Pupil voice: comfortable and uncomfortable learnings for teachers

Abstract

The study explores how teachers use the ideas that pupils offer when consulted. Six teachers (two each in English, Maths and Science) and their Year 8 classes at three secondary schools were involved. The research was carried out in three stages. During the first stage the focus was on eliciting pupils’ ideas about classroom teaching and learning and teachers’ responses to their pupils’ ideas. Six pupils from each class were interviewed individually about each of three observed lessons. Transcripts of these interviews were fed back to the teachers. Teachers were interviewed about their reactions to them. During the second phase teachers’ use of pupil ideas was investigated and both the teachers’ and the target pupils’ evaluations of what happened were sought. In the third stage, each teacher was visited some six months later, in the following academic year, to explore how far the pupil ideas had had a lasting impact on the teachers’ practice and what use the teachers were making of pupil consultation. Our main findings were: (1) Pupils’ responses were characterised by a constructive focus on learning, consensus about what helps learning, and differences in articulacy; (2) Pupils agreed that interactive teaching for understanding, contextualising learning in appropriate ways, fostering a stronger sense of agency and ownership, and arranging social contexts amenable to collaborative learning were all helpful to the learning; (3) Teachers tended to respond positively and were reassured by the insightfulness of pupil ideas; (4) Teachers differed in what they did in response to pupils’ ideas. Three types of teacher reaction were identified: ‘short‐term responsiveness’, ‘growing confidence’, and ‘problems with using pupil consultation’. Some of the conclusions, based on evidence from the six teachers and their classes, are reassuring for teachers, others are perhaps less so. We construed them as ‘comfortable’ and ‘uncomfortable’ learnings.