8-step education reform

by GARRY HORNBY and MARCIA PILGRIM REFORM OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM in Barbados remains a controversial topic on which diverse opinions continue to be shared in the media. However, it is crucial to realise that effective reform involves implementing policies based on research evidence of what makes a significant impact on education outcomes.

Analysis of research evidence on interventions that have been found to bring about substantial changes indicates that effective education reform in Barbados would best be achieved through implementation of eight key evidence-based policies.

1. Community secondary schools

The key to achieving effective education reform in Barbados is moving from a selective secondary school system focused on the achievement of a high level of academic qualifications by a minority of students, to one that provides all pupils with an appropriate education with a focus on obtaining a comprehensive education with opportunities to excel in a wide range of areas. This requires establishing secondary schools that serve all children from feeder primaries in their local communities and offer options for a choice between obtaining academic or vocational qualifications on leaving school.

Establishing community-based secondary schools requires abandoning the 11-Plus examination and introducing a system for transfer from primary schools in which students attend the secondary school nearest to where they live. These will become community schools which will facilitate the involvement of parents and other members of local communities. Such schools have been found to be essential to establishing world class education systems internationally.

Greater involvement of people from the community in which schools are based is possible with neighbourhood community schools. Faith leaders and people from the local business community are more likely to associate themselves with local schools and thereby be able to provide support for them. The involvement of community leaders in schools supports the maintenance of good discipline, prevents disruptive and violent behaviour, and provides links to sources of work experience and jobs for school leavers.

2. Sixth form colleges

In the past 30 years, sixth form colleges have been increasingly established in many countries because of their popularity with students and the superior education outcomes they deliver. Children would attend the secondary schools nearest to their homes from Forms 1 through 5 and then have a chance to gain entry to sixth form colleges at around age 16 years based on their CXC examination results.

It is proposed that Harrison College and Queen’s College be renamed sixth form colleges, since they have the best record of achieving academic excellence, as they gain the most Barbados scholarships each year. They would cease to teach students in Forms 1 through 5 and enrol students in their sixth form years who are undertaking advanced level CAPE courses. All other secondary schools would enrol students in Forms 1 through 5 and offer programmes leading to CXC and CVQ qualifications. Students would then get into the sixth form colleges based on their passes and grades in the CXC exams taken at the end of the fifth form year.

3. Refocusing primary school teaching

Once the need to focus most of their time and effort on preparing children for the 11-Plus has been eliminated, primary school teachers will be able to deliver a more broadly-based and relevant curriculum that will involve a major focus on the effective teaching of literacy and numeracy. That is, helping pupils develop the reading, writing, speaking and mathematics skills they need to succeed at secondary schools and in later life.

Effective literacy teaching must embrace a balanced approach to the teaching of reading that has been shown to significantly improve outcomes when adopted by countries such as Ireland. Numeracy teaching needs to involve maths enhancement programmes such as that found effective in significantly improving maths outcomes in Jamaica.

In addition to facilitating academic learning, teachers will be able to focus on teaching social and emotional development programmes in order to help children learn the personal and interpersonal skills needed for developing the confidence for achieving educational success, gaining employment and having a fulfilling life. They will be able to focus on the development of the so-called soft skills such as teamwork, communication, time management, conflict resolution and problem-solving skills.

Without 11-Plus preparation, teachers will have more time to address the needs of pupils who are struggling to learn basic academic skills as well as high-ability learners who may need to be extended or provided accelerated learning pathways. When widely implemented, these strategies will lead to a significant increase in the proportion of children leaving primary school with adequate reading, writing and mathematics skills to be successful in their secondary education.

4. Comprehensive policy for special educational needs Countries with well-organised and comprehensive special educational needs provision, such as Finland, achieve higher levels of overall education outcomes, as indicated by the results of the Program for International Student Assessment. So it is important that the Ministry of Education develops a comprehensive policy for the education of children with special educational needs and disabilities. This must focus on both the majority of children with special needs who are educated in mainstream schools, as well as those with more severe and complex special needs, who are educated in special schools or special units attached to mainstream schools.

This policy needs to be underpinned by specific legislation on children with special educational needs and disabilities that establishes responsibilities for meeting their needs for the ministry and schools. The policy needs to delineate the process by which children are identified, assessed and determined to be eligible for special education support, and the role of the multi-disciplinary team in deciding whether this should be in mainstream school, special school or special unit provision.

The ministry needs to provide guidelines for schools and ensure they are followed. For example, using individualised education programmes for those children with more severe needs in special schools and units, and support from teacher-aides for those in mainstream schools with less severe needs, setting out details of the procedures to be used and the resources to be provided by the ministry and schools.

Every school, primary and secondary, should have qualified learning support coordinators to manage and coordinate the schools’ special needs provision, identify children who are experiencing difficulties and those with potential high ability, provide support and guidance to teachers, and liaise with the ministry, other agencies and parents.

The coordinators in secondary schools and large primary schools would be full-time, while those in smaller primary schools be part-time.

The ministry needs to establish an educational psychology service to provide guidance to schools on how to organise effective education for the wide diversity of children. Besides conducting diagnostic assessments of individual children with special educational needs, psychologists would help schools set up programmes aimed at building positive learning environments, such as social and emotional learning initiatives in all schools and anti-bullying ones in secondary schools. An important focus will be facilitating higher levels of academic achievement for all children through the establishment of evidence-based teaching strategies.

