A Situation Analysis of a primary school of UK - Essay Example

A Situation Analysis of Primary School in UK INTRODUCTION A learning environment is a complex of factors that affect learning in an individual ora group. The factors may act directly on the learner or, on a constructive view, may be mediated by the perception. In that sense, we can guess few influential elements in the environment as such the 3Ps practice, policy and people. These factors interact in a variety of ways. The ecological notion of ‘limiting factors’ is a useful concept with much relevance to the interaction of factors so as to facilitate or discourage good-quality learning. A situation analysis carried and represented here deals with the identification of learning difficulties in a primary school in UK which involves consideration of how factors like the curriculum, teaching strategies and school routines and relationships all of which affect children in different ways over a period of time. The aim would be to understand and respond to the educationally relevant individual differences which can create persistent obstacles to children’s learning in different contexts. A key aspect of this process is to give due weight to the interpretation and intentions of the people involved i.e. how does the professional interacts in the class. The tool which was used to derive efficient results was SWOT analysis. It was devised to identify the extent to which the current strategy of an organization and its more specific strengths and weaknesses are relevant to and capable of dealing with changes in the wider environment. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The professional should identify the Opportunities and Threats provided by an external environment and Strengths and Weaknesses of the school as an institution. Opportunities might include the appointment of a dynamic advisory teacher or subject inspector to the area, the setting up of a curriculum support group within the local family of schools, or the dissemination of a new collections of in-house teaching resources by the LEA. Threats could include the loss of support networks such as those outlined above, the prospect of another change in curriculum at the national level. Strengths may include an established record of good, innovative teachings in one or more curriculum areas, good levels of support from the head teacher, willingness amongst colleagues to be open about success and failures and monetary benefits in the form of rewards or salary hike. Weaknesses might include the reluctance, fear or inability of one or more colleagues to take on board meaningful changes in classroom practice, a tradition of formal teaching in the school which hinders the development of practical, problem-solving approaches to learning or the lack of co-operation of a majority of students in the classroom. The context of the class It was observed that the school follows the traditional model whereby it emphasizes the individual teachers or professionals to work on their own maintaining their classroom privacy and curriculum autonomy. This is paralleled by the individual autonomy of the head teacher responsible for the management of the school (Day, 1993). The personal qualities of the teacher are clearly of primary importance. There are various factors which influences the behavior of a professional in the class room. It has been acknowledged that teacher knowledge of both content and pedagogy influence teacher effectiveness (Schulman, 1987). It is a foregone conclusion that a professional who does not possess the precursory foundational knowledge of subject content will be unable to adequately guide students into mastering which they themselves do not comprehend. However, in this case the professionals demonstrated subject area mastery and this influenced them to have an effective control over everything and every single activity in the class. Besides this, the other factors which were concluded as influencing the behavior of the professionals in the class were their level of interaction with the colleagues, the noise in the surroundings and to a certain extent their salary packages – the bonuses and rewards, the hierarchy level and so on which dealt with their career progression. School context It is to be noted that school, home and community work together to contribute to children’s learning (Thomas, 1990).There is a breadth of experience to be drawn on if children are to make the most of the learning opportunities on offer. When looking at a wider context, at school level, the following observation was withdrawn. The professionals were satisfied with the level of measures carried in the school when related to children related activities - such as measures taken for behavioral attitude (attendance), health and safety assurance, special educational needs, parental involvement, child protection and so on (Schulman, 1987). These measures motivated them in parting a meaningful learning and also in addressing the specific issues related to pupil/pupils. Besides, other factors like personal development, career progression, rewards, bonuses, independence in style of working, healthy competition among colleagues, and co- operation from higher management influenced them in going a good job. Policy Context (National) Up to 1997, in UK, the development of computing infrastructure in schools had been varied and diverse, with a range of national, regional and local procurement initiatives (Williams, 2000). Educational computing equipment in UK has traditionally been an eclectic mix, with little reference to current commercial trends. It was observed that the computing knowledge and utilization of computing tools and techniques was very low in the school. The professionals raised questions about the ways in which they had to teach due to lack of support on infrastructure of information technology tools and techniques. This denied the professionals the opportunities to present their own particular areas of interest in ways that are more likely to enthuse and inspire their pupils. This to certain extent is obstructing the professionals in imparting their work with total satisfaction and full commitment. CONCLUSION: There are a large number of factors that affect the nature and behavior of a professional to a great extent while imparting their duties in an organization. A professional’s behavior could be judged based on the analyses of the way they approach to changing trends. Although there are a large number of factors which influences the professionals in a positive manner in a primary school in UK, still there are few challenges which the government needs to work on to make it a better place to work for professionals. REFERENCES  British Psychological Society, 1931: The British Journal of Educational Psychology. Scottish Academic Press.  Carr, W. and S. Kemmis. 1986. Becoming critical: Education, knowledge and action research. London: Falmer Press.  Day, C. 1993. Reflection: A necessary but not sufficient condition for teacher development. British Educational Research Journal, 19, 1, pp. 83 - 93.  Killon, J. and G. Todnew. 1991. A process of personal theory building. Educational Leadership, 48, 6, pp. 14-16.  Schulman, L. 1987. Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57, pp. 1- 22.  Thomas, Norman.1990: Primary Education from Plowden to the 1990s.Routledge.  Williams, Anne. 2000: Primary School Physical Education: Using Research to Inform Practice - Page 40. Routledge.  http://www.surestart.gov.uk/  http://www.dfes.gov.uk/ Read More