Blog post Part of special issue: Education research: Northern Ireland

A closer look at the Future Schools Toolkit

Jessica Bates, Senior Lecturer at Ulster University Una O'Connor, Senior Lecturer at Ulster University Stephen Roulston, Honorary research fellow at Ulster University 7 Oct 2022

The proliferation of schools, management bodies and sectoral support organisations reflects the socio-cultural and political history of division in Northern Irish society. However, as recognised by government, education stakeholders and researchers, one of the biggest challenges facing the education system here, particularly in terms of primary school provision, is that it is not sustainable as duplication in provision has contributed to unfilled pupil places within the system.

The education system has a diversity of school types, each with its own distinctive ethos and values. However it is not sustainable.
(The New Decade, New Approach Deal, UK and Irish governments, January 2020, p. 43)

Within education in Northern Ireland, Area Planning focuses on providing a ‘viable and sustainable’ network of schools ‘that are of the right type, the right size, located in the right place at the right time and have a focus on raising standards’ (DENI, 2021).

In seeking to address the challenges relating to school sustainability, we asked ourselves two fundamental questions:

How can parent and community voices be heard in the Area Planning process, particularly where there is a need for some restructuring of provision?
How can early engagement in the process be facilitated to ensure proactive and democratic dialogue?

The Future Schools Project (2021–22) developed by researchers from Ulster University (UU) with funding partner the Integrated Education Fund, is funded by the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland (CFNI) through their Civic Innovation Programme, the core aim of which is: ‘To support initiatives that put people at the centre of decision-making in Northern Ireland.’

The aims of the project are to support communities to explore whether there are more sustainable options for primary school provision in their geographic area and to provide guidance on how this could be progressed.

Notwithstanding Covid-19 restrictions, there has been a strong willingness to participate in the project. This has involved:

meetings with relevant education stakeholders and other organisations
engagement with parents about their views on primary school provision, through:
- NI-wide survey of parents
- Community Conversations which provided an opportunity for qualitative discussion with interested parents
- A virtual parent engagement event which was an opportunity for the project team to report back on project findings and and gather feedback from parents
NI-wide survey of school governors.

From this work the UU team developed the Future Schools Toolkit. This toolkit is intended to support school communities to critically examine their sustainability and consider if a different provision for the area – such as increased sharing of facilities, amalgamation or transformation to an integrated school – would be more sustainable for the school and the wider community in the longer term. The three-part structure of the toolkit is designed to:

provide support and guidance enabling schools and the communities within which they are located to undertake self-evaluation in relation to school sustainability using the Department of Education’s Sustainable Schools criteria and indicators
to provide guidance in using the Community Conversation methodology to engage communities in a shared exploration about the way forward
to develop a pathways resource that will support communities to work with the managing authorities towards a realistic, sustainable solution for school provision in the area.

The toolkit was officially launched at Stormont on 27 May 2022 and feedback from parents, school leaders and policy stakeholders has endorsed its value as a tool for civic engagement.

If, at some stage, there are pressures on keeping both schools sustainable we need to work together to keep the best of what we’ve got – we need to make decisions about what we want before we are told what is going to be happening. (Parent participant)

The toolkit can encourage communities to be proactive in determining their own future. It also provides opportunities for cross sectoral discussions on school provision in particular areas. (Primary school principal)

The Education Authority fully supports the toolkit’s intention to support school leadership to engage at an early stage and critically examine the sustainability of their school while engaging with local communities on the type of school provision that will provide a sustainable, high-quality educational experience for the future. In doing so, the Education Authority believes that the toolkit will further aid communities to meaningfully engage with educational planning, and Area Planning in particular, to identify sustainable area-based solutions that best meet the needs of their children and young people in their area. (Head of Area Planning, Education Authority)

References

Department of Education Northern Ireland [DENI]. (2021). Area planning guidance 2022-2027. https://www.education-ni.gov.uk/publications/area-planning-guidance-2022-2027

Jessica Bates, Dr

Senior Lecturer at Ulster University

Dr Jessica Bates is a senior lecturer in the School of Education, Ulster University (UU) where she undertakes research across education and library and information science. Her research interests relate to education and information policy, stakeholder engagement, and information access and social inclusion. She is part of the UU UNESCO Centre team that has undertaken the Future Schools project. This built on her previous Community Conversation work with local communities across Northern Ireland about education provision in their area, and with Dr Una O’Connor Bones she developed a Community Conversation Toolkit for use in this work. She recently undertook a review of prison library services in Ireland, and has been engaged in research into citizenship education and political literacy among young people in Northern Ireland. Her research has been published in key international journals in education and library and information science.

Una O’Connor, Dr

Senior Lecturer at Ulster University

Dr Una O’Connor is a senior lecturer, based in the UNESCO Centre, School of Education, Ulster University. Her teaching and research focus on improving educational outcomes for children and young people, with a particular emphasis on social inclusion, community cohesion and policy reform. Her most recent work includes research on the relationship between political literacy and citizenship education and the role of Community Conversations in providing voice to communities on issues affecting them. She has also undertaken extensive research on special educational needs in Northern Ireland, recently completing a longitudinal secondary data analysis of pupils with special educational needs. She is a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Stephen Roulston, Dr

Honorary research fellow at Ulster University

Dr Stephen Roulston is an honorary research fellow in the School of Education at Ulster University, formerly a lecturer in initial teacher education. A teacher of Geography and Geology for many years, he joined Ulster University in 2009. While writing on many aspects of education, his main research interests are in education in a divided society, which was the focus of his PhD thesis in 1991. A senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2014, he was the project lead for the Transforming Education project in Northern Ireland from 2018.