edward De Bono's Thinking Hats were introduced within a group activity the children shared briefly with the remainder of the class how the hats worked. The children clearly remembered the specific coloured hat which they had to wear and it's properties.

In Late November I attended a Learning to Think, Thinking To Learn course in which the principles of accelerated learning were incorporated with thinking skills and I was so enthused I decided to trial the ideas within our class. In addition I many of the practical suggestions were introduced in a staff meeting for other staff to try . The major input for thinking skills with the whole class was after the Christmas holiday when a Thinking Skills board was introduced for the class. There is a set of laminated cards with various headings such as " Add to me , solve me , What am I thinking, problem of the day I etc " The ideas, pictures etc are rotated approximately every 2 weeks and it has been interesting to see the type of tasks which the children enjoy and those which they avoid. For example, they love finding words in words but hate starting with an answer and thinking of a question. The question of when and how the board was to be used seemed to be a concern as I wanted it to be a fairly open ended free choice activity. It was agreed that the session would be used when guided readers were working. Some children were completing handwriting etc I therefore enabling all children to have time during the week. As the boards have progressed I have linked it to other curriculum areas and themes which are being taught elsewhere in the curriculum
.
After the session with Tom whereby the children had to solve a mystery and complete a map from memory, the task to create a spider from the story which they were telling to one another was a popular choice .1 enabled the children to complete their task within the thinking skills group, during class art lessons I and explain to the rest of the class their task. In addition, when the class were focusing on Adjectival phrases within Literacy, the thinking skills group used this to form descriptions of the spider, an extra dimension to the collage work.

The next step was how to incorporate the thinking hats within the whole class. The children decided that they wanted to explain their workings fully to the rest of the class ,which they did with examples. My job share partner and I decided to make some thinking hats of the different colours, but fortunately , Tom was one step ahead and brought a set of them to the last session. Since their arrival, they have been pegged at either side of the whiteboard which has enabled them to be referred to during lessons.

In a class circle time which was involving feelings and self esteem, the children asked if they could put the red "Feeling" hat onto our puppet, Max, and pass it round as they spoke. The next step will be to use hats of the same colour for the same activity, so the children are able to view and solve problems from different perceptions.

I have even used the hats when another child was sent to me for aggravating other children, and we talked through how they were feeling ,( red) how they thought the other would feel (red hat), what was bad ,( black) and how it could be made better (yellow), by using three hats. Furthermore, during the last circle time with the class, they asked if they could take the Thinking Hats to the school council and explain how they worked. They did so , and all classes have been asked to discuss if they want to use them, how they could be used etc.

I have recently visited a school in Poole which is at least 4 years" down the road" of Accelerated learning, Thinking Hats, skills etc , and hopefully we may be able to work with them closely in the future and gain more of an insight. Certainly the project has been of enormous benefit to the small group of children who worked with Tom, and more importantly, it has had a very positive impact on the class as a whole, their learning styles, and the way in which teaching is adapted for this. Many ideas are being incorporated within other classes, and the next step which is in preliminary stages is the use of mind mapping. This has been trialled at the start of a science topic, and nearer to the end of a class topic. Not only do the children love to see their concept map grow I it is a simple and effective way in which to assess children.

We look forward to the next stage, a training day on mind mapping in the near future. So far, all the techniques and methods used have had a very positive impact on children's learning and behaviour as a whole.

E. Matiera

Headteacher, Idmiston C.E. (VA) Primary School

Evaluation of Accelerated Learning programme at Gomeldon Primary School

Background

Gomeldon Primary School is committed to implementing and developing a school wide programme of accelerated learning for its teachers and pupils. Together with all of the schools in the South East Rural Cluster we have received in- service training from nationally recognised trainers. (Chris Dickenson and Nicky Anastasiou). As a result of this training, teachers are aware of recent research surrounding the development and function of the brain. Teachers know the learning preferences of their pupils and how to vary their own teaching style to promote effective learning. All teachers have embraced individual targets for their classrooms to include: planning for VAK learners, taking brain breaks, using mind mapping techniques, modelling positive behaviour and allowing children access to water. There are also several whole school accelerated learning targets which include testing all of the children to determine their learning strengths and preferences and using brain gym activities.

Small Schools Initiative

The schools in the South East Cluster, applied for, and received funding as part of the Small Schools Initiative to run a project with Dr Tom Robson. Each school selected 8 Year 4 pupils of 'average' ability. The schools then organised themselves into two teams with Gomeldon, Idmiston and Winterslow forming one group and Pitton, Laverstock and Winterbourne Earls forming the other group. Dr Robson led four sessions with pupils and teachers. I accompanied the pupils during each of the four sessions and disseminated information to staff subsequently. The input that Dr Robson delivered to the pupils complemented and extended much of the training that teachers have received to date.

The first session was held at Idmiston. During this session pupils learnt about the parts of the brain and their function. Dr Robson underlined the importance to pupils and teachers of understanding the fight! flight function of the brain and of pupils and teachers identifying their own learning preferences and teaching styles. One of the key messages to come from the first session, particularly for teachers, was the importance of giving unconditional praise and positive affirmation.

The second session was held at Winterslow. This session focused on thinking skills. The pupils made wizard hats. (The red hat was worn by the 'feely wizard' who could only ask feeling questions. The wizard with the yellow hat could only be positive while the wizard with the black hat could only be negative). I can see the many strengths and applications for this kind of teaching. The hats could be used, for example, during the introduction to a lesson or during a lesson to determine or steer the kind of pupil interactions and responses to stimuli. I would welcome further input and training on thinking skills

The third session was held at Gomeldon. Unfortunately and perhaps predictably since I was on site I was called away to deal with issues and missed most of the session. The pupils were able to describe the activity to me but seemed unsure about its purpose. Most thought that it was designed to develop memory since they were asked to memorise a map for 30 seconds and then reproduce what they could remember without looking at the map.

During the final session the pupils worked with lego technic models. Vince Marriot led this session. He explained how to programme the models and then set a challenge for the groups. The groups worked with varying amounts of success. All of the groups were able to programme the models to carry out part of the challenge set. The groups were made up of pupils from all of the participating schools. The level of co-operation and collaboration between pupils was high. All of the pupils responded positively to ideas and were willing to explore and experiment.

Dr Robson's input during this project has been invaluable. Due to the timescale involved it has only been possible to get a taster of the kind of innovative and creative teaching and learning that is possible from the development of accelerated learning. The four sessions have been inspirational and valuable, leading to new approaches to teaching in classrooms. Teachers and pupils are aware of teaching styles and learning preferences as a result of which teachers use a greater range of teaching styles to connect with the pupils in their class. Teachers show more awareness of pupils' emotional needs and responses and the pupils themselves are beginning to develop intra personal skills. Parents have been kept informed of the development of accelerated learning. I led a presentation for parents on 12.3.03 in which I talked about teaching and learning styles and preferences/multiple intelligences. I would now like further input on thinking skills. It would also be extremely useful to have training for TAs and MDSAs, which could be organised by individual schools but would, I think, be more valuable if delivered by a trained and external practitioner so that they all received the same input. I am also keen to discuss the impact of the project on the quality of teaching and learning at the other cluster schools.

Joe Sonnenfeld
.
Thinking Skills Workshop Evaluation

Cluster:

Winterslow Idmiston Gomeldon

Overview of sessions:

There were four thinking skills workshops. Each school hosted at least one of the meetings. Dr. Tom gave the children the background to his life and told them how he used to look inside people's heads. He gave them the big picture immediately. They were aware of the purpose of the sessions. The children were captivated by Dr. Tom immediately and enjoyed the very positive nature of his work. They particularly enjoyed having their hands stamped with important 'Wiltshire awards'.
Children's Response:

The children remember each session clearly and could express orally clear opinions about each one. Each child has learned more about themselves as individuals and how they learn best. For all of them, when questioned the most remembered point was what happens in your head when you say 'I can't.'