Psychologists will also work closely with school counsellors and social workers. The Ministry of Education also needs to establish a parent partnership service with coordinators who work with parents of children with special needs and disabilities to help them access the most appropriate education and other services for their children, as well as offer parent education and support.

5. Implementing effective parental involvement Involvement of parents both at home and school is an essential component of effective education that all teachers need to be able to facilitate. Developing constructive working relationships for engaging parents from the early years, through elementary and high school levels will bring about improved outcomes for pupils. An example of this is to have regular student-led parent-teacher conferences, which research has shown has many benefits, including increasing the numbers of parents who attend parent-teacher meetings.

Having children attend schools in their local communities enables parents to support the school more easily and to be more able to attend parentteacher meetings, be involved in the school’s parentteacher association and engage in other activities based at the school. It also facilitates improved pupil behaviour at school since parents can be more easily involved in behaviour management procedures, such as home-school behaviour programmes.

School boards of management should include parent representatives, as well as the principal, teacher, ministry and community representatives. This will ensure maximum involvement of the local community and facilitate good discipline as well as academic achievement.

6. Teacher education for diverse learners

There is a need for comprehensive and rigorous pre-service and ongoing teacher education at the pre-primary, primary and secondary levels. At preprimary, training for early childhood teachers should be established on a similar basis to that for primary school teachers at Erdiston Teachers’ Training College. For all teachers training needs to be focused on the development of effective evidence-based strategies for teaching students with a wide range of abilities and needs.

For primary school teachers there needs to be an emphasis on the effective teaching of literacy and numeracy skills, as well as social and emotional development. Those in secondary school need an emphasis on strategies for teaching diverse learners and on promoting positive mental health and wellbeing. For all teachers there needs to be specific training on facilitating optimum involvement of parents in the education of their children.

Specific training on teaching children with special

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educational needs and disabilities should also be provided for all teachers in early childhood centres, and mainstream primary and secondary schools through input into initial training and in-service training.

Advanced training should also be made available for teachers in special schools and units, and for learning support coordinators. Training can be provided by means of a combination of on-campus sessions with online learning, supplemented by establishing communities of practice at each school, which has been shown to be a costeffective approach that is popular with

teachers.

7. Modernising schools and classrooms

There needs to be an upgrade of facilities throughout the school system so students and parents are assured that every school offers a well-equipped and high-quality environment for learning. There is a need for world class facilities and resources to support the world class education we are aiming for.

School buildings must be safe and healthy places for pupils and their teachers. School classrooms must have enough space for typical evidencebased learning activities and provide minimally distracting environments in order to facilitate learning.

Most classrooms in Barbados have progressed from blackboards to whiteboards, but to be optimally effective they need to be replaced with more recent technology, in which all classrooms have an interactive whiteboard with a reliable Internet connection. These can be operated from laptop computers which are used by teachers to prepare and present lessons. Interactive whiteboards scaffold learning through technical and pedagogical interactivity to encourage participation. The multimodal interface fosters learning across the curriculum with pupils of all ages and those with special needs.

This sophisticated technology requires training for teachers so they can make best use of its wide range of applications. In primary schools use of interactive whiteboards will improve the teaching of literacy and numeracy. In secondary schools they will enhance teaching across the curriculum from arts subjects through technical and vocational education. In special schools and classes they will increase engagement in learning of children with a wide range of special needs, thereby improving outcomes.

8. Adding vocational options at secondary schools In addition to teaching academic subjects, secondary schools need to place greater emphasis on technical and vocational education by making these attractive alternative options during the later stages. So while all students will study a broad mainly academic curriculum, with some technical/vocational courses, in the first few years of secondary schooling there will be a point when they have to decide which type of programme to concentrate on, as is the case in many OECD countries.

This could be implemented in Barbados by allowing students to opt whether to follow a curriculum focused on technical and vocational education in order to gain Caribbean Vocational Qualifications, during their fourth and fifth form years.

This curriculum would be available alongside the more academically focused curriculum taken by students aiming to sit CXC exams.

So whereas students following an academic programme and sitting CXCs would be aiming to go on to sixth form colleges and then university, those following the technical and vocational route to prepare for taking CVQs would be aiming to go on to institutions such as community colleges, polytechnics or hospitality schools, or aiming to leave school at age 16 years to get jobs.

Making the possibility of a choice between academic or technical and vocational programmes a reality will require the development of a suite of technical and vocational courses to be included in the first three years of secondary education, and to make up a substantial part of the 4th and 5th form years for students who opt for this track.

Conclusion

Implementation of this reform proposal in Barbados would transform the education system into a world-class one that will ensure development of the talents of all young people and prepare them for the diverse needs of the workforce. There will be a necessary transition period when schools are being upgraded and teachers are undergoing training to provide for more diverse students and learning how to help parents get more involved in the education of their children.

However, disruption while implementing these eight components will be minimal and more easily tolerated as teachers and pupils adapt to a more equitable and effective education system, and benefit from school environments more conducive to teaching and learning.

Dr Marcia Pilgrim is a retired secondary school and special education teacher.

Dr Garry Hornby is a former teacher and educational psychologist, now emeritus professor of education.