Researcher recommendations for new teachers to support children’s participative rights in the classroom

The Children's Participation in Schools project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), challenges the issue of translating policy intention into educational practice, with a focus on young children’s participation rights in classrooms and schools.

The project’s previous policy briefing addressed Welsh educational legislation and policy in primary schools. Its latest focuses on Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in Wales.

The team used previously gathered data with teachers and children alongside focus groups and workshops with student teachers and teacher educators to collate different educational experiences and examine how children might be supported to participate in day-to-day classroom decisions and curriculum-making.

Its recommendations were that:

• ITE accreditation processes should ensure ITE providers are attending to the development of pedagogies in ITE students that support all children’s enactment of their participative rights;
• ITE providers ensure students gain appropriate pedagogical and content knowledge and school-based opportunities to enact participatory pedagogies;
• Welsh Government should ensure there is professional learning and guidance available for ITE providers to supplement and/or reframe their curricula to optimise children’s participation in the classroom;
• Teacher educators ensure they are knowledgeable and confident in supporting ITE students to develop participatory pedagogies, responsive to learners in school, which support the enactment of the Curriculum for Wales; and,
• ITE providers and Estyn should attend to the Professional Standards for Teaching and Leadership which state that teachers must seek, listen to and take account of the views of learners to engage and encourage them as active participants in their own learning.

Co-Investigator for the Children's Participation in Schools project Dr Jacky Tyrie, from the Department of Education and Childhood Studies, said: “Building on our previous survey of ITE providers, we explored how children’s classroom participation can be supported. While this area is often overlooked, the research identified clear opportunities within both university and school-based elements, with implications for teacher educators’ professional learning.

“As participation is central to the Curriculum for Wales, we hope this research helps embed children’s participatory rights in everyday practice.”

Swansea University is one of several institutions to collaborate on this project, part of the Education Research Programme, joining the University of the West of England (UWE), the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD) and Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Read the full policy briefing

Find out more about the Children's Participation in Schools project