Implications for the classroom:

The children loved the idea of wearing a different coloured hat for different kinds of thinking and questioning. The eight children that attended the workshops, introduced the idea of 'thinking caps' to the rest of the class. We have used the coloured caps given to us by Dr. Tom to help us solve problems. Different children wear a different coloured hat and ask a particular type of question about the problem. This is becoming more successful as we are becoming more familiar with using this idea.

Professional Development:

1 have found these sessions very informative and thought provoking. It was a fantastic experience to see such an expert at work. Watching theory put into practice made it more useful and you could see first hand the effects the sessions were having on the children's development. It was also very useful to have the opportunity of working with staff from other schools. 1 have considered carefully my own teaching in light of these sessions. Specifically I have changed the way that 1 use questions in my classroom. 1 want my children to question things and through their questioning acquire knowledge and understanding of the world in which they live. 1 have to use questioning positively and not to make children feel uncomfortable thus associating questioning with something
negative for e.g. "Do you have to interrupt me?" - becomes Please do not interrupt ,

Lynn Fortis [Class Teacher]

Thinking Skills Evaluation

There were 4 sessions:

1.

Making up a group storyThe children enjoyed working with children from other schools, having to collaborate with them to come up with a group story. It was a very good introduction to getting the children to work together.

2.

Thinking hatsThe children enjoyed making the hats and since being back in school we have used the hats to develop their thinking skills. We have even used the concepts in our staff meetings.

3.

Drawing the islandThis was the weakest of the sessions because we ran out of time. The initial idea of drawing a map was very good for group organisation but we needed more time to take it further.

4.

Lego robotThe kit was really for older aged children but the children did very well despite the time constraints.

Overall the children enjoyed most going to other schools and having the opportunity of working with different children. I have reported back to the rest of the staff the ideas covered in the sessions. There were lots of practical ideas which fitted in with our existing work on accelerated learning. We have taken on board Tom's enthusiastic ways and his success in rewarding children's thinking as opposed to just getting the question correct.
Initially Tom was talking about children's preferred learning style (VAK), I was disappointed that this theme was not further developed throughout the sessions.

Report from Pitton School

St. Andrew's School, Laverstock

Helping pupils think about thinking: using thinking as a tool for enhancing learning.

Project led by Tom Robson

General Evaluation

The children thoroughly enjoyed the sessions and would get really excited when they knew they were going that week. The importance of the classroom needing to be a place where it was safe to ask questions or make mistakes was stressed and this coupled with Tom's enthusiasm really did mean the children got a lot out of it. As a teacher I learnt a lot both about how children learn and it reminded me of the paramount importance of the child/teacher relationship. It was also good (for the children and me) to work with schools in our cluster on a learning focus.

Session 1: Introduction/Group StoryThe group story using pictures, working collaboratively in a group and linking pictures together. A good idea that I will use again with my class - all the children were involved.

Session 2 - Wizard Hat ThinkingWizard type hats - children loved it! It showed clearly the structured way that the thinking hats could be introduced. It caught the children's imagination and certainly helped to channel their thinking. I appreciated the way that further examples of curriculum links were given.

Session 3 - The Island MapEncouraged the children to work cooperatively, use their imagination and to broaden their (and mine!) vocabulary! Everyone had a real purpose in their group and again lots of fun!

Session 4 - Lego/RoboticsA great opportunity for the children to work with the technology. The children worked extremely well in groups to work together, follow the instructions and build the cars. I learnt lots about their wider skills. Unfortunately we ran out of time to program the cars but the possibilities were opened up for the children and as a result of this a member of staff is going on a training course linked to the kit.

Outcomes for our school

* The children had a great time and lots of new experiences
* Teacher's skills developed
* Teacher ran staff meeting on ideas from the sessions
* Another teacher to attend the Lego/Robotics Programming
* Our own school set of Thinking Hats!
....A beneficial project.

Thinking about thinking

This was a great opportunity for several schools to work together and learn some finer details to enable children to think in different ways in order to solve problems.

The children from the three schools mixed well together and responded well to the set tasks. They found working at different venues, with other children of their own age, an enjoyable experience and this was commented on in their feed-back.

I am looking forward to using the 'hats' with my class but this needs some further planning and preparation before I try this out. This will be a different approach and will need some practice but I hope it will help me to extend the children's own questioning and information gathering skills.

Mrs. Gillian Turley
Year 4 Class Teacher
Winterboume Earls C.E. Primary School

Appendix 2

Tom Robson Thinking Skills – pupil questionnaire – 7 responses to a school questionnaire1.

Have you enjoyed working with Dr. Tom?

Yes because he makes it funny and lively.
Yes he is very funny to work with and has big surprises
Yes, because he makes me jump!

Yes I have enjoyed working with Dr Tom. I especially like when is he is talking quietly and then shouts out loud..Yes he is very funny and fun
Yes, he is very interesting and fill of laughter and surprises
Yes I have because he was funny (which was fun)

2. What have you learned about the way you think and learn?
I don't like working in big groups I learn best when I work on my own.
If you be happy and want to learn you will live longer
I like working in groups and especially with other children
That learning is a lot more complicated than I thought it was

I have learned that in my head if you say I can’t your drawers in your head get locked up and you learn more if you smile
I have learnt about the parts of the brain and no say "I can’t" and actually think about what to say. If you want and know you can, you can, of not then you can’t and live longer if you smileI learnt not to say "I can’t"

3. Did you enjoy having the chance to work with children from other schools?

Sort of because I liked meeting new people but it didn't feel right working with children from a different school.
Yes because I can make new friends and get better ideas
Yes and it helped me work a lot
Yes I did because when you’re happy you learn more and when you’re working in groups your are happier.
Yes because we worked as a teamYes because they will have different ideas and learn in different ways Yes because it gave me a chance to know other children

4. Can you describe your favourite session?
My favourite session was with the Lego Buggy.

My favourite session had to be the lego bunnies because of the programming and to watch the bunnies moveThe lego bunnies because we used the computer and worked as a team
Yes it was very interesting learning about our brain and very exciting
My favourite part was when Doctor Tom was saying when he was a scientist
5. Is there anything you would have changed about the workshops?
wouldn’t like to change anything

Yes, I would make the sessions much longer
No there isn’t any
No I wouldn’t like to change anything
Yes, let us have more time to work out things
There is only one, I would have more lessons
I would not like to change anything
More feedback from pupils

A Report on Using Transforming Learning

at South Wilts Girls Grammar School, Salisbury

What Is Transforming Learning?

Transforming Learning (TL) is an internet-based professional development package. Teachers opt to use the material, working at their own pace, with the aim of better understanding the "climate" of learning that exists within their classroom, in order to identify ways to address and improve climate aspects. At its core is the belief that teachers have the will and capacity to seek measurable improvement in the learning climate experienced by the pupils in their charge. It is a way of bringing a non-threatening rigour to teachers’ thinking about the work they do, and the impact it has upon learning. Over a period of typically a term teachers work in parallel with a small group from within a nominated class to review and reflect upon what the "feel" of the classroom is as a place for learning. The data that emerges from this becomes the context for teacher-directed, classroom focused improvement planning.

