schools in which of the staff interviewed reported having been involved in completing the responses to proforma It must be noted,

however, that the samp'' e of respondents in the Phase 1 schools was

s e 1ected to include those staff members who had been most involved in the enquiry. It was not therefore representative of the whole s c h o o l s ’ staffs. Since not all of the staff in either phases of the exercise appeared to have participated fully in all of the activities and since assistant staff wore represented by their Heads of Department at the meetings organised by the LEA their participation seems to be at the level of

'representational c o nsent'.

Tabi e ■ 6

Involvement in Drafting Written Material for CRAG - Phase 2

Item Drafted No. of People Involved

Part of the Departmental

Statement on Aims and Objectives 15

The Whole of the Departmental

Statement on Aims and Objectives 11

A Summary of the Responses from Members of the Department

(all the HOD^

12

The Programme for the In-House

Conference 3

Reports of Discussions During

the In-House Conference 11

No. of respondents: 36

The Heads of Department would however appear to be participating at a level nearer the level of 'direct consent'. They participated in more activities than the assistant staff and their involvement in the decision to undertake the project is confirmed by the following response by a Head of Department in the case study school to a question on that point:

"Oh yen, we were asked if we wanted to take part. Well, of course,it was put to us that if we didn't take part people would wonder why we hadn't taken part. There was obviously a certain amount of pressure."

(Transcript BIO, interview 1, pi).

Another Heed of Department corroborated this by saying: "I think it was put to us in a way that we couldn't

refuse; I think that's possibly what some of the Heads of Department felt. That to refuse the LEAs invitation would be .... well, there might be trouble later on. We might be regarded as a school that didn't participate. You've got to think of promotion,haven't you,and how the school stands in the eyes of the LEA. I think the majority were happy enough. The thing is that it was rather vague so we didn't really know what we were letting ourselves in f o r and we still don't, I think."

(Transcript B9, interview 1, pi).

The interesting thing is, however, that, although both the Head and the Head of Department say they were involved in the decision to undertake the project in the school, the negative implications of refusing to participate were so strong, that there appeared to be little real choice.

In terms of the mechanisms by which individuals respond to influence this represents 'compliance' with the request. Since they hardly seem to be at the level of 'direct consent' in the terms of Havelock and Huberman's analysis, it would seem necessary to insert an additional category of

'compliant consent' between their levels (c) and (d). It is also apparent from the evidence presented here that the level of participation in the project increases with status in the school heirarchy.

The importance of creating dialogue at all levels and across all levels in a heirarchy to build up a sense of participation in the project is obvious. This is necessary both inside the school and between the school and the 'outsiders', i.e. the LEA. It is also obvious that it is not

possible for everyone in the school to enter into dialogue on the needs, goals and strategies of the project. If Heads of Departments enter into such a dialogue and if this dialogue is communicated to the rest of the staff then the likelihood of a high level of participation should be greater. It must surely be possible to avoid the situation which prompted one member of staff with responsibility for a particular activity in the school to comment that, as (s)he did not usually attend Heads of Department meetings in the school and had learned little about the CRAG enquiry

other than via the researcher or through brief contact with a Head of Department, (s)he went a.s a representative of the school to the meetings organised b y the LEA feeling very unprepared:

"He went along with our pads and our bits of paper. Vie didn't know which was wanted but we took it all to look good."

(Transcript B3, pi).

Surely this is an amazingly co-operative attitude in the circumstances. Another member of the staff approached the researcher for a briefing about the enquiry in his own school as (s)he was going for an interview and wished to know

"Something of the background."

(B 13, 0 0 5 - 0 1 8 ) .

The differences in the levels of participation of the teachers and the Advisers and HMI was another thing that appeared to cause problems for some teachers in Phase 1, who found the spasmodic nature of the exercise difficult to cope with:

"The thing I disliked most about the approach and all the rest of it was a lack of understanding that you have a certain group of people who are totally involved all the time, the Inspectorate and so on. They are totally involved in it. Then y o u have a group of people who are spasmodically involved. There's a complete gap between the two in terms of one group of people having to pick it up every six months or every nine months as it occurred to them."

(G8, side 1, 051-057)-

6, The .eve! of Consensus on the P r o g r a m m e d G o a l s and. M e a n s

During the series of interviews conducted in the Phase l schools, of the

12*1• teachers who were asked, 65, i.e. just over jJOji, indicated that they thought the exercise had been worthwhile. This however gives no indication of what it was they valued. In the prior discussion it was stated that consensus implies agreement on the objectives of a project and on the way it is being carried out. It follows that if the objectives are not clear to all concerned then a high level of consensus is unlikely to be

achieved. This does not however imp7y that a high level of consensus is required for successful implementation. Indeed the opposite may be the case. It merely means that it is difficult to agree with something you are not clear about. Whether lack of clarity and hence a reduced level of consensus has a deleterious effect is a seperate question.

According to one member of HMI (HMI1, interview notes, pif) the aim of the enquiry lias to get some who were not evaluating themselves to have a greater awareness of what they were doing. It was aimed at getting people to '00k at their own work and at involving some schools in the process. Schools had to examine what they were trying to do and decide whether what they were doing was worth doing. The schools were at the centre; the ,KAs were seen as ancillaries to the process.

Another member of the Inspectorate, however, seemed to have different views on the aims of the enquiry:

"We were told to engage with the 6 local authorities in testing the thinking in the GPG papers with schools in the authorities and to engage in curriculum enquiry, which would involve setting up a partnership with a certain number of schools and representatives of the local authority to monitor the curricular activities and developments in the schools over a period of two or three years."

(HMI2, interview notes).

A-' Tar as t-he E A was concerned though the exercise appeared to have a multiplicity of aims:

(a) "The most immediate thing was to see how far these ideas (in the Red Book) could be used in terms of the curriculum as it existed in schools. What was happening in the schools that fitted in to this kind of idea?"

(

3,

side 1 » 153-156).

(b) "To be pert of the larger exercise in appraising and assessing the school curriculum. The things to be noted there were:

(i) Whether it vías, in fact, a balanced curriculum.

(ii) Whether it was relevant to the present needs of pupils."

(LEA5, sid e 1, 143-153)

(c) "To help schools cope with the (comprehensive) reorganisation process over a period of years."

(Transcript LEA6, p 7).

With this multiplicity of aims emanating from members of both HMI and LEA, it was not very surprising that the schools in Phase 1 found it difficult to decipher firstly, the aims and,secondly, the specific objectives of the project. The effect of this is illustrated by the following remarks:

"The aims, and objectives were rather poorly explained and illustrated to us. There was an element of suspicion very early on that it was the stage one of an imposition of a fixed pattern of curriculum structure, which indeed it still could be. But that element of

suspicion became apparent very early on and it wasn't clear whether we were doing something that was going to be useful, that was going to be involved in a final product, or were we just doing something that was going to produce a report that would gather dust ultimately."

(Transcript T22, p9).

The aims, or purposes of the enquiry were variously interpreted by the staff during the interviews I conducted in the Phase 1 schools. The responses given were grouped into eight categories. The categories are listed together with the frequency of response in Table 4.7«

Table 4.7

Aims/Ob.iectives of the Curriculum Reappraisal - Phase 1

Aims for Phase 1 Frequency*

1. Not clear ₃₉

2. 'Inspection' / To check on standards or

coverage of the curriculum 17

3. In-service education / To increase staff