TL has its origins in the Hay McBer report Research Into Teacher Effectiveness (June 2000) where research sought to clarify what it is that constitutes teacher effectiveness. The report concluded that there were three main factors within teachers’ control that significantly influence pupil progress:

* teaching skills
* professional characteristics
* classroom climate

Following publication, and drawing upon their lead role in designing head teacher development materials, the Hay group devised an internet resource that specifically targeted teachers and their classroom climate. Climate was here defined as:
… the collective perceptions by pupils of what it feels like to be a pupil
in any particular teacher’s classroom, where those perceptions influence
every student’s motivation to learn and perform to the best of his or her
ability

(section 1.4.1. of Research Into Teacher Effectiveness)

Analysing further this notion of "climate",

Hay McBer in the June 2000 report identified nine "dimensions" that represent aspects of how pupils feel in a teacher’s classroom:

1. Clarity
2. Order
3. Standards
4. Fairness
5. Participation
6. Support
7. Safety
8. Interest
9. Environment

Each of these dimensions was derived from extensive research conducted by the Hay Group, one facet of which was – for example – lesson observation and follow-up interviews with the stakeholders within the classroom. What is it that motivates and supports your learning in this lesson, with this teacher? It is with these dimensions that teachers are encouraged to engage through their use of TL, working over a number of months through the stages described below.

How does Transforming Learning work?

Looked at in summary terms:

A/ A school purchases a licence (with the cost dependent on the size of the school) to use TL. For a school the size of South Wilts this is typically £1500. It receives a parcel of guidance and support documentation, including technical advice, handbooks, presentation materials, teacher packs (with individual confidential passwords), handouts and posters. Within this is detailed advice about how the school can best launch TL with its staff. For example, the wisdom of making sure the leadership team is fully supportive of the commitment, and the desirability of nominating an individual to launch and lead the school’s participation.
B/ Prior to launch, a designated member of the staff registers the school on the site, entering basic data (number on role, type of school, etc).
C/ Teachers then become "users", having been given starter booklets and their confidential password.
D/ Users – on-line – read some initial tutorial material on the key concepts and research base that underpin the material.
E/ Teachers are urged to reflect on their classroom practice and behaviours, and the climate they believe is established as a result.
F/ This is followed by self-analysis/review where they answer a detailed set of scaled questions derived from the nine climate elements
G/ Teachers nominate a target class and sub-group within it that also completes an on-line questionnaire.
H/ Results are collated on-line from both parties and become comparative data, graphically presented and focused on the nine climate elements, upon which the teachers are coached to reflect (e.g. noting interesting points of agreement and disagreement, and aiming to understand the reason for the differences)
I/ Again with on-line support and guidance, users are directed to construct an action plan of tactics and strategies that target the teachers’ nominated areas (e.g. environment and fairness because it emerged that it was with these two elements that there was the greatest divergence between pupil and teacher perception)
J/ Users implement their action plan and then at a point in the future re-test the group to gauge the impact of the action taken.
K/ Users are then encouraged and enabled by the material to review their progress, to re-direct their attention, or to recommence a further cycle either with a different target class or the same one.

Moving beyond the level of individual teachers, there is also within the package the means for certain designated/permitted members of the school to access data but with an associated mechanism that ensures confidentiality and anonymity is maintained. This data could be about climate within certain subject departments, within a year group, a key stage, or indeed the school as a whole. The integrity and confidentiality of the data is guaranteed in as much as it only becomes available when a critical minimum number of participants are involved.

Why Use Transforming Learning?

Prior to embarking on a project of this kind (with its not insignificant costs in financial, management, and staff development terms) potential user-schools need to be clear about what they hope to gain from the investment. Among the anticipated benefits that will follow from a robust commitment are:

Increased individual and whole-school knowledge of potentially powerful improvement research - there is much within the original report that teachers and leaders can draw upon as part of their continuing debate about and explorations of teaching and learning.

Heightened self-awareness – can bring more insightful and precise knowledge of what we as teachers do in our classrooms and the potential impact

Increased evidence-based reflection and discussion - can provide a focus for peer or line-manager observation and analysis; can be evidence in a range of contexts (performance management; threshold/UPS processes; Key Stage 3 Strategy impact evaluation); a way to get through the classroom doors and the occasional reluctance teachers have for talking openly about their practice.

Impetus to action – the self-directed nature of the experience, and the very personalised nature of the journey through the stages of using TL can be motivating and become the catalyst for taking action; "it’s hard to ignore the data… to not do something about it once you’ve decided to go for it…" (from an interview with a South Wilts user)

Standardising the discourse of teacher reflection – can give teachers a commonly developed and understood language to standardise professional conversations about teaching and learning; the Hay McBer Report itself is happy, for example, to talk of a "dictionary of characteristics" of the effective teacher.

More intelligently targeted improvement – a tool for enabling more focused and data-driven review, action planning and evaluation, with its roots firmly bedded in the "feel" and climate of teachers’ classrooms.

The Experience of Using Transforming Learning (TL) at South Wilts

Contexts for Transforming Learning

In the autumn term of 2000 South Wilts Girls Grammar School dedicated the first half of one of two September development days to looking as a whole staff at the Hay McBer report Research Into Teacher Effectiveness. This was prompted by the school’s on-going commitment to focusing upon teaching and learning, and was in anticipation of the need for the nurturing of a whole-school mindset that would embrace national developments such as Threshold and Performance Management with positivity. Yes, South Wilts is a school used to and increasingly skilled in asking questions about itself, but given the arrival of PM there was still the need to coax attitudes a little. The day went well with evaluations suggesting participants had gained from "going back to basics" for a while and reminding ourselves of what we do and of the impact of our skills, characteristics and the climate we build in our classrooms. The next day, South Wilts staff attended three very successful sessions run by Chris Baker, a nationally renowned trainer, which had Performance Management as their focus. It was clear that the seeds of the day before had already begun to germinate in teachers’ positive and willing acceptance of what was to come with Performance Management and its associated practices and processes. It was here that Chris Baker alerted us to Transforming Learning, talking with the Head Marian Freeman and I about the development of the site and its imminent arrival on-line. Following on from a seminar run by Hay on TL, recognising the potential value of the materials (see "Why Use…"), anticipating the excitement of being in at the early stages of such an approach to school improvement, and seeing within the school’s pending Beacon status an opportunity for sharing our experience of using the site with partner schools and others, the Head made a commitment that South Wilts would become a user school.

Launching Transforming Learning

The next decision saw me designated as "project manager" who would then lead the introduction of the material into the school, promote its benefits, encourage colleagues to use it, support them in their use of it, and review and reflect upon our experiences. Hay encourages and fully supports this role, recognising the value of someone acting as catalyst, direction-setter, coach and administrator.

I led a 15-minute item in a staff meeting informing colleagues about the material and inviting them to attend a lunchtime or after-school meeting where we could discuss Transforming Learning in more detail, explore its potential and allay users’ possible anxieties. This was backed up by a mail drop to all colleagues’ pigeonholes. Three such meetings were held attended by over 20 "interested but not obliged" colleagues (about a third of the total teaching staff at the school). This was an important session as we needed the time and opportunity to engage with and examine what Transforming Learning offered us. Issues relating to confidentiality, student and teacher access to the internet, time implications, how pupils would react to being encouraged to offer feedback on teachers’ classrooms as well as questions about how the process actually works were at the fore. Many of these were the focus of materials and handouts helpfully supplied in the project manager’s pack. In the end, 14 teachers registered as first-wave users, agreeing to use the material.

The final step in launching Transforming Learning within the school was to provide users with an hour of time in an IT room during a November development day to register, to start the process with the initial tutorial pages and self-analysis, and to share difficulties and queries with other users.

Again, although we could have done this independently and at different times (one of the virtues of the materials) I was supported by the Head in my belief that our team of users would value and perceive positively the school’s recognition that they were committing to something that would cost them a number of hours in the coming months. It would be helpful, we thought, in establishing at this early stage a sense of a shared identity ("the Transforming Learning Users Group)"). Although self-directed, confidential and self-motivating, it felt important to build a team spirit around our championing of this initiative.

Maintaining and Re-Fuelling Transforming Learning

From November through to February half-term users worked through the process at their own pace and with varying degrees of engagement. A "dip-stick" survey collated in March suggested that of the 14 registered, six had fully completed the sequence from start to finish and were thus moving from initial feedback and action planning to a position where they were seeking to embed new practices into their classrooms. A further four had reached the point when feedback had been received from designated classes, and the reminder were still at the beginning stages. Although not a fully valid sample, of those who had progressed far enough to express a view and to complete a scaling grid and comment-capture sheet, the majority "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that the material had helped them:

1. "to understand the Hay McBer research on classroom climate"
2. "to become more aware of the climate perceived (by pupils and me) to exist within my classroom"
3. "to identify ways to improve the climate in my target classroom"
4. "to achieve improvement in the climate of my target classroom"

Nearly all users responded to the invitation to add comments about their experience, and most regarded it as positive. A number noted the way in which already it was "focussing their minds" on aspects of their teaching too often taken for granted. Others spoke of how it was a useful and "safe" way to "begin a dialogue" with a class about teaching and learning styles. A further colleague spoke of how it had led to several significant shifts in the way he interacted with a Y12 class that had differed with him about the degree of perceived interest and clarity established within the climate of the classroom. "It made me look again at the structure and balance of lessons and activities within them."

Where there were less positive comments they tended to be about occasional technical difficulties with logging on, or about the need for guidance on managing the pupils’ feedback, or were indirect requests for more time on another development day to be given. "It was good that we had that time in November. More please…"

Of those happy to provide feedback on why they had not been able to make as much progress as they would have wished, two directly identified time pressure, a further colleague spoke of "competing priorities", with TL having to take a "back seat", and a fourth noted that illness had taken its toll on progress.

With the teacher’s blessing, preliminary views were sought from one of the groups of pupils that was the focus of a user’s work. The pupils spoke of their pleasure in being part of a teacher’s wish to reflect upon her classroom, of finding the experience interesting, and of how they thought it was good that their teacher wanted to involve them in such a way.

Initial findings and reflections were compiled and published within the school, and spurred some immediate "tweaks". A lunchtime user group meeting was convened where we shared experiences with each other, offered tips, became aware of any feedback we were happy to disclose, and offered supportive ideas to each other. This meeting was helpful. It opened up communication channels between users across a range of subject staff, and either consolidated already emerging networks of mutual support, or put some new ones in place. It was a delight to hear colleagues talking with each other about their teaching, using a common language and framework of reference, and informally engaging in some "problem solving" talk about e.g. the climate elements of "fairness" or "environment" in their classrooms.

Prior to leading the start of a new cycle of users, I attended a Hay group project managers’ half-day seminar in Gloucester where eleven schools’ representatives were encouraged to recount their own developing experiences of Transforming Learning. The meeting took us through a series of agenda items aimed at helping us to return to our schools better able to "re-energise" and "re-fuel" our use of the materials and its processes. "Tips" and "Insights" brought along by the convenor and generated by those at the meeting included:

* Looking for ways to more explicitly link the use of Transforming Learning to other development activity e.g. performance management; using TL to gather evidence of an objective being met/worked towards

* Much more openly sharing feedback with each other; building up "communities" where we supported one another in constructing action plans and then putting them into practice e.g. observing a colleague’s lesson specifically to note those aspects of climate drawn from feedback. "How does my colleague create a secure climate for learning? What can I learn from this?"

* Using TL to breakdown traditional hierarchies; e.g. where a subject leader seeks guidance from a co-user junior colleague on how they are establishing "fairness" with Y9s.

It made sense now to invite users to a South Wilts focus group where I could use a series of prompt questions partly influenced by the Gloucester workshop to clarify our own current thinking, and seek to identify ways to smooth and make more effective our next cycle. Specifically, I was interested in drawing responses to a series of questions grouped into four clusters ("Introducing the Package", "Impact On Teaching and Learning", "Barriers and Breakthroughs", "Extending Whole School Use"). Two such 45-minute meetings took place with all but two of the 14 in attendance. Highlighting some of the points noted:

* There was a feeling that it had "gone well" so far, one of the big pluses of the scheme was in its being "self-managing"; a number of teachers spoke with conviction about how our approach to its introduction and maintenance had empowered them.

* It wasn’t something "imposed by senior managers"; it gave "ownership" of their own priorities and direction; "no-one was looking over your shoulder". This was something users did not want to lose (and which therefore I would need to be sensitive to if I sought to re-direct how the material was being used. Is this sense of individual ownership incompatible with Transforming Learning being used as a management tool?).

* Teaching and Learning had been improved; teachers had their own data (print-outs and graphs from the site), and - as valuable to them – a sense of having become more reflective and knowing about the impact of their teaching (see Evaluation section below).

* Several colleagues spoke of how they had used Transforming Learning, its evidence and its processes, explicitly in their threshold application and/or in performance management. It gives "focus to teaching and learning" when thinking about objectives. One view put forward was that it was "value for money" when compared to the cost of sending a teacher on a course. Also emerging from the group discussions were a number of specific suggestions as to how we could use the material more effectively next time round.

Several months later, mid-way through the second year of using Transforming Learning, and with the generally very positive feedback received and noted above, I sought to more closely investigate the degree to which its use could be seen to be having an impact on the teaching and learning within classrooms. If nothing else, this was important given the cost of the licence, and the need to consider whether it was value for money. This involved interviewing three teachers who had used the site previously and where now accessing it for the second time. Each was happy to talk about their feedback, the action plans generated, and the degree to which they felt the climate of their classroom had improved because of using

Transforming Learning. Looking in summary fashion at each of these three "case studies":

Teacher A – a science teacher – who had targeted a Y8 class, focused on "participation" as the climate element she most wished to improve. As it happened, this intention coincided with the Science Department’s Key Stage 3 Strategy planning and development, and saw the teacher working to good effect with the strategy science advisor who modelled a lesson with the teacher. There was a helpful attention paid to questioning styles and techniques, and the effect this would have on lesson pace. Putting these techniques into practice in subsequent lessons enabled the teacher to increase pupil participation. Quantitative feedback from the class, gathered anonymously a month later through TL, suggested that the teacher’s desire for improvement had been fulfilled.

Teacher B – a maths teacher – working with Y10 maths pupils, after initial feedback found herself targeting "clarity" and "interest" in her action plan. Several specific tactics were tried that sought to make learning objectives more explicit, that saw the teacher becoming more productively aware of her own use of language when explaining mathematical processes to the class, and that aimed to increase the level of challenge experienced by the pupils. Again, after a month or so of trying these new "behaviours" feedback was drawn from the sample, and suggested that pupil awareness of where their learning was going had increased as had their overall engagement with the lessons.

Teacher C – an English teacher with a Y10 group – chose to use the package specifically to support her in her thinking about how a small cluster of "disengaged, disconnected" pupils could be "brought back" into English lessons. The climate elements "interest" and "fairness" emerged as the dominant themes in the action planning, and saw the teacher discussing with the class, for example, their perceptions of fairness ("deadlines and what happens to us when they are not met"), an increased consistency when applying sanctions and praise operating, and a number of teaching behaviours and styles influenced by accelerated learning being explored. Feedback did demonstrate some pupil perception of things having improved, but the teacher felt that the most significant benefit was in how Transforming Learning had enabled a greater degree of reflection on the complexity of teaching and learning – providing a frame of reference, a language, for "clarifying things and trying new things out".

Evaluating Transforming Learning at South Wilts

Now mid-way into our third cycle of using TL, there are several preliminary judgements that I would make derived from our experiences of using the materials, and from the interviews, focus groups, surveys and conversations undertaken so far. In summary:

1. Transforming Learning users have become more knowledgeable about recent developments in thinking about teaching and learning.

2. This increased theoretical knowledge and insight has then been applied to good effect to the day-to-day processes and practices of running a classroom.

3. In becoming more self-aware and reflective, and seeing ourselves unthreatened by the approaches underpinning Transforming Learning, teachers have found themselves empowered to try new things out.

4. Amongst users, there has been the beginning of a network of support and discussion. Teachers have felt more able to talk with each other about our teaching, about the impact we see ourselves having, and about how we have tried to get better at what we do.

Less immediately positively, and looking at some of our intentions and aspirations when we first "signed-up" to the scheme, perhaps two hopes have only been partly realised:

1. We have not yet been able to use the data and feedback from pupils at a level above the individual teacher. One facility within TL is that feedback can be aggregated, re-presented and interrogated on a departmental, year group, key stage or whole school level. This could allow a focus then, for example, on a climate aspect within a subject, across a year group, or a key stage. Obvious benefits here would follow in terms of putting together some department-wide or whole school action plan. Think here, for instance, of a Science department that as a team of eight teachers sought to discuss and share strategies for increasing "safety" and "standards" in Science as part of their engagement with the Key Stage 3 Strategy. The condition we have not yet met that would enable this is that a sufficient number of teachers from that particular department or key stage need to have completed the process for anonymity to be guaranteed. In our imagined science department more than four of the team would have to have got to the end.

2. Therefore, we have not yet completely integrated Transforming Learning into whole-school processes such as strategic planning and performance management. Yes, moves have been made towards this, but the challenge yet to be fully met by me in my co-ordination of TL within the school is this deeper embedding of its processes into other cycles and planning stages at the strategic level. Think here, for example, of TL as a means to identify a whole staff training need, generating data that would then support staff development planning at a school level.
So, and finally, the school has gained much in our exploration and use of a powerful development tool. As we come to the end of our third year we can look back with delight at the differences it has made, and look forward with enthusiasm to the work still to do in fully exploiting its potential.

Steve Davies
South Wilts Girls Grammar School
February 2004

Note:
Readers are encouraged to check out the Hay Group’s Transforming Learning web site (www.transforminglearning.co.uk) where they can access a wealth of information, case studies and example case studies of the package in use. Additionally, get in touch with Steve at the school (Tel 01722-323326 or e-mail at sjd@swgs.wilts.sch.uk) if they want to talk about Transforming Learning. South Wilts is a "partner network school" for Transforming Learning and is happy to host a visit and give guidance to new users. For example, Steve has dozens of word files relating to TL at its various stages that colleagues may find helpful in introducing the package: briefing sheets, support handouts, evaluation documents, survey questions, and the like. These can be put on a disk and mailed on request.

Improving the Quality of the Language of Performance

What was I trying to find out?

The current language of Performance Studies and Performance theory

What I have learned:

Sufficient language to design student guides and worksheets for year 12 Performance Studies students.

Who was involved?

Jane Asplin, project leader
8 year 12 Performance Studies Students
What did I do?

* Library research Bristol University; Laban Dance Centre Library;
* Discussion with School Isle Wight;
* Gathered reading list and compiled list of books which were ordered for school;
* In addition, some relevant videos;
* Devised student guides and worksheets;
* Taught relevant lessons;
* Disseminated information to teaching staff;
* Books now available in PEA library;
* The students completed evaluation sheets/questionnaires at the end of the programme;
* Disseminated resources to colleagues.

My evidence

* All students received copies of students guide. These sheets were referred to during most lessons for one half-term and thereafter intermittently.
* Students were encouraged to refer to the sheets when writing essays.
* 100% of students said that the guide sheet were useful
* All students reported a greater understanding of the language of performance studies.

* Most reported a greater self-confidence in their ability to use the correct language to describe the arts.
* Teachers' responses indicated an improved use of performance language in lessons and in essays.
* Further evaluation will take place in August 2004 when the A/S results are published to see whether there is an improvement in students value added data.

My research activities

* Agreed proposals with mentor to refine questions.
* Investigated published performance theory via libraries and purchased books.
* Identified student group.
* Collected data and devised student guides.
* Trialled ways of working with the guides.
* Produced summary report for Learning group at The John of Gaunt School and disseminated data.
* Disseminated resources at Bath University to MA students.

Further reading

Performing The Body, Performing The Text, edited by Amelia Jones & Andrew Stephenson (1999).
Analysing Performance, by Campbell.
Performing Process, by R. Mock.
Performing Studies: an introduction by R. Schechner (2002).

Project leader/school

Whole school project leader: Barbara Mackereth, Assistant Headteacher, The John of Gaunt School, Trowbridge Leader of this component: Jane Asplin Head of PEA Faculty

The remainder of this report consists of 4 papers

Performance studies theory – what is performance. Examines the history of performance, the difference between "is" performance and "as" performance and the function of performance – 8 pages

Physical theatre – a description of this hybrid form of theatre – 2 pages

Student guide to performance process – examines two models - the 3-phrase sequence of proto-performance, performance and aftermath and the performance process as the dynamic relationship between sources (authors etc), producers, performers and partakers (spectators etc) – 16 pages

Student guide 2 on Live Performance – that is what is still happening and still has to happen rather than a performance which is complete and finished and can only be remembered or recalled – 3 pages

PERFORMANCE STUDIES THEORY: WHAT IS PERFORMANCE?

Richard Schechner, in his seminal work 'Performance Process', 2001, said that to perform is to do something up to a standard - to exceed, to excel in the arts, to perform is to put on a show, a play, a concert. In everyday life, to perform is to show off, to go to extremes. In the twenty-first century, people as never before live by means of performance.

Performances mark identities, bend time, reshape and adorn the body, and tell stories. Performances - of art, rituals, or ordinary life - are made of "twice-behaved behaviours", which Erving Goffman defines as 'performed actions that people train to do, that they practice and rehearse.'

WHERE DO PERFORMANCES TAKE PLACE?

A painting "takes place" in the physical object; a novel takes place in words. A performance takes place only in action, interaction, and relation. Performance isn't IN anything but BETWEEN. Performances exist only as actions, interactions and relationships.
Schechner identifies eight kinds of Performance:

1. In everyday life - cooking, socialising, 'just living'
2. In the arts
3. In sports and other popular entertainment
4. In business
5. In technology
6. In sex
7. In ritual - sacred and secular
8. In play
Is this performance?

"IS" PERFORMANCEWhat is the difference between 'is' performance and 'as' performance? Certain events are performances and other events less so. There are limits to what 'is' performance, but just about anything can be studied 'as' performance. Something 'is' a performance when historical and social context, convention, usage, and tradition say it is. One cannot determine what 'is' a performance without referring to specific cultural circumstances.

Today the enactment of dramas by actors 'is' a performance but it was not always so. What we today call theatre, people in other times did not. Our words like theatre came from the ancient Greeks but what they meant by theatre was very different.

During the epoch of the tragedians Aeschylus c. 525, Sophocles c. 496 and Euripides c 485, the enactment of tragic dramas was more a ritual or religious festival.

Skip a millennium!

In Medieval Europe acting written dramas on the public stage was not practiced but on the streets, town squares, in castles and mansions, popular entertainments held peoples' attention.

Make another leap in time to the last third of the nineteenth century. The notion of theatre as an art was by then well established. In fact, so well founded that counter-movements called "avant-garde" erupted frequently as efforts among radical artists to disrupt the status quo. Each new wave attempted to dislodge what went before. Some of yesterday's avant-garde movements became today's establishment. The list of avant-garde movements is long, including realism, naturalism, symbolism, futurism, surrealism, constructivism, dada, expressionism, cubism, theatre of the absurd, Happenings, Fluxus, environmental theatre, performance art ... and more. Sometimes works in these styles were considered theatre, sometimes dance, sometimes music, sometimes visual art, sometimes multimedia, etc. Often enough, events were attacked or dismissed as not being art at all - as were Happenings, an antecedent to performance art. Allan Kaprow, creator of the first Happening, jumped at this chance to make a place for what he called "lifelike art". The term "performance art" was coined in the 1970s as an umbrella for works that otherwise resisted categorization.

"AS" PERFORMANCE

In her studies of cooking as performance, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett says that to perform is to do, to behave, and to show.

Food as Performance

Food and performance converge conceptually as three junctions. First, to perform is to do, to execute, to carry out to completion, to discharge a duty - in other words, all that governs the production, presentation, and disposal of food. To perform in this sense is to make food, to serve food. It is about materials, tools, techniques, procedures, actions. It is about getting something done. It is in this sense, first and foremost, that we can speak of the performing kitchen.

Second, to perform is to behave.

This is what Erving Goffman calls the performance in everyday life. Whether a matter of habit, custom, or law, the divine etiquette of ritual, codifications of social grace, the laws governing cabarets and liquor licenses, or the health and sanitation codes, performance encompasses the social practices that are part and parcel of what Pierre Bourdieu [(1930- )] calls habitus. To perform in this sense is to behave appropriately in relation to food at any point in its production, consumption, or disposal, each of which may be subject to precise protocols or taboos. Jewish and Hindu laws of ritual purity and formal etiquette stipulate the requirements in exquisite detail. They involve the performance of precepts as well as precepts of performance.

Third, to perform is to show.

When doing and behaving are displayed, when they are shown, when participants are invited to exercise discernment, evaluation, and appreciation, food events move towards the theatrical and, more specifically, towards the spectacular. It is here that taste as a sensory experience and taste as an aesthetic faculty converge. The conflation of the two meanings of taste can be found in Enlightenment aesthetics and in the Hindu concept of rasa alike.

THE FUNCTIONS OF PERFORMANCE

What do performances accomplish? Over time, and in different cultures, there have been a number of proposals. The Indian sage Bharata Muni (second century BC) felt that performance was a repository of knowledge and very powerful vehicle for the expression of emotions. The Roman poet-scholar Horace (65-8 BC) argued that theatre ought to entertain and educate an idea later taken up by the German playwright and director Bertolt Brecht (lots more about him later!).

Schechner puts together ideas drawn from various sources and finds seven functions of performances:

1. To entertain
2. To make something that is beautiful
3. To mark or change identity
4. To make or foster community
5. To heal
6. To teach, persuade or convince
7. To deal with the sacred and/or demonic

No performance accomplishes all of their functions but many emphasize more than one.

Entertainment means something produced in order to please a public but what may please one audience may not please another. Included are both fine and popular arts as well as rituals and performances of everyday life. What about performances of avant-garde artists and political activists designed to offend? Guerrilla theatre events even destroy. These are not entertaining. However, 'offensive' art usually is aimed at two publics simultaneously: those who do not find the work pleasant, and those who are entertained by the discomfort the work evokes in others.
Using "as" performance as a tool, one can look into things otherwise closed off to inquiry. One asks performance questions of events: How is an event deployed in space and disclosed in time? What special clothes or objects are put to use? What roles are played and how are these different, if at all, from who the performers usually are? How are the events controlled, distributed, received, and evaluated?

"Is" performance refers to more definite, bounded events marked by context, convention, usage, and tradition. However, at the start of the twenty-first century, clear distinctions between "as" performance and "is" performance are vanishing. This is part of a general trend toward the dissolution of boundaries of all kinds. The internet, globalization, and the ever-increasing presence of media is affecting human behaviour at all levels. More and more people experience their lives as a connected series of performances: dressing up for a party, interviewing for a job, experimenting with sexual orientations and gender roles, playing a life role such as mother or son, or a professional role such as doctor or teacher. The sense that "performance is everywhere" is heightened by the increasingly mediatized environment we live in where people communicate by fax, phone, and the internet; where an unlimited quantity of information and entertainment comes through the air.

Physical TheatreSince the 1980s, the term 'physical theatre' has been used to describe work of a hybrid nature where dance, text, design and sound collaborate to support choreographic intention. Aua Sanchez - Colberg proposes that:

The genre is not only a set of stylistic features of a production which is bodily based but rather one which extends discursive practices
within the relative and tense relationship between the body - text - theatre reality which goes beyond mere representation via the body.

The precise meaning of terms such as 'dance theatre', 'theatre dance' and 'physical theatre' is currently the subject of vigorous discussion and debate. Attempting to define 'dance theatre', Rachel Duerdon and Niel Fisher write:

As soon as other component parts take on greater importance
in a dance performance, two shifting parameters give rise to
questions surrounding the nature of dance
and its relation to theatre, narrative, music, text,
and issues of subjectivity, corporeality and the body
as a site of conflicting discourses.

1999

Yolande Snaith applies 'Dance Theatre' as a term to describe her choreography. She creates a particular environment and concerns herself with colour, surface, texture, sound and physical interplay in the space. Like the 'dance theatre' of Pina Bausch who 'broadened the concept of dance, releasing the term choreography from its narrower definition as a series of connected movement'. In relation to Lloyd Newson, director of DV8 Physical Theatre - he has crafted a form of physical theatre that concerns itself with current social and political realities. Thus performers are physically and vocally engaged in the exploration to ensure that individual perspectives are shared. The movement vocabulary is carefully chosen to reflect the meanings and intention of common contemporary gestures and voices. Newson's intention is not to provoke or upset an audience. He prefers to foster a questioning, reflective attitude in response to his performers' investigation. Each member of the audience is encouraged to define his/her own position in response to the work. The performances discourage passivity and encourage audiences to take on some level of responsibility, to engage with the material and be moved to a response.

Student guide to performance process

Richard Schechner describes performance process as a Time-Space Sequence composed of proto-performance, performance and aftermath.

This further divides this three-phrase sequence into ten parts:

Proto-Performance
1. training
2. 2. workshop
3. 3. rehearsal
Performance
4. warm-up
5. public performance
6. events/contexts sustaining the public performance
7. cooldown

Aftermath

1. critical responses
2. 9. archives
10. memories

Schechner maintains that this process can be applied to all kinds of performances - the performing arts, sports and other popular entertainments, rituals and the performance of everyday life.

This process applies to all kinds of performances - the performing arts, sports and other popular entertainments, rituals, and the performances of everyday life. Understanding this time-space sequence means grasping how performances are generated, how they are staged in a focused manner, how they are nested within larger events, and what their long-term effects are. The model is not prescriptive. It is intended to be an aid to understanding, not a straightjacket.

Performers have both a short-term impact and a longer after effect, leaving traces in the bodies of the performers and participants-spectators, in archives, and in traditions. Performance processes can be studied from the point of view of actions enacted, of the spaces in which a performance takes place, of the temporal structure of a performance, and as events surrounding and succeeding the performance, both affected by it and affecting it.

Performance processes can also be studied as interactions among four types of players:

1. sources (authors, choreographers, composers, dramaturges, etc.)
2. producers (directors, designers, technicians, business staff, etc.)
3. performers
4. partakers (spectators, fans, congregations, juries, the public, etc.)

Sourcers find, compose, or invent the actions to be performed. Producers work with the performers and sourcers to transform the sources into publicly performed events. Performers play the actions. Partakers receive the actions and sometimes participate in them. The first three types of players - sourcers, producers, and performers - often work together. Partakers usually take part in the process after much of the prepatory work has already been done. A person can simultaneously belong to more than one of these categories. A group may collectively devise or enact all of these processes.

The proto-performance (or "proto-p") is what precedes and/or gives rise to a particular performance. A proto-p is a starting point or, more commonly, a bunch of starting points. Very few performances start from a single source or impulse. A proto-p may be a legal code, liturgy, scenario, script, drama, dance notation, music score, oral tradition, and so on. It may even be a certain way that a performer makes her body into something "not ordinary", something special for performing - what Eugenio Barba calls the "pre-expressive" (see Barba box and figure 7.4). Many proto-p's exist outside the written realm altogether - as plans, drawings, paintings, diagrams, manifestoes, or ideas. A proto-p may be a group of people who want to stage a performance. A proto-p may be an upcoming date that requires a performance - a birthday, Christmas party, or initiation rite - the list of date-driven proto-p's is very long. A proto-p may also be a prior performance, revived, revised, or reconstructed or simply used as a model or starting point for a performance-to-be. The performances of classics as well as the enactment of rituals are always more or less driven by prior performances.

A note on text

Terms such as "dramatic text" and "performance text" are commonly used. Pinning down the 'real meaning' of text is not easy. In everyday usage, people think of as text as words inked/on paper/on a screen. The Latin meaning is skill and artfulness (think technique and technical) and the word tekton which means carpenter or builder. Those who make texts are both artists and crafts persons. Schechner maintains that 'texts can be inscriptions on stone, inked on vellum, printed on paper, or a dancer's body memory, a painting or architectural plan etc., etc.
Understood performatively, texts are transformable and pliable sign and/or symbol system.
Performance text: Everything that takes place on stage that a spectator experiences, from the movements and speech of the actors and/or dancers to the lighting, sets and after technical or multi-media effects. The performance text is distinguished from the Dramatic Text. The dramatic text is the play, script, music score or dance notation that exists prior to being staged.

R. Schechner P. 193

Training:

Training is logically, if not always experientially, the first step of the proto-performance.
Training is the acquisition of particular skills.
Training may be informal - absorbing skills, or formal - like classroom schooling.

Workshop:

This is the actual research phase of the performance process. Some artists use workshops to explain processes that will be useful in rehearsals and in making performances.

To workshop something is to produce a prototype or experimental model. This is true not only in the arts bent across a wide range of activities, e.g. new car models built in prototype is not built on the assembly line but on an individual basis. The process goes from workshop (concept car) to rehearsal (prototype) to production (performance).

Rehearsal:

Rehearsals operate differently and at a different level than workshops. Workshops are a way of breaking down, digging deep and opening up. Rehearsals organise the materials found in workshops. During rehearsals, actions are separated into what can be used and what must be discarded or put aside for another project. Rehearsing is the process of building up specific blocks of proto-performance material into larger and larger sequences of actions that are assembled into a whole, finished performance.
The social nature of performing arts, sports and ritual make them special. Although all behaviour is in some sense rehearsed and then performed, only the arts, sports + rituals almost always rehearse in groups and prevent ethnic products to a group.
The performing arts are rarely a one-on-one experience. Even solo performances include more than one person during rehearsals.
A principle task of rehearsals is to coordinate the various skills, opinions, and desires of the production team.

Warm up

This is the phase of the performance process immediately before the public performance.

Stanislawski advised actors to prepare at length during the day of the performance. A judge will review case dockets, put on robes and enter the courtroom when announced by the clerk; a baseball pitcher will throw a few balls before each inning.

Public Performance:

Training and workshops give performance the necessary skills and help them acquire coverage and confidence. Rehearsals construct a particular performance score. The warm-up readies the performer for the leap into performance.

The Performance QuadrilogueThe performance process can be studied not only as a multi-phased timespace sequence, but also as the dynamic relationship among four categories of players:

1. sources (authors, choreographers, composers, dramaturges, etc.)
2. producers (directors, designers, technicians, business staff, etc.)
3. performers
4. partakers (spectators, fans, congregations, juries, the public, etc.)

Roughly speaking, sourcers write, research, or in other ways find the actions to be performed. These sources are the raw materials for the performance - a play, a personal recollection, a scenario, or anything at all that is used in making a performance. During the workshop and rehearsal process, sources are revised or even discarded; new sources can always be found or brought in by the producers and performers as well as by the sourcers. Producers serve as facilitators guiding the shaping of the sources into a "finished performance". Producers work most closely with the performers, but also with the sourcers and sometimes even with the partakers. Producers are "link" persons, building bridges, making connections. Performers play the actions for the public. Partakers not only receive the actions, but may also participate in the actions. If they do participate, partakers at least temporarily become performers. A person may belong to more than one of these categories. Someone checking himself in the mirror as he dresses for a date plays all four roles.

In Z-path performance, the producers may even be more important than the performers. This is because the producers interpret the sources on the one hand and control the actions of the performers on the other. No one exercises control over the producers. They remain relatively free throughout the process. Directors such as Peter Brook and Peter Stein (1937- ) work this way. These artists interpret dramas working from the principle that a play cannot speak for itself (see Carlson box). Brook was attacked for the way he treated the Indian epic in his production of The Mahabharata. The attacks basically claimed that Brook did not respect the "Indianness" of his source material. Although some directors claim that they do what the "author intended", unless the author is alive and actively involved in the rehearsal process, most directors take for themselves the right of interpretation. Of course, the public knows this. People go to the productions of specific directors to find out how a Brook or a Stein "handles" certain texts and source materials.

Marvin Carlson

A Play Cannot Speak for Itself

Even today, one encounters those who urge that the theatre produce plays by Shakespeare "straight" or "as the author intended", or to "let the plays speak for themselves", as if unmediated performance were desirable or even possible. Peter Brook has responded to this common advice as succinctly as anyone. "A play cannot speak for itself," he says; one must "conjure its sound from it." Similarly Tyrone Guthrie has warned that the attempt to avoid interpretation usually results in the limitation of previous interpretations which have grown comfortably familiar. It is important to remember that the performed play, unlike the painting, comes to us not as a specific object, but only through a performance tradition. 1990, Theatre Semiotics, 116

Visionary Russian director Vseveload Meyerhold (1874-1940), himself a masterful interpreter of dramatic texts, theorized about empowering the actors. He conceptualised a "theatre of the straight line" (see Meyerhold box) where the producers absorb the work of the sourcers, passing on their interpretation to the performers. Decisively, late in the rehearsal phase, the producers step aside so that the performers face the audience directly. Meyerhold rarely followed his own advice.

Vsevolod Meyerhold: Theatre of the Straight Line

A straight, horizontal line with the four theatrical elements (author, director, actor, spectator) marked from left to right represents [...] what we shall call the "theatre of the straight line". The actor reveals his soul freely to the spectator, having assimilated the creation of the director; who, in his turn, has assimilated the creation of the author

[...] The actor's art consists in far more than merely acquainting the spectator with the director conception. The actor will grip the spectator only if he assimilates both the director and author and then gives of himself from the stage.

1969 (1907), from Edward Braun (trans. and ed.), Meyerho/d on Theatre, 50-51

Coaches of athletic teams have much less control over what happens on the field. After long periods of training and practicing, the actual playing belongs to the players. Single-person sports - golf, racing, singles tennis are almost entirely in the hands of the individual athletes. Their situation approaches that of Meyerhold's theatre of the straight line. Even team sports come close to what Meyerhold wanted.

The performance of music spans the possibilities. Rock musicians often compose many of the songs they perform as well as staging their shows, thus combining sourcer, producer, and performer. Classical orchestral concerts, on the other hand, maintain a rather strict separation of tasks. The composer provides the source material; the conductor often radically interprets the score (but does not change the notes); while the orchestra members are given less latitude for individual interpretation than actors. However, soloists are expected to put their own stamp on the music. In dance, there is a similar wide span of practices. Many modern and postmodern dancers choreograph their own dances, while ballet dancers are more likely to perform the compositions of others.

From Performance Montage to Desktop TheatreMontage, a powerful and widely used technique in visual media and theatre, was developed in the 1920s by filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948), at one time a student of Meyerhold's. A montage is a way of "speaking" with images rather than words. In a montage many different shots are spliced together in quick sequence to form a coherent whole that is more than any of its parts. The shots used in a montage may be of different subjects and from different locations. The unity is a result of very careful editing. Thus a montage is a way of constructing new meaning from numerous disparate sources or bits. In the 1960s, Jerzy Grotowski led the Polish Laboratory Theatre in developing performance montages drawing on a wide variety of sources ranging from the personal associations of the actors to materials taken from dramas, literature, music, and the visual arts. The performance montage method is at the heart of Grotowski's best-known works, Akropolis, The Constant Prince, and Apocalypsis cum Figuris. Even when working with a dramatic text, such as Pedro Calderon de la Barca's (1600-81) The Constant Prince, Grotowski treated the play as a "scalpel" which the performers used to cut to deep levels of self-awareness (see Grotowski box 1). After Grotowski, many others in theatre, dance, and performance art followed suit in using both performance montage and highly personal materials.

Pedro Caleron de la Barca (1600 –81) A Spanish playwright and priest known for his highly
romantic treatment of faith and loyalty to the Spanish crown. Author of many plays including The Constant Prince (1629)and Life is a dream (1635)
:
Jerzy Grotowski

A Great Text is a Scalpel

All the great texts represent a sort of deep guilt for us. Take Hamlet. books without number have been devoted to this character. Professors will tell us, each for himself that they have discovered an objective Hamlet. They suggest to us revolutionary Hamlets, rebel and impotent Hamlets, Hamlet the outsider, etc. But there is no objective Hamlet. The work is too great for that. The strength of great works really consists in their catalytic effect: they open doors for us, set in motion the machinery of our self-awareness. My encounter with the text resembles my encounter with the actor and his with me. For both director and actor, the author's text is a sort of scalpel enabling us to open ourselves, to transcend ourselves, to find what is hidden within us and to make the act of encountering others; in other words, to transcend our solitude. In the theatre, if you like, the text has the same function as the myth had for the poet of ancient times. The author of Prometheus found in the Prometheus myth both an act of defiance and a springboard, perhaps even the source of his own creation. But his Prometheus was the product of his personal experience. That is all one can say about it; the rest is of no importance. 1968, Towards a Poor Theatre, 57

In the final phase of his work during the 1990s, Grotowski adapted the performance montage technique to his collaboration with Thomas Richards on "Downstairs Action' (no longer done) and the related performance that followed, "Main Action" (still performed). The montages for these performances began with Richards linking personal associations with specific physical actions. These formed a positive feedback loop: the more clear and precise the memory, the more exact the physical action; the more precise the physical action, the more clear the memory becomes. The physical actions were then made into a precise, repeatable score.

Cooldown:

This transition between the show and the show-is-over is an often overlooked but interesting phase that ushers the performer back to daily life.
It is not usually as formal a procedure as the warm-up but the 'letting go' reveals a patterned activity - gestures that put the role to rest. Actors hang up their costumes, take off make-up, wash, put on street clothes. When friends invade the dressing room too soon they can feel the actors' tension between wanting to be hospitable and wanting to be alone for a little while.

Aftermath:

The aftermath persists in critical responses, archives and memories. The modern lines, the immediate aftermath consists of the response by the agents of official culture - reviewers and critics.
There is no fixed limit to an aftermath. In the aesthetic genres, newspaper + media review and word-of-mouth are short-term launch of aftermath. Long-term aftermath includes self-generated documentation (photos, videos, artist's notes, etc.). the impact and influence the work has on other artists, and scholarly articles written about a performance.

Conclusion:

Perf' processes are dynamic ways of generating, playing, evaluating, repealing and remembering. Perf' processes can be theorized as an orderly sequence of training, workshops, rehearsals, warm-up, performing, cool-down, critical response, archives and memories.
If performance processes can be understood as a ten-part sequence, they also can be understood as a complex relationship among four types of "players" - sourcers, producers, performers, and partakers. Sourcers write, research, or in other ways make or find the actions to be performed. Producers guide the shaping of the actions into something suitable for a performance. Performers enact the actions. Partakers receive and/or interact with the actions. A single person may belong to more than one of these categories; a group may belong to more than one of these categories; a group may do the sourcing, performing, producing and partaking collectively. The possibilities are without end.

Live Performance' Student guide 2

The study of theatre and performance as an academic subject is relatively young and a vocabulary to discuss theory is still being established. Richard Schechner (Performance Studies 2001) admits that "it is hard to define Performance". Roberta Mock in her book 'Performing Processes - Creating Live Performance' criticises Schechner's attempts to define Performance as ambiguous and imprecise. Schechner considered performing first and foremost as taking place in real time and Mock suggests that he neglects processes outside the moments of performance. She argues that in order to define 'Performance' one must consider exchanges which begin before the time the first spectator enters and after the last spectator leaves and the essence of performance resides in the fluidity of discursive processes.

The ephemeral 'presentness' of performance, its 'Iiveness' can make attempts at retrospective analysis relying on memory somewhat obsolete. Like a video, one must {re)construct the atmosphere + feelings evoked in the live performance.

Here we must distinguish between 'performance' and 'live performance' since the term cannot be used interchangeably. A 'performance' in its broadest sense is the (re)presentation or documentation of a series of events which may, or may not, still be in the process of occurring. Think, for example, of performance-related pay; the performance of building materials in the construction industry or the performance of actors on film or television.

A live performance is one which is still happening + still has to happen. When it is 'finished' it reverts back to 'performance', its trace documented (even in memory) and recalled by other means.

Roberta Mock offers a model to explain what she perceives to be the nature of live performance: Mock argues that 'live' performance only exists as it is received and even then not necessarily by a 'traditional' audience - it could be received by the performer herself, a camera, or even the 'space'. As such there is no reason to suggest that 'mediatized' performances cannot be live.

Mona Hatoum's 2 hr long video performance, "Pull" (1995) in which viewers pulled a braid of hair and watched Hatoum's reaction on a video monitor, is undeniably live in its interactive relationship between the processes of presentation + reception. 'Liveness' does not need to even have to occur in the same time, let alone space, as the audience.

By way of contrast Madonna singing at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles is a 'live' performance. When one listens to a CD of the concerts back home, it is a 'performance'.

'Liveness' according to R. Mock is a process that is happening in the moment, which feeds of reception, which is 'unfinished', which always contains within it the potential to change.